For some Americans, post-Labor Day means “back to school,” which can be exciting or stressful or both. Kids or no, the holiday marks the time to get back to business. Turn over a new leaf. Make a fresh start. Take the next level.

To families in developing countries, however, back to school might as well

“Back to school” doesn’t’ apply to kids in developing countries who can’t even afford the shoes to walk there. Thanks to supporters of Cross International, though, impoverished kids like these in Haiti are getting a quality Christian education.

mean a trip to the moon—it’s just as far fetched. Even tuition-free government schools charge enrollment fees, and most require students to wear uniforms and shoes—costs that are out of reach to poor parents who don’t have two pennies to rub together.

It’s a sad “Catch 22.” People who lack education, especially literacy, can’t get a job. So they can’t afford to send their kids to school. Those kids grow up illiterate and unemployed, and the cycle continues. Education breaks that cycle. (Click here to read more about how knowledge combats poverty.)

A family trapped in poverty for generations can lift itself out in one. But they usually need a boost.

The average cost to send a poor kid in a developing country to school for a year is about $200. While that amount’s nothing to sneeze at, it’s small when measured against the good it can do.

What a great way to turn over that new leaf—take the next level: Sponsor education for impoverished kids who would otherwise look forward to more of the same. Help break their cycle of poverty for generations to come.

Cross International has some great news to report from the field. Last year, we worked with one of our mission partners, Mission Evangelique Baptiste Du Su D’Haiti (MEBSH) to support 29 schools for restavek children in Haiti. Restaveks, or children working as indentured servants for their host family, are routinely denied the opportunity to attend school. These specialized schools teach them how to read, write, and do arithmetic, skills they would likely never learn otherwise.

Restavek students like this receive the education they need at MEBSH schools throughout Haiti.

And starting this fall, Cross will fund 10 additional MEBSH restavek schools! That means we’ll reach even more than the 864 restavek children we currently support through the classes and feeding programs we fund at each school.

Why is going to school so important for restaveks? Because they are Haiti’s ignored children, a segment of the population no one wants to talk about. More than 300,000 children, most of them girls, are restaveks (from the French rester avec which means “stay with”). Their parents, too poor to feed their children, send them to live with families in better economic situations with the hope that their children will have a better life and an education. But that’s rarely the case.

Restaveks are usually forced to work hard, and they are sometimes physically and sexually abused. And their host families often deny them the opportunity to attend school. Without an education, these children are doomed to be poor like their parents because they won’t have the skills to get jobs as adults. Even worse, these children grow up thinking they aren’t worthy of an education like the other children they see going to and from school every day.

That’s why it’s critical that restaveks get an education: to keep them out of poverty and to teach them that they are just as capable, smart, and worthy of an education as other children. MEBSH and Cross are working together through these grassroots-level schools to help restavek children value themselves and get an education. It’s just one way we can spread the Gospel message of Jesus in Matthew 18:5, when he spoke of humble children: “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.”

Click here to read about the restavek schools and feeding programs Cross supports in Haiti. Help us welcome the children in the name of Jesus!

Cross supports education and microenterprise programs that promote development.

There is an old saying that goes: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” The second part of that saying is the goal of much of the work we do to help the poor here at Cross.

However, during staff devotions this morning we were reminded of how important the first part is, as well. Our newest projects officer recently returned from Central America. It was his first time visiting some of the projects we support there, and he was struck by the impact of our elderly feeding programs — those meeting an immediate need rather than supporting development.

Cross also meets the poor’s more immediate needs through feeding programs for the sick, elderly, and vulnerable children.

“These programs provide palliative care to deal with the effects of poverty. As we minister to the more immediate needs of these people, we are expressing the love of Christ in a very real way,” he explained. “Yes, it is important to teach people how to fish, so to speak, but what about the people who are too old or sick or unable to learn how to fish? Should we just forget about them?”

It is clear from Matthew 18:14 — “Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.” — that every person is important to God.

Giving an elderly woman a daily meal is just as meaningful in God’s eyes as supporting a scholarship or microenterprise program. Both are meeting important needs of the poor and, in the process, sharing the gospel of Christ with them.

Click here to learn more about what Cross is doing to meet both the immediate and long-term needs of the poor in Latin America.

Jim Kline, our Africa projects officer, recently returned from a trip to Ethiopia. While visiting a ministry we support in the capital city that provides physical therapy and education to children with disabilities, he met a little girl named Hewett.

Hewett, a 6 year old with Down Syndrome, has made miraculous progress since she started going to physical therapy at a Cross-sponsored program in Ethiopia.

The 6-year-old, born with Down Syndrome, had spent most of her life bedridden and mute. Her parents, poor and beside themselves with worry, had nowhere to turn for help.

In Ethiopia, as in many developing African countries, children with disabilities are considered cursed. These children are often kept at the fringes of society, held back from school and hidden away from people, and their parents face constant ridicule from friends and neighbors.

Hewett, however, did not become one of those “hidden children.” Instead, her parents heard about a Christian ministry that helped children like Hewett get better. After a few years of physical therapy and one-on-one attention, Hewett can now stand on her own and she speaks. Her parents could not believe the miraculous change — Hewett couldn’t even hold up her head on her own before the help of the ministry.

“She is very engaged. She makes eye contact with you and wants to touch everything,” Jim said. “Her parents are overwhelmed with joy over the improvement their daughter has made. The ministry really made a difference in this child’s life.”

Stories like Hewett’s are a precious reminder of what can be accomplished when Christians work together to help the poor. To read about more life-changing programs in Africa that we support, click here.

You are the God who performs miracles; you display your power among the peoples.
Psalm 77:14

Sixteen-year-old Christopher’s village doesn’t just border the city dump – it has become an extension of it.

Cross International is providing an education for Christopher, 16, so he can work his way out of poverty.

While many poor Zambian families grow small gardens in their yards, Christopher’s neighbors fill theirs with garbage, which they dig through for expired food and recyclable goods. The smell attracts flies that seem to be better-fed than the children playing barefoot amid the filth, their tattered clothes caked with dirt. Instead of getting an education, they stay home and help their parents scavenge through the trash, because at school they will be hungry, but there’s food to find at the dump site. This is the only life they know, and the only life they even know to hope for.

The same used to be true for Christopher, whose widowed, unemployed mother has no money to pay for school fees for him or his three siblings. But with help from a local Christian ministry supported by Cross International, Christopher is setting a higher standard for the children in his village by going to school, studying hard, and dreaming big. He is now in 7th grade, his best subjects are math and science, and he says that when he graduates, he wants to become a judge! Two of Christopher’s siblings are also now in school, and the hope is that their example will motivate the neighbors to begin to break the cycle of poverty.

In addition to school fees, the sponsored children receive health care, monthly food rations, and home visits from the ministry. This holistic approach addresses the many aspects of poverty: physical, economic, psychological, and also spiritual. Click here to learn more about this life-changing project that is bringing Christ’s love to the poorest of the poor.

It can be humiliating to be treated as a charity case—the object of someone else’s pity and justification for their pride. Not being able to feed your family can be enough of a blow to your self esteem; but having food (or a house, or other basic need) provided in the wrong spirit can be almost as crushing.

Poor Filipino families participate in the solution to their housing problem by helping construct the homes provided to them.

That is why Cross International takes care to maintain the dignity of the poor. Rather than take a “Santa Claus” approach, we lend behind-the-scenes support to local churches and ministries already serving poor communities. A needy family is helped by a pastor in their own neighborhood, for example. This not only builds up a family’s self worth and sense of community, it builds up the local church as well.

Whenever possible, we also require the poor to be part of their own solution. For instance:

• Side-by-side with local Filipino Christians, poor families in Manila help build and paint the homes they receive through Gawad Kalinga.
• Villagers in Zambia collect rocks and sand to make cement for much-needed wells and latrines through the Chikankata Water Project.
• And disenfranchised Haitian families living in the Dominican Republic are asked to pay a token amount toward their children’s education at Light Community School.

As Christians, we are instructed to treat others—including the very poor—as we would want to be treated (Luke 6:31). More than that, in humility we are to consider them better than ourselves. (Philippians 2:3). It is with such humility that Cross International strives to honor the poor by helping them in Jesus’ name, and with his love.

Below is a beautiful story from one of our ministry partners in Guyana, Ruimveldt Children’s Home & Care Center (RCHCC). We support this Christian ministry monthly so it can continue to provide care to 16 AIDS orphans.

Some of the orphans at Ruimveldt Children’s Home & Care Center (RCHCC)

Micah never speaks about his mother. But at night he has fitful dreams, awaking drenched in sweat and screaming out for her.

Before Micah was brought to RCHCC, he wandered the streets, unattended for days on end. Though he was appeared to be only about 4 years old, his face was sunken and his eyes hard — the marks usually carried by a weathered adult. His body also wore signs of malnourishment. His front teeth were completely black and his small belly was distended due to severe malnutrition.

“We knew very little about him and still have not found his parents,” said Angie Hemric, a volunteer who cares for Micah at the Children’s Home. “He has never shared any memories of them with us.” It is entirely possible that his parents are dead, victims of one of Guyana’s top killer: AIDS.

At first Micah was wary of the help he received at RCHCC. “He was very independent for such a young child,” Angie said. “Every time the gate opened we had to watch that his little body did not slide through it and run off.”

Soon, however, Micah began to let his guard down as he received loving care from the staff at the orphanage. He had never known such selfless kindness. Because Micah was HIV positive no one would help him, and he went without the treatments that would have helped him grow and thrive. During his first weeks at the orphanage, he could hardly eat and his speech was very underdeveloped for someone his age. “Much of the time he was unsettled,” Angie recalled. “He would scream out in the middle of the night and have terrible dreams.”

Micah recently celebrated a second birthday with RCHCC. Though he is still small for a 6-year-old, he has made much progress. His smile is now electric and his body strong, Angie said. “He loves to be held close and read to. He can write his name, color in the lines, count, and say his ABCs.”

The biggest evidence of Micah’s transformation from sick and abandoned AIDS victim to loved and nurtured child of God comes at night. He no longer wakes screaming from fitful nightmares.

Click here to learn more about the life-changing work of RCHCC.

It’s interesting to see which products are being marketed most heavily during the Christmas season. This year, Amazon has been promoting its Kindle electronic reader, which makes it easy and fun to download and read the books of your choice.

Technology is changing the way we educate ourselves, even when it comes to studying God’s Word. Take, for instance, the new Glo interactive Bible software. Now your private study can be enhanced with high-definition video, images, historical animations, zoomable maps, and 360-degree virtual tours.

You can give a child an education at New World Christian School in Ecuador.

The wealth of knowledge at our fingertips presents a stark contrast to the situation for many children around the world who cannot read or write and have never heard the gospel. These kids want to learn, but they don’t even have a pencil and paper to practice their ABCs.

For instance, in Ecuador, Jose Guman was just a young boy when he left his Quichua mountain community to work in the city as a shoeshine boy, because his widowed mother couldn’t afford his school expenses. Eventually, Jose dropped out of elementary school so he could work longer hours. Then his mother moved to the city to find work, and ended up earning just $5 a day selling peas.

Jose’s life began to change when Cross provided a scholarship for him to attend a Christian school designed to meet the particular needs of child laborers and ultimately get them off the streets. Now a 10-grader, Jose wants to go to college to study teaching, so he can share his knowledge with other poor children in the Quichua village where he was born.

Education is truly the gift that keeps on giving! Let’s be thankful this Christmas for the teachers who have impacted our lives, and for the opportunities we’ve had to hear the gospel and study God’s word. Let’s also pray that poor children around the world will have those same opportunities.

Click here to learn more about New World Christian School in Ecuador.

We support a network of 18 Christian schools in Haiti that educates and feeds more than 6,600 desperately poor children. Many of these kids find their school and its loving teachers to be a refuge from heartbreaking circumstances.

Celena, 50, rescued 15-year-old Mari from the streets four years ago, and continues to give her a loving home and a Christian education.

Take “Crazy Mari,” for example. That’s what people called her, anyway. She sure looked crazy with her bare feet, torn clothes, and matted hair, thought Celena Joseus, a teacher at a Christian school in rural Saintard, about two hours outside Port-au-Prince. Celena had found “Crazy Mari,” whose real name was Mari Filsaime, wandering the streets.

When Celena approached the girl, the first words out of the 11-year-old’s mouth were, “I am hungry, Madame.” It was then Celena realized this girl was not crazy at all, just terribly neglected. Mari’s mother, who really did have mental problems, had abandoned her and wandered to another town. Her father was dead. Her extended family, thinking she was crazy like her mother, refused to take Mari in — so she was left to fend for herself.

“God touched my heart. I saw a child who was hurt and it made my heart ache,” said Celena. Already a mother of six, she took Mari home to raise her as her own child.

In the loving home of Celena and her husband Pierre, the school principal and pastor of a local church, Mari blossomed. Today she is a happy, healthy 15-year-old who has been attending the Christian school for three years. Celena said, “Now everyone is shocked to see Mari; they cannot believe she is the same girl everyone thought was crazy!”

CLICK HERE, to learn more about this network of Cross-supported Christian schools.

Maria Rosa Gil, principal of Elohim Christian School, knows what it’s like to grow up in the rough mountain communities of Arequipa, Peru. Her father was an alcoholic who could hardly hold down a job to support the family, and her mother was illiterate.

Maria Rosa Gil, principal and founder of Elohim Christian School

In 2003, Rosa left her job as a teacher at a Christian private school to start Elohim, a Christian school for poor children in Arequipa. Because of her background, she felt a special calling to help the 130 children who now attend the school. Most come from the same family situations as she did. Others worse.

“Many of the children are abused by relatives or forced to work in the streets to make money for food,” Rosa says. “Often parents are very poor and cannot afford food for their children.”

That’s why the food we provide to Elohim each month is such a blessing. The children are now able to have breakfast and lunch while they are at school. For some, it is the only meal they’ll have that day. Rosa says these meals have made a big difference. The children are no longer tired and sluggish — they are now able to absorb their lessons.

Some kindergartners at Elohim school wait patiently for lunch.

Elohim school is making a huge impact on the lives of these children. Rosa says her life alone is a testament to how through education someone can overcome a rough background and be a successful professional.

“Many of the children come to school sad and depressed because of their situations at home,” Rosa says. “They are grateful for the school because it brings happiness and hope into their lives.”

CLICK HERE to learn more about Elohim School.