International (MNN) — A child sponsorship ministry is looking to double its impact this year. Daryl Anderson, Executive Director of Operations for EFCA ReachGlobal Crisis Response, says 2,122 kids in six countries are sponsored through their GlobalFingerprints program.
ReachGlobal wants to double that amount in 2014.
“We see GlobalFingerprints as a long-term church-planting program to bring children from desperation to dreams, and to the Kingdom,” says Anderson. Their strategy is working, he adds.
“We see an incredible change in the lives of the children. They go from desperate or despondent, to a point of…having dreams again, hope for the future.”
Through GlobalFingerprints, ReachGlobal cares for a community’s most vulnerable children.
“We only start the program in areas where we have an existing church-planting ministry with evangelism, discipleship and church growth,” Anderson explains.
“It’s through the ministry of our national partners that we ensure the children have…the priority of hearing about Jesus; and then, the potential to become involved in a local church.”
According to the 2013 Human Development Report, some 1.7 billion people around the world live in what’s described as multidimensional poverty. This is a measure of not only monetary poverty, but a family’s deficiency in education, health and general standard of living.
There are so many children in the countries they serve that need help, Anderson notes, but GlobalFingerprints has a way to filter them: the Child Status Index (CSI). Seven areas of livelihood are analyzed before a child is chosen to participate in the sponsorship program.
Learn how the process works in each country, step-by-step.
GlobalFingerprints changes the future of at-risk kids by connecting and mobilizing indigenous churches, needy families and U.S. congregations. The Gospel is always a priority, but sometimes it comes after hunger and thirst are abated.
“A child can’t respond in a serious way to the Gospel until they’ve been brought up to a point of health,” Anderson explains.
“You have to relieve those issues, and then there is a point where it’s a privilege of sharing the Gospel with the children and they can respond in a way that is out of their heart, and not out of fear.”
Along with sponsors, GlobalFingerprints and ReachGlobal need prayer warriors in 2014.
Pray that more individuals will be moved to sponsor a child.
Ask the Lord to help ReachGlobal discern which children He wants in the sponsorship program.
Pray that more children and families are introduced to Christ through GlobalFingerprints.
“If you go online, you’ll see the faces of the children, and they need desperately to have the Lord touch their lives,” notes Anderson.
