By Matt Hampson
This coming Sunday is Missions Sunday at church. A variety of things have been done for missions Sunday in the past to feature the missionaries we support here at Friedens. This year is going to look a little different as we are launching our partnership with a ministry called GlobalFingerprints.
GlobalFingerprints is the EFCA’s child sponsorship ministry. GlobalFingerprints has sites all around the world in areas where children are in need. The Friedens Missions
Team has chosen to partner with the GlobalFingerprints site in Nagpur, India.
On Sunday at 9:25 AM in the sanctuary, the Missions Team is going to share more information about GlobalFingerprints and more about the site in Nagpur.
I would like to share some information before Sunday with all of you. Child sponsorship has been around for a while, and you may be familiar with some organizations that do child sponsorships. Some of the well-known ones are Compassion International and World Vision. With GlobalFingerprints, you can sponsor a child for $35 a month. That money helps the child in a variety of ways: it helps children go to school and helps care for their physical, spiritual, and emotional needs. All of this happens through the ministry of churches like ours and many other around the world.
Each GlobalFingerprints location has site-workers who are living in the area and minister to the children on a daily basis. Sponsors receive updates on how the child is doing, and the sponsor is able to write to the child and the child can write back. It's exciting to know that you can build a relationship with a child and see them grow and mature throughout the years!
You may be wondering how GlobalFingerprints sponsorship works. We will answer that question and more on Sunday, but essentially, when a child is sponsored, the site will assess their spiritual, physical, and educational needs. They will then use the funds to supplement those areas as needed. The goal is to help these children escape the cycle of poverty. As we will talk about on Sunday, children and teenagers in the slums of Nagpur, India get caught in a nasty cycle of poverty because of lack of nutrition, lack of education, and ultimately a lack of hope. GlobalFingerprints is providing hope for a community that has long not had any.
The Missions Team is excited to share more about this ministry and why we are excited about partnering with GlobalFingerprints in Nagpur on Sunday. After the general information overview at 9:25am in the Sanctuary, we will split into two different groups and go downstairs to two classrooms. While downstairs we will do some hands-on activities to help illustrate the importance of child sponsorship in Nagpur, India. We will learn how healthy meals and receiving a good education from workers at the site can help children escape the cycle of poverty.
We hope you are able to make it on Sunday to learn more about GlobalFingerprints and how you can be a part of some really cool things that God is doing in India.