Releasing Children From Poverty in Jesus’ Name in Tanzania!
Our wonderful partners at Compassion International are doing incredible work all around the globe, especially in reaching the most vulnerable – the children of our world living in extreme poverty without hope, without love, without safety.
Two years ago, we kicked off our Bibles for Rwanda campaign with Compassion. We met our goal of funding 10,000 bibles for the children of Rwanda! Amazing and 100% because of the dedication and enthusiasm of everyone at Mary & Martha, including our phenomenal customers. WOW! I think we can all agree that God played an important and special role in guiding us toward that project and helping us reach our goal. In blessing us with abundance,
This year we partnered with Compassion again to fund the opening of a brand new Child Development Center in Arusha, Tanzania. The center is up and operational and they already have 150 children registered. Mary & Martha Consultants have either sponsored or advocated to find a sponsor for each and every child at this center. What a blessing that every child at this new Arusha, Tanzania Center has a Sponsor to encourage them along their journey to freedom from poverty!
Emergency support for this center and other Compassion Centers in Tanzania is our on-going focus for 2020. One percent of EVERY sale and one hundred percent of every donation goes toward our Compassion International focus to keep these centers operational during this world-wide pandemic.
Although Compassion works primarily through child sponsorship, they are not just a child sponsorship organization. They are a child development organization. They do all of this work through partnering with the local church in each village. They are church-based. This is due to their desire to equip the Church to fulfill its role as salt and light, and because local congregations are catalysts for community change, optimizing the mutual respect, resources and common purpose critical in caring for children.
Local churches are best suited to address the needs of the children in their communities because the churches are already located and involved in the communities. The local church partners tailor a holistic child development model to the contextualized needs of the children in their communities to best deliver the whole-life care that the children they serve most need.
Whole-life care is not care for an entire life. Whole-life care is holistic care—comprehensive care—to help children fully develop and become responsible and fulfilled adults. Whole-life care means they begin, in some cases, with prenatal care and go all the way through young adulthood. It means they take a long-term approach to child development and provide opportunities that encourage healthy spiritual, physical, social and economic development.
In Compassions Child Sponsorship Program, that are implemented by the local church, they blend physical, social, economic and spiritual care together to help each child fully mature in every facet of life.
They provide an age-graded curriculum to our church partners to help them minister to their children consistently. The curriculum is based on the measurable outcomes they hope to see spiritually, physically, cognitively and socio-emotionally. Success is really measured when the children in the Child Sponsorship Program:
- commit their lives to Christ,
- choose good health practices,
- are physically healthy, are motivated to learn new skills,
- demonstrate the skills to support themselves in the future
- and interact with others in healthy and compassionate ways.
As you can see, Compassion has an amazing module that has proven to be successful by partnering with a local church and truly releasing those local children from poverty in Jesus Name. As we have sought Gods guidance in what our role at Mary & Martha is through our partners at Compassion He kept putting on our hearts to go after the lost. We set on a journey with Compassion to find a location where there is a church and kids ready to be picked up and sponsored. Many locations were on the list and as we took a few weeks to seek God, He revealed Tanzania as the location He was wanting us to start.
So here we are in 2020 partnering with Compassion to release children from poverty in Jesus Name in Tanzania! Thank you for joining us in this God given dream.
Our vision is to have products within our line where proceeds of those sales directly benefit the children of Tanzania. We also will have the opportunity to sponsor the children who attend the center, and to support vital projects in the community. There are so many exciting paths for us to follow, and we can’t wait to see what Compassion, the Arusha community and God have in store for us as this project continues to unfold.
Arusha means “Rising Sun”—a new beginning to a new day—so appropriate for our company as part of the DaySpring family. We have much to learn about the people and community of Arusha and in the country of Tanzania. In March, we had planned a small team visit the Center and meet the pastor, the project workers and some of the children who are attending the program. We have been unable to visit personally to date but we will be visiting as soon as it is safe for all concerned. We look forward to sharing more in the future. We thank God that Mary & Martha makes a difference in lives here and around the world!
– Stephen Barnett, Business Director
with the Mary & Martha Home Office Staff
How can you get involved? Two ways:
- Add a donation to your order form. 100% of your gift goes toward the Tanzania Child Development Centers and make it possible for children to receive holistic care through the center as they go through the Compassion program, which will come alongside the child’s physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual needs.
- Purchase Mary & Martha Products. Through the purchase of every product you are supporting these precious children in need as one percent of every sale goes directly to our Compassion Project in Tanzania.
- Learn more about Compassion International at www.compassion.com and prayerfully in joining us in Sponsoring a child in need.
“Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will reward them for what they have done.” – Proverbs 19:17