Shocking Question #1
Now that we hear so much from you about feeding children and giving them backpacks so they can go to school, are you still a Christian organization, or are you just humanitarian?
(Shocking, right?)
Allen’s Non-Shocking Answer #1
There is always a tie-in between a pastor and the people receiving the benefit. We always make a point of stressing that children in the feeding and sponsorship programs are fed both physically and spiritually. This is done to advance the Gospel.
We are not trying to compete with humanitarian organizations, such as USAID, which provide aid from a strictly humanitarian standpoint. If we were, we would just quit what we're doing, and work with USAID - because they pay their employees more than a missionary will ever earn. We are meeting physical needs partly out of compassion and partly as a way of advancing the Gospel. Both of those reasons are very much in line with Jesus’s teachings.
Shocking Question #2
We know that you’re all about being highly effective with your money and time. So, what’s the deal with backpacks? It's a nice thing to do, but what difference does it really make?
Allen’s Non-Shocking Answer #2
We see children, all the time, who cannot attend school as a direct result of their families not having the resources to purchase the required school supplies.
As we have said in other blog posts (like this one, for instance), typically every three backpacks handed out will result in one child who would not otherwise be able to attend school receiving this opportunity. Another one of those three backpacks will help a family who was making extreme sacrifices to send their child to school. The third backpack will lighten the financial burden for a family, even though their child would most likely have attended school without the gift.
We’re seeing children who are now able to stay in school for more years. A child who might have received two years of schools may go for three or four. Children who might have dropped out after 4th grade are making it through middle school. More children are going into high school. There are even a few kids getting ready to go to college. We’ve only been doing this program for five years, but we are seeing kids going to the next level of whatever they would have otherwise achieved.
Overall, we are changing the mindset of these communities. Education is becoming more important. It’s a sort of positive peer pressure. There is an awakening to the value of an education.
We have pastors asking, “Will you start a program with our church?” The school board for a county came to us and asked, “Will you start a program with us?” The problem is that we are collecting 8000 backpacks, but we work in an area with 800,000 kids - that’s only 1%. We’re having a huge impact, but currently only in certain communities. We're making a dent, but the need is much larger!
Allen adds:
We would love to be able to supply a lot more then 8,000 children, as soon as possible. It breaks my heart to think that each year, more children are falling through the cracks! We are hoping that people will not wait until August to begin gearing up for filling backpacks. We need groups to get behind this NOW, so they'll have backpacks ready for us to collect in the fall. Pastors, schools, and entire communities are begging us to implement the program in their locations, but there is a limit to the number of backpacks we have. I keep hoping that one year - maybe 2020? - we’ll have so many backpacks, we'll need to ship a third container!
Trish adds:
We're already traveling to most parts of the U.S. to collect the backpacks. If you're already filling backpacks in your home location, maybe you can reach out to friends and family in another place, and see if they'd help, too. I'd love to see this be the year of the third container!
- posted by Christi
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