Compassion International's Indonesian Projects Affected By Earthquake
by Allie Martin
June 9, 2006
(AgapePress) - - Several children who received physical and spiritual support through Compassion International, a Colorado-based international child development ministry, were killed during the recent earthquake in Indonesia. Through Compassion International's program, poor children in many nations around the world are sponsored through donors. For each child sponsored, donors contribute $32 monthly to help fund after-school programs that take place at churches or project sites in the child's village and to provide participating children with educational materials and supplemental nutrition.
The recent earthquake in Indonesia killed more than 5,800 people and injured more than 22,000. The names of the victims were withheld while Compassion officials contacted their sponsors.
David Dahlin is with the child development organization. He says whenever children are affected by natural disasters, this has a big impact on sponsors. Whenever children of sponsors die," he notes, "it can be a somewhat traumatic thing."
Compassion's one-to-one child sponsorship program is a very real relationship, Dahlin explains. "Our sponsors get to know their children personally," he says. "They pray for them, and they write back and forth and care about their lives. So at a time like this, the loss is real -- not just over in Indonesia, but it also becomes real in the lives of people who sponsor those children and care about those children."
This kind of involvement and interaction is encouraged, the ministry spokesman points out, and he believes it works to a sponsor's advantage. "You care about what happens in the lives of these kids and their families, and that's obviously a powerful tool in prayer," he says.
"In a part of a world that usually is inaccessible to most of us," Dahlin continues, "all of a sudden you have a very intimate view of life in that part of the world and can understand it a little bit better and can certainly pray for it better."
Eleven of Compassion International's projects were affected by the recent earthquake in Indonesia, with three project sites being severely affected. Dahlin says many of the ministry's workers and volunteers are helping in the aftermath of the disaster.
Allie Martin, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
