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Why is child sponsorship so important? Is it really making a difference? Wouldn't they receive a lot of this anyway? From the view point of the western world, it can often be difficult to understand the impact. We assume so many things are universal, not realizing that so many of our "rights" are uncommon in most of the world.

If this program did not exist, many of these children would be street children. Several of the older children were and that is how the pastor first gained compassion and a desire to help them. When you saw them, their clothes were tattered with holes all over them and covered in dirt as if they had not showered in months. (This could very well be the case). If they are actually wearing shoes, they are most likely worn down. Their yellowed eyes are surrounded by a face layered with filth above dry and cracked lips. If they have an iron deficiency, you can see the yellowing of the skin. Most children have fungus all over their heads. They are skin and bones but still you see the light of hope in their eyes. Many people have sought to feed these children and love them. This is a huge blessing to these children but it only lasts a day and might prolong their future a month or two but it does not change it. They are trapped in a cycle of poverty with no way out.

The words that "God loves you" seem foreign and unfamiliar. Some of them are never touched, held, loved, showed affection or any tenderness. They go to bed hungry most nights and if they don't, it usually just full of rice and sugar with little or no nutrition. A temporary relief but nothing of lasting value.

If they are older, they have beaten the odds. One in four children die before the age of five. Can you imagine? Look at the kids in your carpool and realize that at least one of them would not have made it.

If their parents are still alive, most likely the parents are overburdened by work, trying hard to survive. They do not have the time to devote to caring for their children.

If they are able to go to school, the chances are that in a village there is a large teacher shortage. It is commonplace for there to be one hundred students in a class with just one teacher, you can even find classrooms with over one hundred and seventy. The learning is rote and the teacher rules by fear. The love of learning and curiosity is not fostered. The teacher walks around with a stick, ready to hit a child that mutters a peep or gives a wrong answer. The success rate is low and dreams of more are never encouraged. As you can imagine, the quality of education is nowhere near what it needs to be to really offer the students a chance to improve their situation.

Finally, an animist worldview dominates the culture regardless of their religious background. They are instilled with the idea that nothing ever changes, that hard work will not better their circumstance. They are taught that work is a curse instead of a blessing.

How are children in a situation like that supposed to know that they have dignity and value? That they are image bearers of God and were knitted together in their mother's womb?

This is a child's reality in a poor village in rural Tanzania without child sponsorship. However, with child sponsorship all of this is different. There is hope and love and mercy and kindness and so much more.