R e p o r t s f r o m t h e f i e l d

S p e c i a l E d i t i o n

what does it mean to live below the poverty line?

of Haitians live below the poverty line.

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Little Alika, 5, his older sister Amidline, 9, and their brother Nelson, 16, are motherless. They live with their grandmother in Hatte Desdunes, Haiti, in a one- room, dirt-floor shack with no bed. Their grandmother, Mary, 70, is a widow and is physically unable to work.

“I don’t work. I have nothing,” Mary said. “No husband. I don’t have any money.”

After the children’s mother died, a friend of Mary’s gave them the one-room hovel they are living in. Mary explained that the children’s father lives in another village and said that he is very sick.

“We used to sleep in the church before we got this house,” Mary said. The children’s mother was Mary’s daughter, and Mary said she misses her every day. She pulled out

a carefully wrapped photo of her. “I lost a beautiful lady,” she said. “Every time I look at this picture, my heart pounds; I feel sad about caring for her children. I can’t give them anything; I have no choice.”

On the day our team visited, Mary had no food. “I have no money to grow rice, no money to help the children,” she said. “The neighbors will share with us if they have something.”

This is what it’s like to be poor. In Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, people rely on their neighbors a great

deal to help them when they have no food. Sometimes the neighbors do more than offer food; they also give medicine if they have it. Mary’s granddaughter, Amidline, has parasites that are evident from the loss of hair and white patches on her head. “There is no money for a doctor,” Mary said. “But people give medicine for her, and she’s getting better.”

As for Mary’s health, she said she prays every day to be healthy so she can be there for her grandchildren.

Your support makes a difference in the lives of families like Mary’s. You can give desperately poor children food and other essentials we take for granted. ®

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“Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord…”

(Proverbs 19:17a, niv)

For this family that means... the children sleep on a dirt floor and some days have nothing to eat.

of Haitians live below the poverty line.

“When I’m hungry, I don’t focus on that. I try to think of a way I can find food,” she said. “I get hungry, but I focus on the babies and if I have to stay hungry, I stay hungry.”

Hunger is a constant problem for Fatima and sons

Erlyn, 3, and Marlon, 8 months. They live on a remote mountain in northern Nicaragua, atop a windswept plateau. She built the house herself on land her father gave her, by combing the woods for sticks for the walls. She ran out of sticks, so the house is completely open on one side. Fatima hangs burlap on this side as a makeshift protection, but it is of little help against the strong, relentless winds that blow through the shelter.

These winds make the interior bitterly cold at times. With only one blanket for warmth, she must decide which child to cover. Because Erlyn has been ill, he sleeps beneath the blanket and she gathers spare clothing to try to keep baby Marlon warm.

Fatima sells firewood to earn a little money. Without an education, a husband to help support her, or a job, it’s her only viable option. She searches through the mountains, looking for quality pieces of wood to chop and sell. If she finds nothing, she keeps walking. Sometimes it takes all day to find the wood and prepare it. But by then it’s too late to sell it.

On those days, the little family usually does not eat. That was the case when our team visited the family. Erlyn had

gone a full day without eating and began to cry. Sitting on the ground, he began a series of heartwrenching sobs. “I’m hungry,” he pitifully whimpered to his mother.

Fatima looked on helplessly because there was no food in the house. “When he’s hungry, he won’t sleep. He cries and cries, so I try everything to find food. I beg. I just need to find a little something to calm him down,” she said.

Just surviving from day to day, listening to her children’s cries of hunger, is grinding down this young mother’s strength. All Fatima can do is keep searching for food and seeking God’s help. Not for herself and her own suffering, but for her children.

“I pray for strength to be able to raise my children,” she said.

This is what it means to be poor.

So many single mothers throughout the Caribbean and Latin America live below the poverty line and find providing food for their children a constant challenge. But your support can help answer the prayers of desperate mothers and their hungry children. ®

of Nicaraguans live below the poverty line.

For this mother that means... begging for food and choosing which child to keep warm with their only blanket.

Fatima, 23, doesn’t like to think about her empty stomach. When there is nothing to eat, her sons whimper and cry from the aches in their bellies. Sadly, the only thing this poor mother can do is hold them hoping to ease their suffering, while ignoring her own hunger and pain.

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“Out of the depths I cry to you, Lord…” (Psalm 130:1, niv)

For this family that means... the children sleep on a dirt floor and some days have nothing to eat.

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Inside the shack where Daysi (pictured, left) lives with her family, the darkness is so thick that it is nearly impossible to see clearly. Black smoke from a tiny kitchen fire chokes the air that the children breathe day and night.

Lack of food has affected Castulo’s fragile 3-year-old granddaughter, Daysi, the most. Daysi spends her days too sick and lethargic from a lack of food to do anything but sit on the ground hunched over.

Castulo told us that Daysi began rapidly losing weight about six months ago. “I get worried. I am afflicted when I hold her,” he said.

To try and make enough money to buy food, most of the family works picking coffee beans. Castulo is unable to work because he is blind in his right eye from a cataract.

What would have been a simple operation to remove a cataract was unaffordable for Castulo and he went blind. Sabina must therefore work at the coffee plantation every day from sunup until sundown, bringing three of her strongest children with her to help.

Though they would like to send the children to school, there isn’t money for enough food, let alone the luxury of even one of the children attending school.

Castulo’s parents were too poor to afford to send him to school. As a result, Castulo is unable to read or write, and has a very limited vocabulary. Sadly, because of the nature of generational poverty, unless they get help, Castulo’s children and grandchildren are doomed to inherit his legacy.

Struggling to survive on a meager $10 a week, this family of nine living deep in a forest of La Paera, Honduras, relies on their faith. Their home is perched on a mountainside, beneath a canopy of trees, surrounded by a coffee plantation.

It sounds idyllic, but it is far from it. This family lives desperately below the poverty line. Their “home”

is one room with a tiny work area attached. The roof is made from scraps of zinc, and the clay and crudely cut wood walls have long since begun to rot.

For 30 years, Castulo, 65, who built the home, and his wife Sabina have raised their children and now grandchildren in this makeshift shack. The family does not have access to a clean water source, so they are forced to drink water filled with harmful bacteria and parasites which bloat the children’s bellies and make them sick.

In addition to the family not having clean water, they often suffer because most days they don’t have enough food to eat.

For a child like Daysi that means... slowly wasting away to skin and bones.

of Hondurans live below the poverty line.

“When my life was ebbing away,

I remembered You, Lord, and my prayer

rose to You…” (Jonah 2:7a, niv)

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For a child like Daysi that means... slowly wasting away to skin and bones.

For Daysi, the future could be bleak. Her grandparents cannot afford the care she desperately needs — all they can do is pray that she will get better.

This is what it means to be truly poor.Without any means to help themselves, the truly poor like Castulo’s

family can sometimes only pray for relief from their circumstances. But you can help be an answer to their prayers. You have the power to raise Daysi and other children like her above the poverty line for good, and give them the chance of a more promising future. Please give today to help poor children like Daysi escape the misery of hunger and poverty. ®

CLICK HERE to view a symbolic portrayal of how your loving gift impacts the lives of starving children.

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of guatemalans live below the poverty line.

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“I don’t have money to buy food. It’s not just sometimes, it’s all the time.”

Maria’s love for her children is deep. She is tender with them and prays continuously for their health and wellbeing. “I wish I could do more for them,” Maria whispered sadly. “I pray for them that they will grow.”

When she has no food for her children, Maria tries to comfort them with hugs and kisses. “I tell them, ‘Today we don’t have anything to eat.’ They understand,” she said. “But, I know that if we eat, it is because of God.”

This is what it means to be poor.Without your support, families like Maria’s would never have

the chance to do anything except try to survive. You can give Maria and families like hers the opportunity to send their children to school instead of working, to pay for medical care, and still have food to eat. ®

Working side-by-side outside their small house in Chuaxan, Guatemala, Maria and her two young sons are given enough material to make about 100 pounds of hollow newspaper tubes. These tubes are picked up once a week from their house and shipped to be made into fireworks. For their labor they will only earn about $4.50.

Maria, 42, began to teach her sons, Jose, 10, and Nestor, 7, how to roll newspaper tubes as soon as they turned 5 years old.

“I don’t feel good because I am putting my children to work at such a young age, and they are not supposed to be working,” Maria said

through anguished tears. “I wish it could be different.”

Unfortunately, this is the only means Maria has to make money. She started rolling the glue-and-newspaper tubes at the age of 25. Now, she has a growing family to worry about. Her 3-year-old son, Cesar, had kidney stones removed and must go to the hospital for a follow-up. Maria doesn’t know what they will do. “The hospital is in Guatemala City. I will walk and then take a bus for three hours to the hospital,” she said. “It will cost 100 quetzals to get there.”

What that 100 quetzals truly means is this: it will cost three weeks of Maria, Jose and Nestor working eight hours each, every day, rolling newspaper tubes to pay for the trip to the hospital — with no money left for food.

Maria already struggles to fill even one plate with food for her children. “We run out of money, and out of corn,” Maria said.

For these children that means... having to work to earn money for food instead of attending school.

“…your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.” (2 Corinthians 9:11b, niv)

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For nine months, Leisha, 32, lived in what used to be a coal shed in St. Elizabeth, Jamaica, with two of her children, Kellisa, 6, and Daython, 4. Despite the damp, cramped conditions, she was grateful to have shelter because prior to the coal shed, she had none.

“Every day, in the morning and the night, I stood by the road and asked people if they had a place we could live,” Leisha said.

One day, a kind, elderly man named David offered to clean out his coal shed for Leisha and her children. At the time, David said, “She has it hard any way you take it. She has it hard. I’ve got a lot of kids, five girls and two boys, and I see her just the same as my kids, and I help her.”

David offered Leisha his coal shed — it was all he had to give. And now, thanks to your loving generosity, something wonderful has happened. Together with David, a man you’ve never met, you changed the lives of Leisha and her children forever.

Because of your support, Leisha and her family have now moved into a new home.

The children are now in school and Leisha is growing a vegetable garden. Soon she will have a chicken coop so she can sell chickens and eggs.

When Leisha walked into her new home, she expressed her gratitude. “Me say, ‘Thank you, God!’”

Leisha bubbled over with joy at her new home. “I’m very happy, very happy. I’m so happy every day, I’m so happy,” she exclaimed. “Words can’t express; God knows. I don’t know if everyone knows my relief. I was only looking for one room and now we have all this space.”

Leisha watched as her children played on one of the beds in the house and marveled at the possibilities for their future. “I want them to read and write. That’s what I want most of all for them so they don’t struggle like I have,” Leisha said.

Your compassion has made a life-changing difference in one family’s future. May God bless you for continuing to transform the lives of other families just like Leisha’s. ®

Leisha Today!

Before

the international poverty line......is generally accepted as a measure of the percentage of the population living below the minimum income level needed to secure the necessities of life.

For the poor, living below this line isn’t just defined by income, it is a range of critical deprivations. The United Nations Human Poverty Index factors in several issues as signs of poverty including:

® Poor access to safe water ®Malnutrition among children ® Absence of education

“A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.”

(Proverbs 11:25, niv)

Page 7* Statistics used in this newsletter are from the CIA World Factbook.

® Lack of sanitation ® Exposure to disease

“I sought the Lord, and He answered me;

He delivered me from all my fears.” (Psalm 34:4, niv)

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