International (MNN) — CURE International donors provide medical care
for about 12,000 children every year. Now, CURE is beginning to launch a program called CUREkids, which allows
donors to contribute to the needs of specific children and follow their progress
step-by step.
"These are real people who have real lives," explained CURE's Joel
Worrall. "And we have the blessing and
the benefit in our hospitals of seeing their stories and seeing how God is
working in their lives, and being a part of that. We're just really trying to find a way to use
technology to help broaden that circle."
At cure.org/curekids/, CURE
staff posts pictures and stories of patients who have surgeries scheduled. Anyone who is interested in supporting or
praying for these children can view their stories and choose to follow
them. CURE sends updates to the
followers through e-mail or, if they wish, followers can see the updates in
their Facebook news feeds. The goal is a deeper level of involvement for
everyone who cares about healing children for the sake of the Gospel.
"We'll…send you e-mails about what's happening with this particular
child's treatment. We're just hoping that you'll
pray for this child," Worrall said. "And
that's a really important component, because we're trying to invite more people
to get involved and to get to know who we are as CURE International."
The children need treatment for conditions such as burn contractures,
neurosurgical conditions, club foot, other orthopedic deformities, and some
issues that require plastic surgery. The
average cost for a surgery is $1,000, and CURE is grateful for any size
donation.
"That could be a group of ten people coming together with $100, it
could be 50 people with $20," Worrall explained. "We envision this as the sort of thing a
Sunday school class could come around and say, 'This month, we're going to change a kid's life.'"
"We've had just some tremendous responses where folks we've never
had any interaction with ever before have just been moved by the story of
a handful of specific children and said, 'I'm going to follow their story. I'm
going to track with what's happening with them. I'm going to pray for them.' Some folks have given some pretty
significant gifts to care for a specific child's treatment."
CURE plans to do a full launch of CUREkids in the first or second week
of January. December is one of the less
busy times of the year for CURE hospitals, but God is already working through
the closer connection donors are having with the children.
Worrall said the new program fits with CURE's core mission: healing the
sick.
"At CURE International, we're focused on what we believe to be a core
missional issue, which is healing children," Worrall said. "Jesus talks about it when He sends His first
disciples in Luke chapter 9, that He sent them out to heal and to proclaim the
kingdom of God. And one of the things I love about the way Jesus interacts with
people is that He's totally focused on the individual."
