By Phyllis Freeman, domestic emergency response director, WVUS

Editor’s note: Joplin, Missouri, is a small town in the U.S. Heartland. Its official population is 50,150. But now, it is tragically smaller in every sense, after the May 22 tornado that left 122 dead, 750 injured, and more than a quarter of the town destroyed. Phyllis Freeman, our domestic emergency response director, is on the ground in Joplin.

I went looking for a school and found Irving Elementary School. It was mangled, the bricks blown apart.

You can only think about the children who lived through this, seeing the skies turn black, hearing the roar of 200-mph winds, and watching the tornado chew things up, literally.

Then they emerged to find their home gone, not knowing what’s happened to their friends, maybe their parents.

The worst is yet to come for these children. In several more days, it will sink in what everything means. The emotional toll is immense. People are in such stress.

Churches are pulling together and being the beacon they should be. They are providing supplies as well as hands to remove debris and cut away trees and branches.

In 14 years doing disaster response, I have never, ever seen a weather season in the United States this severe. Natural disasters just keep coming. And the hurricane season doesn’t officially start here until June 1.

In response to the disaster, World Vision will soon move in a 24-foot trailer with expandable walls, which will be located near FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) operations. The trailer will be used as a Child-Friendly Space.

Meanwhile, we’re providing clothing and hygiene kits, which, along with food, are among the items most often requested by survivors and FEMA.

World Vision response teams also continue helping survivors in Alabama, following the deadly tornadoes that struck there in late April. In the city of Tuscaloosa, World Vision has served 4,233 tornado survivors, including 1,896 children, since April 27.

We’re also closely monitoring the flooding along the Mississippi River, along with the possibility of more tornadoes predicted to strike in Oklahoma this week.

Ways you can help:

Donate to the relief effort: Help Now
Text ‘TORNADO’ to ’20222′ to give a $10 donation
Pray for the victims of these sever storms

By Rachael Dill Boyer, World Vision U.S.

World Vision’s child sponsorship program has been part of my life for nearly two decades. My dad started working at World Vision when I was 9 years old. I’ve worked here for nearly five years now, and my husband and I sponsor three children of our own.

We love getting letters, drawings, photos, and progress reports from the children in our global family. And we love sending them cards, pictures, small packages, and the occasional extra gift.

But even as a staff person and a longtime child sponsor, I’ve still asked myself: What does sponsorship actually do? How does it actually work?

In putting this blog post together, I’ve learned that, in a nutshell, sponsorship connects you with a child in need and empowers the child’s community to become healthy, safe, and self-reliant, breaking the cycle of poverty.

It’s not a handout. It’s more like a hand up. By helping to provide access to life essentials, we, as sponsors, don’t just “give away” our money and cross our fingers. We actually help World Vision in giving the entire community of our sponsored child a “boost” up and out of poverty.

In order for children to experience life in all its fullness, they must have reliable access to all of the essentials for life: clean water, a secure source of food, healthcare, education, etc. That’s why World Vision takes an integrated approach to helping our sponsored children’s communities become whole, because each piece of this puzzle intertwines with the others.

Clean water: This is often where our work starts. Simply providing access to clean water sanitation, and hygiene can cut a community’s child death rate by more than half.

Food security: We help farming families learn better crop cultivation and food storage techniques, provide essentials like seeds and tools, and distribute food aid to help make sure that children get thenutrition they need.

Health care: We help to make basic health care accessible by stocking health clinic shelves with medicine, training parents and health workers to treat illness, and coordinating HIV-prevention education and care for those affected by HIV and AIDS.

Education: When children are educated, they have the opportunity as adults to earn better wages, raise healthier, educated children of their own, and have a voice in their community. This is done by equipping classrooms, training teachers, and providing learning supplies to help children reach their God-given potential.

Economic opportunity: Small loans and business training help parents start or grow businesses so they can provide for their children, while creating new jobs in their community. World Vision microloans have helped to create or sustain millions of jobs worldwide.

Spiritual nurture: We serve those in need because we’ve been inspired by our faith, and by the example Jesus set for us. Every day, children can see God’s love through the care provided by our staff. Where appropriate, we partner with local churches to provide support and training.

Knowing that the whole goal of sponsorship is to help a child’s community become self-reliant makes the experience bittersweet when my sponsored child’s community “graduates” from needing World Vision’s assistance.

I want my sponsored children to be prosperous so that they can turn around and help their neighbors. It’s the ripple effect of sponsorship and the type of community development World Vision nurtures wherever we go, and I love being a part of it.

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The Child Ambassador program enables you to help even more children by providing all of the tools needed to share about sponsorship in your community. Think about it...just by sharing with others why sponsorship is so important can help provide all of these life changing resources to children around the world!

Sign up today to become a Child Ambassador.

Click to view full image

In honor of World Malaria Day, observed every year on April 25 as a day of awareness and recognition for global efforts to end malaria, we challenge you to educate yourself on the facts, raise awareness, and take action against this deadly but preventable disease.

Malaria is a disease of massive proportions that disproportionately impacts children. Each year, approximately 780,000 people die from malaria, 85 percent of whom are children under 5. World Vision works in 62 countries affected by malaria, 23 of which are in Africa.

Impact on children and families

• Malaria is the 4^th leading cause of death for children globally. According to latest figures, globally 8% of under-five child deaths are attributable to malaria and in Africa it is 16%.
• More than 1,800 children under 5 die each day from malaria. That’s approximately 1 child every 45 seconds.
• Half of the world’s population is at risk of malaria: There are 106 malaria-endemic countries with 3.3 billion people at risk. Malaria infects approximately 250 million people each year.
• Malaria has been estimated to cost Africa more than U.S. $12 billion every year in lost economic productivity, and can cost households as much as 32 percent of their entire monthly income.
• Insecticide-treated bed nets could prevent as many as 1 million deaths from all causes of malaria for children under 5.

Global malaria prevention

• If universal malaria prevention can be achieved by 2010 and maintained until 2015, an estimated 2.95 million African children’s lives can be saved.
• If current scale-up trends are maintained until 2015, 1.14 million African children’s lives can be saved.
• If funding ceases and prevention levels are allowed to fall, an estimated 476,000 additional children would die.

(Sources: World Health Organization, UNICEF, Malaria Journal, World Malaria Report)

Take action against malaria

• Become a Child Ambassador and inspire your community to help children living in areas affected by Malaria.
• Help provide insecticide-treated bed nets to save more children from the deadly bite of mosquitoes.
• Ask your elected officials to prioritize funding for malaria programs. Use this easy online action form to send an email.
• Pray for the millions who live in the world’s malaria-prone regions, who remain at risk from this deadly disease. Pray for the collective will within the United States and internationally to eradicate this preventable, treatable disease once and for all.

World Vision Child Ambassadors are passionate volunteers who know firsthand the life-changing impact of sponsoring a child. Out of an overflow of love and compassion, Child Ambassadors work to improve the lives of children and families living in poverty by inspiring others in their community to sponsor a child, too.

Child Ambassadors also have the unique opportunity to earn a free trip to see how sponsorship is changing lives in another country. Each trip, no matter where in the world, offers life-changing experiences and insight to World Vision's commitment to helping the poor and oppressed.

This year's trip to the Dominican Republic was no different. Our Child Ambassadors grew in compassion and passion to help even more children as they toured World Vision project communities. They were able to see the great need and the tangible hope sponsorship brings to children and families living in desperate poverty.

But don’t take it from us. Here are some powerful messages from a few of the Child Ambassadors who traveled to the Dominican Republic this past March.

"What an amazing experience! I left my heart in the DR with the people and the staff of World Vision. The Lord has richly blessed us all with His wisdom and grace. We saw the light in a sea of darkness and oppression. Every World Vision office is a beacon of hope and a refuge of His loving kindness and tender mercies.

…As Child Ambassadors, our commitment to World Vision communities and staff, as well as, to our sponsored children has been forever engraved in our hearts and lives...Even though we may long to return to see their faces once again, our connection to them will never end. They are not distant memories that fade. Each letter, each picture, every child and community is a constant reminder that we have come full circle.”

-Yvonne, California

“This changes everything. I've seen first hand what I've only read about. I love the commitment shown by WV staff and volunteers...”

-Howard, Florida

"I have seen with my own eyes in the Dominican Republic that World Vision is fearless in reaching out to every child in need in cities and in the countryside.  No rural area is too remote and no slum is too rough for World Vision to try to save its children, physically and spiritually."

-Virginia, Kentucky

You too can participate in one of these life changing trips. Sign up to become a Child Ambassador today, and you are on your way.

Apply Now>>
Earn a Trip>>
Photos from the Dominican Republic>>

It is a time of mourning and also of celebration as the World Vision family honors the life of Lorraine Pierce, the spiritual ‘birth mother’ of World Vision, as many would say. I echo the words of our president, Rich Stearns, “The choruses in heaven must be especially sweet as this great saint is welcomed home.”

Jane Sutton-Redner with Lorraine Pierce. (Greg Schneider/WV/2004)

As I spent time this morning remembering the life of Lorraine Pierce, I recalled her gift to serve, her elegance, her wisdom and her godliness. These quotes, taken from interviews with Mrs. Pierce from 2000-2006, will forever remind me of her legacy of faithfulness. 

On adjusting to a life of ministry with Bob Pierce:

“I never thought I would marry an evangelist. I don’t think that my husband expected to be an evangelist. We were going to have a church, and that seemed all right to me. But it didn’t turn out that way. When I realized that it was going to be evangelism, that we were going to have to be on the road, and it was a life that was absolutely opposed to what I expected for myself, then there had to be a change in me. It was not going to be in my husband. It had to be in me. And I knew it was worthwhile, and I knew it was necessary, but I was very, very fearful that I was in no way ready to do this job and this work along with him. So I knew well enough that it was necessary to die to self.” 

On the early years of World Vision:

“God has given us through the years a daring that was there in the beginning. I think he gave to my husband a great portion of daring to trust God when there seemed to be no way, knowing that if he stepped out upon an empty void, he would certainly find a rock beneath his feet—and he did.”

Family portrait- Bob Pierce, Lorraine Pierce and children, December 1965.
(Photo courtesy of the Pierce family) 

On God’s Word:

“I’ve found that the four most important things are: worship, prayer, the Word, and music, which allows you to worship. I didn’t know the Word of God until the first obstacle in my life, when there wasn’t enough of man’s words to pull me through. It was the Navigators who taught me memorization of Scripture, and I’ve taught this to my children and grandchildren. I feel, when all is said and done, you find yourself in a corner where only what God says counts.”

On giving and serving:

“It’s a very natural thing to want to do more than we can do, but God understands that. Man looks at outward appearance, but God looks on the heart. And he just sees a heart that yearns to help or wants to do, and that’s what matters. When he sees the earnestness of that heart, he’s going to supply the need; he’s going to give that person what they need to have.” 

Reflections on her life:

“It hasn’t been particularly easy to grow old. But you know, God knows that, too. And there’s a reason for all this. I have said to my children, and I’ve said to my friends, ‘Why am I still here?’ And the answer has been very simple: ‘Because God still has things for you to do.’ And that’s a wonderful answer for me.”

Every quarter, the Child Ambassadors have a new campaign they focus on. This ensures that we are constantly learning new things about the different needs of the poor across the globe. This spring we will focus on helping children affected by malaria. 

Did you know that malaria…

•     is the #1 killer of children in the world?
•     is a mosquito-born disease?
•     kills more than 2,000 children a day?
•     can be virtually eradicated by providing families and communities with bed nets?

You can help make a difference in the lives of the poor that suffer from the effects of malaria. Become a Child Ambassador today and get all the free materials and training you need. 

The time has arrived for 15 Child Ambassadors and WV Staff to take their annual trip to another country to see World Vision's work first hand. This year they are in the Dominican Republic!

Will you please keep them in prayer? There is a full schedule, including plans to meet sponsored children and their families. And, many of those on the trip are leaving spouses and children back home. Please pray for God's covering and protection of the Child Ambassadors and their families this week.

Here is a rough agenda of the trip:

• Sunday, 3/20 Fly into Santo Domingo 

• Monday,3/21 Visit WV-DR National Office

• Tues, 3/22 Travel to ADP

• Wed, 3/23 Visit ADP

• Thurs, 3/24 Visit ADP

• Fri, 3/25 Visit ADP

• Sat, 3/26 Visit beach, go shopping

• Sun, 3/27 Fly home

You too can earn a tip to seen World Vision's work in another country. Sign up to become a Child Ambassador today!

Thank you for your prayers.

Earn a Trip>>

Apply Now>>

On March 11, Japan was hit by the largest earthquake in its history. The 9.0-magnitude quake and ensuing tsunami swept away entire villages with walls of water more than 30 feet high.

"We are now facing the most tragic [natural] disaster in our country's history," said Kenjiro Ban, World VIsion's humanitarian and emergency affairs manager in Japan. Ban was part of World Vision's quake response in Haiti this past year.

As a child-focused organization, we will focus our efforts on responding to the emotional needs of children.

"We're planning to see how deep the needs are in the affected areas and begin to bring relief to families," said Ban.

'As bad as anything I've seen globally'

A three-person relief team, in Sendai since Monday, has begun procuring water, blankets, and diapers to serve an initial 6,000 people in the city of Tome, some 190 miles from Sendai.

"This situation is, understandably, very chaotic," said Ban.

"I've served on disaster response programs in Kenya, Sudan, India, Pakistan, Myanmar, and Haiti, and the needs I'm seeing in my own country are as bad as anything I've seen globally."

Child-Friendly Spaces

In addition to providing relief supplies, World Vision also will likely establish Child-Friendly Spaces in the affected areas.

This program provides areas where children can enjoy supervised play and opportunities to express themselves in music, art and dancing. The structure and safety of these spaces protects children from some of the psychological impact of surviving a disaster.

"Last night, I visited one of the shelters housing some 340,000 people who have been evacuated around the city," said Mitsuko Sobata, communications and advocacy officer for World Vision in Japan. "Children are sleeping on cardboard with one blanket in freezing weather. It was very difficult for me to see that. They're tired and afraid, and the tragedy they've endured is overwhelming."

Upcoming plans and funding needs

On Wednesday, the assessment team will travel to Fukushima, where nuclear contamination has forced the evacuations of tens of thousands of people. The assessment will inform how World Vision can best respond to the needs there.

World Vision is appealing for $10 million to fund its response in Japan, which may continue for several years. Currently, World Vision teams plan to focus their attention on providing vital relief supplies and Child-Friendly Spaces, but the program will expand as new assessments are done and staff have a better understanding of the needs.

Please pray

Please keep in prayer the children, families, and communities left devastated by this earthquake, tsunami, and recurring aftershocks.

Help now

Donate now to World Vision's Japan Quake and Tsunami Relief Fund. Your gift will help us rush emergency supplies like life-saving food, clean water, medical supplies, and shelter to those who need it most in the aftermath of the disaster in Japan.

Visit the World Vision Blog to get the latest stories, news, and information about the situation in Japan.

If the Japan earthquake and tsunami had happened 100 years ago, most of us would not even be aware that it had happened. Perhaps a telegram would have been sent to the U.S. and perhaps a small story might have appeared in major newspapers, but other than that, it would have had little effect on our consciousness.

So why is today any different? In a word, awareness. The connectedness of our world today brings the trauma and pain of Japan into our living rooms with gut wrenching emotional force. The result is that we cannot turn away. As human beings we are, by nature, empathetic to the suffering of others. But that empathy is not triggered as acutely by sterile “page ten” newspaper articles, as it is by the vivid and shocking images of human suffering bombarding our TVs, computers and iPads, causing even our children to ask what we can do to help. I think that most of us –as we have watched the events unfold in Japan– have thought to ourselves: “What if this had happened to us?”

Last night on our local news in Seattle, a rescue worker was interviewed as he prepared to leave for Japan. He had also deployed last year to Haiti. The reporter asked why he felt compelled to go, and he answered with words that many of us feel: “I just have to respond. The world is a smaller place today. It’s about ‘loving our neighbors as ourselves,’ and it doesn’t matter if they are right here or halfway around the world.” Indeed, it is about “loving our neighbors as ourselves”–the very thing Jesus called “the second greatest commandment.”

Here on the northwest coast of the U.S., we live on the same volcanic, “ring of fire” as Japan, and are vulnerable in the same way to earthquakes. Driving to work this morning over our vital bridges and highways, I thought about what might happen if such an earthquake hit Seattle. I shuddered at the possibility. This really could happen to us, I thought. And if it does, I pray that the rest of the world will also see us as their neighbor. Because we will surely need some friends.

Join me in praying for our neighbors in Japan, that they would find peace and comfort in the days ahead.

GIVE NOW

It took the partnership of a Child Ambassador, a determined friend, a World Vision major donor, and a World Vision Senior Director praying for and supporting one another throughout the process.

Our efforts included much research, a formal survey of the congregation, interviews with potential partners, deliberate planning, and a deep level of buy-in from the Senior Pastor. At one point, we distributed almost 600 copies of “The Hole in Our Gospel”.

On Sunday, June 20, 2010, we worked together with a team of 30 trained volunteers, including Maryellen Robeson, Kristen Sigourney and Tracy Fredericks to bless 330 children. In the following two weeks, an additional 84 children were sponsored. And, we have added a fourth Sunday at the request of the volunteers and congregants.

This effort took many hands, many hearts, and lots of patience, prayer and perseverance. We heard the words ‘no’, ‘never’, and ‘people are too busy’ many times, but God kept opening doors and leading us down this path. It was his timing.

Tracy F., a local Child Ambassador, sent me this verse and comment to sum up her thoughts on our efforts. I think it sums everything up perfectly:

"Many are the plans of a man's heart, but it is the Lords purpose that prevails." (Pr 19:21) Your experience and outcome just reminds me of how very PERFECT our God is!