CMF partner Anji Barker (Urban Neighbors of Hope) was recently interviewed for an article that appeared in two Indonesian newspapers about the precarious living conditions of young children who grow up in Klong Toey, the largest slum in Bangkok, Thailand. Anji, her husband Ash Barker and their family live and work in Klong Toey.

In “Children in Bangkok Slums Facing Dire Plight,” writer Nirmal Ghosh details the depolorable living conditions, the drug use, the general feeling of hopelessness and especially the rampant child abuse that are part of everyday life in Klong Toey, as in many other urban slums. A sizeable number of children are growing up in an environment of violence and exploitation while being deprived of basic necessities, he says.

Anji Barker, who teaches children age 3 to 6 in a school in Klong Toey, sees the situation firsthand every day. During the past 10 years she has watched gang fights quickly become violent, with teenagers wielding machetes and even guns.

“Little toddlers watch these gang fights,” she said. “They grow up in the slum with violence on a daily basis. They are exposed to drug use every day. When they role-play, they role-play what they see. Some say they want to grow up to be gangsters. At the age of 3, the children use the rudest Thai swear words you can imagine.”

The slum has both government and privately-run schools, but the absentee rate is high. Anji Barker understands why that’s the case.

“If you are 6 years old and don’t want to go to school, who is there to make you when nobody cares for you?” asks Barker. “Here, the incentives have to be for the children to want to go to school, not for the adults to send them to school.”

To learn more about CMF’s partnership with Urban Neighbors of Hope and our other ministries in Thailand, click here.

If Larry and Debbie Kineman (Worcester, England) want to check in with their teenage daughter, Kirsten, on Tuesday nights, all they have to do is turn on their radio or computer to hear her broadcasting live from 8-9 p.m. on popular local youth radio station Youthcomm.

Kirsten’s show is called The Lighthouse and is aimed at teens. She plays Christian music – her top favorites are Switchfoot, Sanctus Real, Needtobreathe and Tobymac – and talks about her life and friends from a studio located on the top floor of a youth center in Worcester. The whole show is her responsibility, from beginning to end.

“I pick the music, write out the links and decide on features,” Kirsten says. “Then when I get on the air it’s just a matter of reading what I have written and playing the songs! Nothing much to it!”

“The show is aimed at a youth audience,” she adds. “I try and make it seem upbeat and lively and get as much new Christian music as I can.”

The show began about five years ago when a lady from the Kinemans’ church, Manor Park in Worcester, decided to start a Christian radio show on Youthcomm. Kirsten went on the show about three years ago to see what it was like, and ended up helping out every week. When Laura, the original host, moved away about a year and a half ago, Kirsten took over.

Most of Kirsten’s friends think her unusual hobby is pretty cool, she says. “They listen when they can and text me to give them shout-outs on the air, which is fun to do.”

Kirsten is currently in the British equivalent of her senior year in high school. Is there a serious radio career in her future? Like most kids her age, the talented teen is keeping her options open.

“I haven’t really decided what I want to do after high school yet,” she says, “but radio is definitely a possibility! I have lots of other things I’m thinking about as well, like animation or graphic design.”

Meanwhile, Kirsten keeps playing the music she loves and talking about life.

“I know the station is pretty popular, but I have no idea who’s actually out there listening,” she laughs, “except my Grandma in America! She listens every week on her Internet radio.”

At the end of last November, two church members and five HIV+ patients from the CMF mission clinic in Abengourou, Ivory Coast, died from meningitis. The local hospital reported about 10 cases during the same time period. Since it was just the beginning of the dry and dusty season when meningitis is most prevalent, Andy and Stephanie Gable and Christina Skelton, CMF missionaries in Ivory Coast, knew they had to act quickly to stem the tide of a possible epidemic.

So they turned to Facebook, and within a week had raised more than $7,500 through more than 100 online donations. They continued spreading the word through social media and word-of-mouth, and eventually surpassed the original goal of $10,000 to provide vaccinations for 3,000 people. Last week, Andy reported on his Facebook page that as of Feb. 29 they have vaccinated more than 5,000 people and have had no new cases of meningitis among their clinic patients and church members.

They began their vaccination campaign with the mission staff and families and most of the HIV+ patients who attend the CMF clinic, then expanded to include the churches they work with in community programs in Abengourou. Then it was on to the other communities where CMF currently has churches. “Almost all of these communities and churches were overwhelmed with gratitude for the assistance provided,” wrote Andy. “Many of them are still struggling with the aftermath of last year’s conflicts stemming from the election. Many felt as if they had been ignored or forgotten. This provided a renewed sense of rejuvenation and hope.”

The team was overwhelmed and incredibly blessed by the quick and generous response to their appeal for support for this campaign. “We say thank you to everyone who participated in the campaign with prayers, donations or by simply sharing about the need,” said Andy. “While cases in Abengourou have decreased, other regions have been reporting serious outbreaks. Public health officials have told us that our quick action made a huge impact in our area. Thanks for being a part of saving lives.”

The Maasai Health Services clinics established by CMF in Kenya have received a second grant from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to provide HIV/AIDS services in the Maasai area of Kenya. The clinics will receive $387,000 to use for HIV/AIDS education, prevention, medication, staff training and assistance to get to the rural villages where there are no clinics.

Medical work has been a part of CMF’s ministry in Kenya for more than 30 years, and there are currently eight permanent clinics and three mobile clinics in the Maasai areas of the country.

In 2011, these clinics saw 106,000 patients and cared for nearly 3,000 AIDS victims. The clinics tested 33,000 people for HIV/AIDS, vaccinated more than 4,000 children under the age of 5, provided prenatal care for 2,400 pregnant women and offered care for 300 orphaned and vulnerable children. In addition, the clinic staff provided training for 112 church and youth leaders on health issues, such as care of the sick at home.

Retired CMF missionary Dr. Glynn Wells was the primary physician in the early years of the clinics. Dr. Suzie Snyder succeeded him until her return to the U.S. to serve as the Member Care Consultant at the CMF office in Indianapolis. Since her departure the clinics have been run completely Kenyans, many of whom were students from the Maasai churches who were encouraged in their educational and career pursuits by CMF missionaries.

The partnership between the Globalscope Puebla campus ministry (El Pozo) and Mosaico, the new CMF church plant in Cholula, is already showing  tangible fruits of success, reports El Pozo team leader Kami Burns.

CMF missionaries Todd and Tonja Hancock, who previously worked with two churches in Mexico City,  moved to Cholula in August 2011 to work with a group of El Pozo alumni to plant a new church. The new group is currently meeting in the campus ministry pole barn. This past weekend El Pozo and Mosaico celebrated the baptisms of two young people who have ties to both ministries.

Carlos is a paramedic on the campus of the Universidad de las Americas in Puebla who became connected with Mosaico through the El Pozo campus ministry.  Tania is a student who came to El Pozo with friends, got involved in the activities, started reading the Bible with Courtney Wilson, a team member, and decided to give her life to Jesus this past weekend.

Tania’s baptism was especially meaningful to the El Pozo group. She asked her friend Beto to assist Courtney during the baptism because of the role he’s played in her walk with Jesus. Beto was baptized and became a Christian at El Pozo just last year, yet he’s already a key player in the student leadership group.

Seeing a church grow out of their campus ministry is just beyond rewarding, Kami says.

“We believe in the power of the local church to change our world,” she said, “and seeing Mosaico grow from idea to conception to birth to a baby church has been a learning experience for me, and I’m just sitting in the audience! To see Mosaico reaching people that El Pozo ordinarily wouldn’t, like Carlos, is such a blessing.”

When Beth Jarvis Silliman and the Globalscope Germany team began their ministry to college students in Tübingen three years ago they weren’t exactly welcomed with open arms by the Christian community there. They were using different model to reach the unreached than that used by other Christian ministries there, and many just didn’t understand their approach, said Beth.

“I remember I tried to meet with a minister to share what we were doing in our early days in Tübingen, only to be rejected,” said Beth. “I got a stern, dismissive email instead of the meeting I’d asked for.”

Over time, though, this has changed, as other Christians, churches and ministries have come to see that Unterwegs is making a difference in students’ lives. Last month, Beth and her teammates were further affirmed and encouraged when they had their very first opportunity to make a presentation to area preachers and campus ministry leaders about Unterwegs.

“We shared our vision of being a Christian community for non-Christians and about how we serve as a community of and for students, regardless of where they are in their relationships with God,” said Beth. Afterwards, one pastor commended them: “You are accomplishing what we can’t; you are reaching non-Christians. Thank God you are here.”

The leader of another student ministry mentioned how he struggles to get the Christians in his group to bring non-Christians to their events, but that he himself was actually invited to Unterwegs by a non-Christian friend! “I visited Unterwegs,” said another ministry leader, “and you really do feel an intense sense of love right when you walk in. They are making a unique difference.”

Unterwegs is the only campus ministry at Eberhard-Karls University in Tübingen specifically geared toward non-Christian students. It provides a place where students can find a community, watch a soccer match, get coffee, meet friends and, most importantly, explore a relationship with God through teaching and worship. It is making a visible difference in the lives of the students who attend.

The ministry is based in a house strategically located just off the main campus, between the main student area and the gym and sports fields. The team is currently paying rent of $900 a month for this great facility, but needs help making future payments so they can continue their fruitful ministry. You can find out more about how to support this ministry project here.

Philemon and Debora, new graduates of the Church Planters Training Course in Tanzania, are preparing to move to the Kilosa district in the Morogo region of Tanzania to begin a new church. They will be working with the Waparakuyu tribe in the Maware area, reports CMF missionary Gary Woods.

Maware is an unreached area with no development or buildings other than the traditional tribal houses. Some members of another tribe, the Wagogo, also live in the Maware area, and are also interested in working with Gary and the team. The surprising part of this, said Gary, is that these two tribes, Waparakuyu and Wagogo, fought a bloody war in 2002, and many people died. The tribes were fighting over land that the Waparakuyu wanted for grazing their cows and that the Wagogo wanted for farming.

“There is peace now between the two tribes,” said Gary, “but we don’t know right now if they will be working together or separately to establish a Marware church. They were together at the meeting I attended. I even passed the graves of those who died (in the war) as I went to the meeting. God is a peacemaker.”

In another interesting twist to the story, Philemon, the new church planter, was a young boy who lived next to CMF Executive Director Doug Priest and his wife Robyn when they were working in Tanzania in the 1980s.

CMF’s initiatives among the urban and rural poor in Africa have been rated as among the most cost-effective ways to provide long-term assistance, according to a recent article in Christianity Today magazine.

In “Cost-Effective Compassion,”  writer and economics professor Bruce Wydick evaluates 10 popular strategies and rates them based on their effectiveness in actually helping people rise out of poverty and their “bang for the buck” –  significant impact on the poor per donated dollar. Steve Palich, CMF’s Director of Projects and Partnerships, was excited to note that CMF is heavily involved in many of the top six strategies listed in the article.

“The top six strategies, in order of return on investment, are providing clean water, giving de-worming treatments to children, providing treated mosquito nets, sponsoring a child, giving a wood-burning stove and loaning money for a microfinance project,” said Steve. “CMF has specific, targeted programs using four of these strategies.”

Clean water

CMF’s Overflow project works with Maasai communities to determine how to meet their water needs. Water in rural Kenya is contaminated at its source and by transportation and storage. Overflow fights this contamination by installing guttering systems and tanks to collect and store rain water, drilling and maintaining wells, and by installing chlorination equipment. As of 2011, chlorination stations have been established in 13 locations and the team is working on eight new boreholes (wells).  In Turkana, CMF missionaries began installing clean water pumps in villages in 1995. These were followed by solar-powered irrigation systems for large community farm plots. By the end of 2011, the clean water drilling team of Turkana had installed 87 pumps on fresh sanitary wells!

Mosquito nets

The Take a Bite Out of Malaria project was launched in 2009.  It’s hard to believe, but an African child dies of malaria every 30 seconds. At a cost of $10 each, treated bed nets are a simple, cost-effective solution to the problem. During the most recent phase of the project, 655 nets were contributed and distributed to families in Nairobi, Kenya, as part of CMF’s 2011 year-end giving opportunities.

Child sponsorship

CMF initiated an amazingly successful child sponsorship program in 2007 in association with Missions of Hope International in Nairobi, Kenya. Today, about 6,500 children in Nairobi, Turkana (northern Kenya), and Tanzania receive a free education, two meals a day, clothing and medical care paid for by their American Christian sponsors at a cost of more than a quarter of a million dollars per year. A by-product of child sponsorship has been the hands-on involvement of the many churches that have sent hundreds of workers on short-term trips to build toilet and shower facilities, assist with cleaning up neighborhoods and offer free medical clinics.

Microfinance

CMF began assisting Missions of Hope with its microfinance program several years ago, but officially launched the BigDent website in 2011. This interactive site allows donors to read stories and see photos of the BigDent clients and make donations to specific entrepreneurs. There are currently more than 1,300 Big Dent microfinance clients, with another 170 waiting in the wings for their loans. The very high loan repayment rate of 96% is due in a large part to the accountability groups that each client must join to receive business and ethics training to help run their micro-businesses and repay their loans.

In addition to these comprehensive, targeted projects, CMF’s permanent medical clinics and Community Health Evangelists provide de-worming treatments for children and extensive HIV-AIDS treatment and education. In addition, many Mission Project teams have brought doctors and dentists to the field to provide medical care and reparative surgeries.

Thanks to CMF’s friends across the U.S. and around the world, CMF missionaries have been able to provide water, de-worm children, protect families from malaria with mosquito nets, educate and feed children, provide loans to hard-working entrepreneurs and provide much-needed medical care. As a result, we have all seen lives changed and communities transformed by the power of God’s love.

Seven students and staff member Neal Baker from the Georgia Tech Christian Campus Fellowship flew to Puebla, Mexico, after Christmas to assist the CMF Globalscope El Pozo team with a water project.

Kami Burns, the El Pozo team leader and former CCF member in her own college days, set up the project in the village of La Trinidad with Living Water International. This organization helps provide clean water and hygiene education to people all over the world while also sharing the message of the “living water” available through Jesus Christ.

As Kami points out in her blog entry about the project, “In Mexico, we can’t drink tap water, so I’ve learned to always make sure we have bottled water in our house.” The people in small rural towns, however, don’t always have access to bottled water, nor the money to pay for it.

La Trinidad is in an arid climate with such a low water table that drilling another conventional well just isn’t an option. Most people have to use donkeys to haul several gallons of water at a time from a nearby operating well to their homes. So the El Pozo staff and students, the Georgia Tech group, and Living Water staffers worked together with some skilled masons to build a stone well around a natural spring. This will collect and hold clean water for the people of La Trinidad.

The project was a big success, says Kami. “I’m grateful to have been able to help provide water for these humble and grateful people, but my hope and prayer is that they also find living water in Jesus Christ.”

Dodging bats while riding a motorcycle? Sleeping out under the African starry skies? Chowing down on corn mush and okra sauce? Just another day in the life of Brian Hauser, a CMF missionary in Banfora, Burkina Faso. Here’s his engaging account of a recent 24-hour period in the life of a cross-cultural evangelist.

At 5:30 p.m., during that golden hour before sunset, I am still frantically packing (amid a seemingly never-ending stream of visitors) for my trip to the village of Kangoura.

At 6.15 p.m. I finally roll out of Sindou on the motorcycle. The sun sets at 6:40 p.m. and I discover that, thanks to a little accident a friend had on the motorcycle, the headlight is pointing straight up into the trees. This doesn’t illuminate much of the road, but it does attract lots of bugs, that in turn attract several bats who are daring each other to see who can grab the most bugs and careen away just before smashing into the visor of my helmet.

At 7 p.m. I arrive in Kangoura. The plan is to chat with the three guys who work on the farm, especially C., a new believer. We cook spaghetti and omelets and sip tea while watching the stars come out over Africa.

At 10 p.m., the men head inside to go to bed. I pull my cot outside, wrap up in a Maasai blanket and listen to Acts chapter 1 a few times in French and Jula before putting an audio book on the I-pod. I fall asleep gazing at the stars. Each time I wake up (often, thanks to the tea) the moon is dimmer and the stars are brighter.  A sleepless night of worship.

At 4:30 a.m. the roosters and turkeys lift up their rusty voices to call up the dawn and flies start buzzing around my head. The 30 minutes before sunrise are a stunning symphony of color. By 7:30, we have eaten breakfast and prayed for the start of work on the farm, reading Psalm 1 together.  C. and I have also found a little time apart to read through Acts 1 again. We plan to study Acts 2 next week. I take care of a little farm business for CMF teammates and then roll into the town of Kangoura to visit with the Chief.

At 8:30 a.m. I find the Chief all dressed up to go to Sindou. We exchange blessings for the New Year and lament the fact that we were unable to  plan this meeting. I tell him I’d really like to see his orchard of mango and cashew trees today.  Since he’ll be back by 2, I decide to continue directly on to Jeliso and catch the chief and the orchards on the way back.

At 9:30 a.m. I am exchanging New Years’ blessings with B., my Imam/Marabout friend. He says, “You rode your motorcycle in this freezing (70-degree) wind?” He invites me ito his living room, and as I sit down, a wave of emotion hits me as I see that this holy man of Islam has put my Christmas card up on his wall. On a field of green construction paper a large yellow star bearing the words of Luke 2:13-14 beams over the rock formations of Sindou that Tabitha (my wife) traced and cut out of red construction paper. We talk at length about his cashew trees and his agricultural plans for the coming year as part of my informal survey of the needs of these communities.

At 11:30 a.m. I’m at the far edge of B’s field of cashew trees, driving slowly along a six-inch wide track he assures me is a short cut straight back to Kangoura.

At noon my back wheel falls off a little ledge into some sand and we take a little tumble. I am not hurt, as I was only going about 15 miles an hour, but am glad no one was around to see it.

At 1:15 p.m. I’m back in Kangoura resting under a cashew tree listening to another book chapter on the I-pod.

At 2 p.m. I’m in Kangoura eating “To” (congealed corn mush) and okra sauce with the Chief. He also has his Christmas card with Luke 2:13-14 hanging proudly on his wall. S. and A. join us and we ride double on the motorcycles on sandy tracks out to see his orchard. It’s huge. The first trees were planted two years before I was born. So we want to help them do a tree project?  God’s sense of humor is grand. We will do tree projects with their invaluable help and learn a lot in the process.

At 4 p.m. we are back at the Chief’s house and I’m stuffing my face with more corn mush and spicy okra sauce. I step back and watch myself eating away with my hand in a common bowl with my friends, throwing down corn mush and okra sauce like its lasagna! I laugh as I lick my fingers clean. I ask the Chief if he can teach me some proverbs that use trees as illustrations. When we sit down again with S. and A., the Chief looks at us seriously and says, “The elders used to say, ‘He who plants a tree, digs a well, or buys a mortar (for pounding grain), will have great reward in this life and the next.” It’s given me a lot to think about. I pray that our physical and spiritual ministry in these communities will have the same kind of enduring blessing for the community.  

At 4:30 p.m. I can hardly keep my eyes open and I get ready to leave. The Chief asks, “What about our chats? (Bible storytelling) When are we starting that up again?” Next Tuesday, I tell him, we’ll start all over again. As I ride out of town I thank God for their interest and beg Him to sharpen me up for the task.

At 5:30 p.m., during that golden hour before sunset, I ride into Sindou and my front gate listening to Claude Debussy’s Claire de Lune. I wonder what I’ve done to deserve such a blessed life as my wife and kids pour out the doors to welcome me home with their own symphony of sound.