Growing Up Like Jesus

It’s easy to think of Christian Relief Fund only as a compassion and justice ministry… Maybe we don’t explain enough about the other dimensions of what we do. The other day a church put us in their missions budget because they said it was hard to find anything more evangelistic than what we are doing. I think that church understands. As an example when I was in Kisumu, Kenya a couple of weeks ago, I got to witness 53 baptisms in Lake Victoria. If I would have made it to Emmanuel’s Farm a few days earlier, I would have seen over 80 people baptized into Christ. And it is not just Africa, in Nicaragua, we had 40 baptisms in one… Read more »


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In Africa, Central America, Child Sponsorship, Devotions, Education, Featured, Uncategorized

Oasis of Hope Challenge

If I evaluated our situation in Kenya, I would conclude that our biggest problem is our success… We have saved so many children in the slums who would have otherwise died. And we have educated them very well. In fact, they are so smart that they are getting accepted into some of the country’s best secondary schools. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a good longterm plan for raising so many orphans with incredible minds and a desire for further education. In most cases CRF operates our own primary schools and the sponsorship fees from CRF are able to pay for the children’s primary education. But when these children get older, we don’t have a secondary school for them and the cost of education is more than we can afford. The best answer is… Read more »


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In Africa, Child Sponsorship, Education, Featured, Uncategorized

Spanish Lessons

The girls think her name is Angelica, but they aren’t quite sure because she was quiet and a little hard to hear. You can understand that if you can picture the scene. The team from NMSU had been challenged by the local men’s softball team in the neighborhood of Palos Negros to a game today. Yesterday in a pick up game we beat them by one point, so they wanted a little payback. We were all gathered at the local softball field. The loudness of that game, plus the presence of about 30 neighborhood children and 20 other onlookers would make it hard to hear anyone let alone a quiet young girl. Holly and Jade weren’t playing in the game,… Read more »


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In Central America, Child Sponsorship, Featured

“Cosmetic Surgery”

We just received a wonderful picture at the CRF office of Mayra Valladares with her right arm in a cast. Yep, we are celebrating her arm in a cast because of what it represents to her. It represents the ability to work, care for her children, and to have a little dignity returned to her. You may remember that I wrote about Mayra after my trip to Honduras in April. She is the unfortunate woman who was hit by a car as she walked home on the side of the road. She was badly hurt and barely survived. When I met her, she was back to normal… except for her arm.


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In Central America, Featured, Health, Uncategorized

Let’s End Malaria

(This is a featured post from CRF President Milton Jones’ blog Through Orange Colored Glasses.) It’s been hard to get malaria off my mind this week. Since World Malaria Day is tomorrow (April 25th), it has been one of those messages that I have heard over and over again. Malaria bothers me. I’m told nearly 2000 a day die of it. But it is not like AIDS where there is no cure. There was a cure over 100 years ago. But it got personal with me a few weeks ago.


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In Africa, Child Sponsorship, Featured, Health