Did You Know. . .

• A child dies from hunger every five seconds.  

• One-third of the world’s children live in extreme poverty.

• One in every six children between the ages of 5 and 14 is involved in child labor. 

• More than 2 billion people lack access to electricity and modern forms of energy. 

• More than 1 billion (one in five) people live on less than $1 a day. 

• Every day, 1,600 women and more than 10,000 newborns die globally due to complications that could have been prevented. 

• Approximately 15 million children under the age of 18 have lost one or both parents to AIDS.  

• 20 million children have had to leave their homes due to war. This is roughly the population of Australia.

• An estimated 1.2 million children are trafficked every year, many for sexual exploitation or cheap labor.  

• More than 10 million children under age 5 die each year. Two-thirds of these deaths - more than 6 million deaths every year - are from malnutrition and other preventable causes.  

• Children under age 18 make up 49 percent of the population of the world’s least developed countries, compared with 21 percent of the population of the world’s industrialized nations. 

• Approximately 143 million children in the developing world (one in 13) are orphans. 

I'm going to guess you didn't know. I've read through these statistics on two separate occasions, and I still don't really know.

These statistics are horrible, and when you read them, you can't help but be struck by the unimaginable immensity of the problem . . . but five minutes later, you probably won't remember a single fact. I think the problem might be that the facts are so horrible that we cannot really wrap our sheltered minds around them. We have food to eat, a place to sleep, clothes to wear, and family to love. And as we sit in our air-conditioned homes checking our email, it's hard to imagine the harsh reality that these children face every day. So in our minds, they remain a statistic--faceless, nameless.

Hopefully you will walk away from this post with a better sense of how lucky you really are. Hopefully from now on, you will give more than a passing glance to verses like Proverbs 31:8, Matthew 10:42, James 1:27 and Micah 6:8. But more than that, I hope you decide to do something about it, because the Bible makes it clear that the church is responsible for these children.

This is where Compassion comes in. In their own words, Compassion's mission is to release children from poverty in Jesus' name. The best way to learn about this ministry is to visit their website, especially the child advocacy section. I will tell you, though, that I think Compassion is one of the most rewarding, world-changing ways to help children in poverty. For $38 a month, you can provide a child with the resources he/she needs to grow physically as well as emotionally and spiritually. The best part is the opportunity to exchange letters with your sponsored child and even visit him/her on a Compassion tour.

My husband and I currently sponsor two children through Compassion: Rashid from Kenya (whom my friends and I have sponsored since 2007) and Winny from Indonesia (whom my husband and I began sponsoring this month).