ICCM Christmas Giving Guide 2018-2019

2018-2019 ICCM Christmas Giving Guide

by Blog

It’s our honor at ICCM to participate in God’s liberating work among His beloved poor and those sometimes referred to as His “cherished missing.” Our focus is on impoverished children.

Some of these children risk being trafficked and literally imprisoned. Our words and actions can protect them from exploitation.

Many children born into poverty have never known anything but oppression. They have no hope of an education, no sense of their own infinite worth, no idea that God could look on them with favor. These children are blind to their own value. When the good news comes with loving actions, it brings sight — their lives are brought into broad daylight, their eyes seeing new possibilities.

The Giving Guide is filled with ways for you to expand ICCM’s positive impact on children. We hope the pictures and projects will capture your imagination, giving new sight to your eyes. Maybe you’ll envision your contribution alleviating children’s medical needs, blessing them with farm animals, preventing trafficking or improving the hostel where they live. Whatever you can give will proclaim good news in all its beautiful and practical expressions.

Click here to view the guide.

 

 

2018 Cambodia Poster Child

2018 Freedom Sunday

by AsiaBlogCambodia

Philip, the ICCM Cambodia National Coordinator (pictured below) shared this in a text:

“The picture you used in Tuesday’s Child broke my heart. The girl (pictured here on the left) has left school. She is working in Thailand; she has a younger sister in the program, we fear for her future. We are all
praying for her.”

The fragility and vulnerability of the children in each of our ICCM programs, particularly our ICCM Cambodia program, has never been clearer.

Cambodia (CMB) is a source, transit and destination country for human trafficking. The traffickers have reportedly organized crime syndicates, parents, relatives, friends, intimate partners, and neighbors. Despite human trafficking being a crime in Cambodia, the country has a significant child sex tourism problem. Some children are sold by their parents, while others are lured into what they think are legitimate job offers. Children are often held captive, beaten and starved to force them into prostitution.

God has created every child with dignity. ICCM CMB, a holistic child development ministry, is committed to upholding and preserving every Cambodian child’s dignity. It is opposed to all forms of child exploitation and abuses that harm and affect a child’s development and growth.

The ICCM Cambodia Child Protection Plan states:
• We, the ICCM CMB together with our Free Methodist Church (FMC) leadership and pastors, firmly believe in and support the ministry’s values of respect and care for the children.
• We aim to focus on children’s protection in the weekly learning activities of children.
• We will provide intentional education about all forms of child abuse and exploitation to all CMB Free Methodist Church leaders, pastors and ICCM staff who directly interact with children and parents.
• We will educate village leaders in new church planting areas.

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Straddling the Gap: My Radical 10-Year Learning Curve

by Blog

Linda Adams DirectorMy life reached a turning point one Sunday in 2007 when the Munyakuri family walked into New Hope Church (Rochester, NY). I was clueless at the time, but a new chapter in my life had begun. When these new immigrants from Africa called me “Pastor,” I was honored.

When they called me “Mother,” I was perplexed! Their membership in the household of faith was a primary reality for them, not just a metaphor. Belonging to the family of God was central to their identity and has become central to mine, as they and thousands more from 37 countries have inducted me into a new way of seeing the world. Why 37?

Since 2008 I’ve visited 30 countries where ICCM children live and seven sponsoring countries. I’m beginning my 10th year of local-global living, straddling the income and development gap and recognizing sisters and brothers for who they are: family. I’ve joined heart and hands with people who care passionately about children and give their lives to develop the little ones. Some work in places where helping children grow physically, spiritually, mentally and socially is done at great personal risk.

I recently met with leaders who are regularly interrogated by authorities who oppose our Christian faith and do everything in their power to thwart our ministry to children. Yet these leaders persist in giving children life-transforming opportunities for education and holistic growth.

These people are now my beloved teachers. What have I learned in the past 10 years? Too much to fully include here! But a few themes rise to the forefront:

Tribalism
This world is riddled with strife and conflict among people groups. Cultures are often structured in rigid hierarchies, with dominant groups and marginalized ones. And yet, the Kingdom of God includes and unifies people from every nation, tribe, people and language (see Revelation 7:9). Our oneness must overcome our divisions!

Gendercide
I had no reference point for the level of discrimination against women and girls in this world. My grief at the practice of eliminating daughters either in the womb or immediately after birth, simply because of their gender, is indescribable. Our Creator gives the image of God to both male and female (see Genesis 1:27); together, we reflect the totality of who God is. Seeing girls welcomed into the joy of learning, alongside their brothers, brings deep satisfaction and sets in motion generational change.

Child Trafficking
As ugly as it is, we cannot turn away from the enormous evil of slavery in our world today. More than ever before in human history, men, and women, boys and girls are being sold into lives of exploitation and desperation. Yet our Lord said His mission included “setting the captives free” (see Luke 4:19). We can do no less. ICCM’s preventative measures express the reality, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

Local Transformation
As grateful as I am for aid and strategic interventions by governments and non-governmental organizations (NGO’s), I’m more convinced than ever that transformation takes place in local contexts. As we dream of a world where every child is loved, safe and developing their God-given potential, that dream takes place in a thousand grassroots settings. Adults in the sponsored child’s world are the ones who know her by name, teach him day in and day out and share life in the community. Love is local. We can support from a distance, but the most important realities in the child’s life are mediated by godly men and women whose example and instruction make the most difference. As director of ICCM, it is my great privilege and deep honor to invest in these leaders, resourcing them with both finances and organizational knowledge. Together, we can see children whose learning curve is already steep, growing to be all God envisions them to be!

Vovo Nana prayer

Grandma Nana’s Corner

by AmericasBlogBrazil

For several years I have been looking for an opportunity to visit Cantinho da Vovó Naná (Grandma Nana’s Corner – named after the woman who donated the original house and land), in Ibirité, Minas Gerais, Brazil. My opportunity came in August. This child development center is also located in an area plagued by drug trafficking.  Grandma Nana’s Corner is a place of refuge. The children are offered excellent nutrition, age-appropriate education by a caring staff, and the knowledge of our Savior, Jesus Christ. This is another ministry where a child’s participation greatly reduces his or her risk of sexual abuse and forced labor in drug trafficking. Sponsorship for these at-risk children changes their world.

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Amazing Ministry to Children

by AmericasBlogBrazil

I spent two days at Todo Mundo Feliz (Everyone’s Happy) in late August.  This top-notch child development center was started by the Mirandopolis Free Methodist Church in São Paulo, Brazil.  It was deliberately established right on the edge of a slum area where drug traffickers are the law.  Todo Mundo Feliz (TMF) was begun in 2002.  It later gained funding through the local municipality of Santo André and now also has a partnership with ICCM as a Connected Community with Cape Coral Community Church (FL).  At the time of my visit, 151 children were enrolled, not a few of whose parents are involved with drugs.  Younger children spend the whole day at TMF.  Older children spend half a day, and the other half attending public school.

While visiting the classrooms, I talked with the children and answered their questions.  One afternoon I put puzzles together with 3-year-olds for maybe 15 minutes. A teacher of one little boy who talked with me remarked, “He hardly ever talks to anyone!”  The meals are wonderfully nutritious.  I ate my lunch right along with the children.  (I love the way rice and beans are seasoned in Brazil.)  The good health and mental development the children enjoy can, in many cases, be directly attributed to the healthy meals and loving care they receive at Todo Mundo Feliz.

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Restavek Freedom

by AmericasBlogHaiti

“Restavek” is a system of domestic servitude in Haiti. Long tolerated in the culture, it is finally being brought into the light and recognized as a form of child slavery.

When I first began as Director of ICCM in 2008, I learned about the restavek arrangement, whereby extremely poor parents, usually from the countryside, send their children to work for a family in a town or city. They expect the child will receive food and housing in exchange for their work. But hundreds of thousands of these children live in dire poverty with no hope of an education and in grave risk of physical, emotional and sexual abuse. They have no way to leave and no advocate to whom they can report abuse. In reality, they are slaves.

Missionary Jeannie Acheson-Munos was an advocate for these children until her death in the 2010 Haiti earthquake. A young girl named Fanya had stolen Jeannie’s heart. Jeannie did everything in her power to set Fanya free from her owners, without success. In 2007, Fanya burned to death while tending a charcoal fire. She was only one child living in restavek, but her death compelled Jeannie to help others in restavek. ICCM’s anti-trafficking project for 2017 is to partner with “Restavek Freedom,” a Haitian organization aiming to end restavek in our lifetime.

Funds from Freedom Sunday will spreadRestavek Freedom’s message throughout all 130 Free Methodist churches and schools in Haiti by several means.

All school directors and pastors will be trained in a 12-week Justice Curriculum, and then lead small groups of church members and teachers through this course. Pastors will have access to a 12-week sermon series on biblical justice.

Restavek Freedom also produces an immensely popular radio drama that educates people about the reality of the restavek system. Additionally, they organize a singing competition in which Haitian writers perform songs of freedom. Our new partnership will bring the children and teachers in our schools into the influence of these powerful communication tools.

Restavek Freedom also supports caseworkers who work to ensure children living in restavek get enrolled in school. In the worst instances of abuse, they intervene to remove a child from the situation.

Jesus came to set the captives free. Hundreds of thousands of those captives are children in Haiti. Let freedom ring!

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To a Child, Five Years is a Long Time!

by AsiaBlogThailand

Freedom Sunday 2011 featured our first anti-trafficking project, the Lahu Hostel in Thailand. For five years, 20 vulnerable children have lived together in safety, learned about life and God, attended school and experienced a future and a hope they would not have known without our care.

This was my first visit to meet the children and get better acquainted with the house parents, Pastor Anan and Nanci. I was accompanied by Belle Villanueva, ICCM Regional Coordinator for Southeast Asia, and Americans Corey and Connie Persing, who live and work in Thailand.

The children greeted us by performing beautiful songs and presenting us with gifts of woven bags, handmade by Nanci, which involved several months of painstaking work.

Nanci is also a great cook. When I asked what the kids love about being at the hostel, they said “The food!” And … “Singing!” Nanci loves to cook and Pastor Anan loves to lead singing with his guitar, so their gifts suit their roles well.

Everyone chipped in — older kids helped to prepare the meal.  Younger kids lined up to get their photos updated to send to sponsors — and they smiled! We all got in on the feasting, picture-taking, gift-giving, soccer-playing and all-around fun of a day together as family.

FMWM personnel Corey and Connie Persing and their daughter Ikaiasha have visited the hostel several times over the ­years. Corey will now begin his role as Acting National Coordinator for ICCM Thailand. They are excited to be a part of this great work of blessing and protecting children.

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Sheltering Arms

by AmericasBlogColombia

The acronym “TLC” is often used in place of the words “tender, loving care”. About 14 girls, ranging in age from 5 to 17, are in the sheltering arms of the Free Methodist Church in Bogotá, Colombia, and most directly being nourished and protected by a woman they all call Mama Ruth. Through her, they receive the TLC they desperately need.

When I was young and came down with the flu, I wanted my mama more than ever. When she held me close and stroked my hair after a bout of vomiting when she offered me a cup of cold water to drink and a cool washcloth on my hot forehead, I knew I was loved and cherished. I was safe in my mother’s arms.

I witnessed an act of love and beauty as I watched Mama Ruth blow on spoonfuls of hot chicken soup to feed one of her girls. She was helping her to regain strength after two days of the flu. It was a priceless moment of TLC.

During our 2014 Freedom Sunday focus, we called this home “Findesin,” which is actually the name of the foundation run by the church in Bogotá. They call this girl’s home “Panal de Vida,” or, when using English, “The Beehive.” ICCM is one of several partners standing alongside the church for the essential and expensive work of sheltering at-risk girls. The girls’ mothers cannot care for them for a variety of reasons, and the girls are fatherless. These girls are experiencing safety, community, family and the love of Christ in this home. They were made for love, and they respond beautifully to the loving community into which they’ve come.

ICCM National Coordinator for Colombia, Dolly Johanna Mora, assists with all aspects of financial management of the home, and with facilitating the girls’ letter-writing to their sponsors. She is pictured here along with Mama Ruth’s daughter Johanna and Dolly’s daughter Lina Gabriela and me. We have decided not to share photos of the girls to be especially careful of their protection.

Every year on Mother’s Day I miss my mom and my mother-in-law. Mother’s Day is sentimental and wonderful for many; for many others, it is a painful day, a time of acknowledging losses. Thanks to the FMC in Colombia and many caring sponsors and donors, 14 girls in Bogotá are receiving a mother’s love and protection at Panal de Vida on Mother’s Day and every day.

Thank you for standing alongside ICCM in this and our five other anti-trafficking initiatives. They all continue; they all need our support long after their moment in the Freedom Sunday spotlight has ended. To continue to sustain support for this project and our other intensive efforts at protecting the most vulnerable children from those who would exploit them, donate to ICCM anti-trafficking initiatives.

Et Addis Ababa

Changing Futures in Addis Abada

by AfricaBlogEthiopia

The streets of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, teem with children. They shine shoes, sell gum, and do whatever they can to survive. Unfortunately, these kids are vulnerable to traffickers.

Child slavery is big business in Ethiopia, where almost 400,000 people, mostly women, and children, are held against their will and forced to work in ways they do not choose, for no pay or extremely low pay. Often children or teens from impoverished rural areas go to the city to find work but end up being tricked or lured into forced labor.

For several years, Amanuel Light & Life Free Methodist Church in Meganagna, a sub-city of Addis, has been supporting 50 orphans and impoverished children in their neighborhood. Many of these kids have lost one or both of their parents to HIV/AIDS. Compassionate church members have volunteered their time every Saturday to run a program with tutoring, games, singing, and lunch. They have done what they could to pay school fees for the children since the greatest safeguard for children is to be in school and be preparing for a better future.

The pastor, Superintendent Mekebib, has asked ICCM for help, as the needs are overwhelming. ICCM’s 2016 Freedom Sunday project will partner with this church. Sponsoring these children will give them the benefit of education, meals, after-school tutoring, child development activities and access to medical care. They and their families and church members will also learn about trafficking and will be empowered against exploiters.

ICCM’s Freedom Sunday offering will provide funds to staff the project and purchase necessary equipment. The ripple effect of this intervention will benefit the children, their families, their church and their community.

We are honored to be a part of the Set Free Movement, joining forces with others to blow the whistle on human trafficking and do all we can to prevent it. We encourage churches to observe Freedom Sunday to expose this evil and join in prayerful community action to combat it in all its forms. ICCM is committed to the holistic development of children, strengthening them and their families and preventing them from being easy prey.

To learn more about this project, watch “The Addis Project” on our website. For a powerful music video, see “Prayer of the Children” on our website.

To sponsor one of these children or receive a Church Action Kit to present this project at your church, please call 800- 342-5531 ext. 502