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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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!

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