Optimistic Voices
Vital voices in the fields of global health, global child welfare reform and family separation, and those intent on conducting ethical missions in low resource communities and developing nations. Join our hosts as they engage in conversations with diverse guests from across the globe, sharing optimistic views, experiences, and suggestions for better and best practices as they discuss these difficult topics.
Optimistic Voices
The Hidden Problems with Child Sponsorship Programs: A $3.29 Billion Industry Under Scrutiny
Child sponsorship seems like the perfect way to help vulnerable children abroad – for just $30 a month, you get photos, letters, and the satisfaction of changing a child's life. But what if this model is causing unexpected problems?
In this thought-provoking episode, we dive deep into the $3.29 billion child sponsorship industry with Dr. Hunter Farrell, author of "Congregational Mission." Having operated our own sponsorship program for years, we explore why global child welfare experts are increasingly critical of this popular fundraising approach.
Dr. Farrell explains how sponsorship programs often create an "illusion of relationship" that can undermine family structures and elevate Western donors to an almost divine status. We discuss the uncomfortable realization that for all our good intentions, we may be perpetuating harmful power dynamics. As one Peruvian mother pointedly asked: "How would it feel to you if a foreigner was writing your 11-year-old daughter every month?"
The conversation isn't about condemning those who sponsor children – it's about recognizing sponsorship as a starting point that can evolve into more equitable partnerships. We explore three practical alternatives that address root causes rather than symptoms: supporting community-based programs, pairing international giving with local engagement, and persistently asking "why" about the underlying causes of vulnerability.
Whether you're currently sponsoring a child, considering it, or working in global development, this conversation challenges us to apply the golden rule to our international relationships and reimagine how we can truly support vulnerable children worldwide. Join us for this essential discussion about privilege, power, and the path toward more effective global partnerships.
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Maternal Health impacts child and family wellbeing, and is an indicator of societal wellbeing as well. Please listen to our podcast episodes on safe childbirth and maternal health to learn more about how health of a mother is basic survival for a child.
If you want to support this work, please give to the HCW Maternal Health Mission
Helpingchildrenworldwide.org
Welcome to Optimistic Voices, a podcast of helping children worldwide. We help children worldwide by strengthening and empowering families and communities. This podcast is for people interested in deep conversations with thought leaders in the fields of child welfare, global health and international missions.
Speaker 2:We're going to talk today about child sponsorship programs and I want to open up this episode by acknowledging that HCW had a child sponsorship program for many years. It was a very successful fundraising program for us. We refer to it now as a dedicated donor program and we'll say more about that in the episode. But I want to frame the episode a little bit for you by sharing with you that more than 9 million children globally are supported through international child sponsorship programs to tune of more than $3.29 million annually. In the spirit of full disclosure, I want to share that recently I co-hosted our Global Rising Tides conference.
Speaker 2:That was about two or three weeks ago now. It was focused on a related but different topic the transition of orphanages to family care models. During what was a free-flowing discussion not really even on this topic one participant raised the topic of child sponsorship. He just threw it out there. Hey, let's talk about child sponsorship. Mind you, this is in a room full of thought leaders in child protection and child welfare from all over the world. There are about 35 people in the room from about 20 different organizations and the response was so overwhelmingly negative that people were almost hissing and booing at the idea of child sponsorship. It was really striking and I want to say that I've noticed in the last few years that within what I would call the global child welfare sector, the tide appears to be turning against child sponsorship, but I also want to acknowledge that it's still really popular among US Christians, who are looking for a way to support orphans and vulnerable children, which is a good thing to do. It's something we want to encourage people to do.
Speaker 2:I think part of the draw is that it creates a sense of personal relationship between the donor and the vulnerable child and it gives the donors the sense of being directly and intimately connected to what their money is doing. I have to tell you, from the nonprofit perspective, it's a highly effective fundraising model that's used to running. You know nonprofits, we're used to running from events to major gifts to, you know grants, opportunities and never knowing when the next check is going to come. A sponsorship model is a dedicated donor program. I know that money's coming in every month. I know that money's coming in every year from those donors because that's how the program is set up and, as the program director of a nonprofit, it's nice to know there's money I can count on. It's easier to plan for things when I know that money's coming in. And yet in this room, at Rising Tides, with 20 or so organizations, most of them very small organizations we were pretty united in our condemnation or our aversion, I guess is probably a better way to say that to the child sponsorship model, and so I want to dig into that today.
Speaker 2:We have with us today Dr Hunter Farrell. He's the author of Congregational Mission A Practical Guide for Companionship, cultural Humility and Co-Development. We'll be releasing an episode on short-term mission later in the year that we did with him. We'll be releasing an episode on short-term mission later in the year that we did with him. But there was a chapter in that book that focused on child sponsorship models. That really helped me as I was helping our team at HCW think through the shift away from child sponsorship for ourselves to something else. So, hunter, welcome to the program.
Speaker 3:Thanks so much, Laura. It's great to be with you.
Speaker 2:Thanks, I really appreciate having you here. Do you want to talk a little bit about what is the issue with child sponsorship and why might people be growing adverse to that model?
Speaker 3:Yeah, thanks, laura. I'm really glad to be here and particularly to think about a topic as big and as important to American congregations, american Christians today, as child sponsorship programs. Just a quick note you said you mentioned that nine million children around the world are supported through global child sponsorship programs, and that's correct. The figure, though, of how much money US Christians send each year is actually $3.29 billion. It's a B and not an M, so it's really critically important.
Speaker 3:In this conversation around child sponsorship, one of the challenges we have is that, very quickly over it's been like about a six to eight year space almost all of the scholars and experts in whether it's for child development experts or mission scholars, people who study the work of mission almost all of them have moved quickly to the space where they strongly oppose child sponsorship programs.
Speaker 3:The challenge is that many congregations and I always ask in the congregation when I go and speak I say how many in this congregation are sponsoring a kid?
Speaker 3:Well, if I say that at the start of the program, everybody raises their hand I mean, it's usually about half the people in the room, quite frankly will raise their hand, and I think the scholars and the you know experts can, you know, can cast shame on these people and make them feel bad about doing what they're doing, and that generally, in my experience of human relationships, causes people to lift up defensive barriers and back off and tune out, not listen anymore, and that's not a helpful space.
Speaker 3:I wonder if we could see all of these child sponsorship programs in a way that's similar to the way I understand short-term mission trips yeah, they're not perfect, but are there ways that they can be redeemed? Are there ways that we can make them better or learn from that space, that connection, that sense of connection with a child in the Gambia or in Haiti Haiti and begin to think about the root causes of that child's predicament in new ways. So I welcome this conversation because I think it opens up an opportunity for us, through child sponsorship programs, to reimagine the ways that we're engaged with God in making a difference in kids' lives around the world.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a really important point and I guess I want to frame the reaction of my colleagues in that space, as I think they're perceiving that the child sponsorship model itself is causing them some real problems in how they're trying to partner with Global South partners on the ground, how those partners get supported and the programs get supported and things like that, and just how those things are all communicated back to donors and how you connect donors in a real way to real work on the ground and real impact in ways that the child sponsorship model, as it's kind of been traditionally framed, maybe gets in the way of.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and you're right. So don't get me wrong. There are significant, there's massive problems with the whole child sponsorship funding model, full stop, right. So you have an inefficient use of funding. They're spending a lot of money for what I'd call concierge services so that I, as a donor, feel better and feel more kindly. I mean there's just there's a lot of money that has to be dedicated to that work, which you know, is really just taking care of my needs. Well, that's not why I'm giving to help that child, that particular Manuel in Honduras. That's not why I'm giving to help him is to make me feel better about myself. So that's a problem. Giving to help him is to make me feel better about myself, so that's a problem.
Speaker 3:There's problems with the documented negative impacts on unsponsored children. So you've got. You know, most of the sponsorship agencies have a sibling rule. They'll only allow a certain number of siblings in a family to be sponsored. Well, what about the unsponsored sibling, or the kid across the street, or the kids from the other neighborhood in that town, when they see the bright new sneakers and backpacks and homework help and nutritional supplements that those kids are getting? You know, a logical, theological question that comes to all of us is well, why not me, why not my family, why not my siblings? And we don't really have an answer. That's why I so support and want to laud the work that several major child sponsorship agencies have done to open up their program from a direct form of child sponsorship to an indirect form, that is, to help the whole community. So I think that's really helpful.
Speaker 3:Let me just touch, though, on what I see is the biggest problem in child sponsorship programs, and it's not often commented on. Mostly, we grab onto those materialistic pieces. Empirically we can measure them, and so that comes to our mind. But I think, in order to create the illusion of a relationship, the mission agencies engaged in sort of creating this illusion of a relationship between sponsor and child. And to strengthen that donor tie, to encourage the sponsor to give regularly, sponsorship agencies are forced to minimize the parent's role and maximize the sponsor's role.
Speaker 3:So they make us as if gods right, they make us almost divine. They really play up. Look what your gift is doing. Look how powerful your gift. You drop it in that plate, you know, and you send it in your check-in each month and look what it does. We are able to do so much because of you. And I think theologically there's some real problems with that. When we cease to look at that circle of care that God has placed around that child and we only see a direct line from you know my pocketbook, my benevolence, my smarts to help that kid. You know that poor kid out there. The kid becomes an object of pity and the object of my mission, as opposed to what God's already been doing in that place to surround the child with a circle of care the child with a circle of care, right.
Speaker 2:Right, and I do think I've seen some, you know, fairly hair raising things around, the sense that that sponsors sometimes get around my child photograph on the fridge, you know, I get the letter from the child and this sort of like that. It's almost like you know, disney Channel things where, like the parent, you're aware there's a parent but the parent's always in the background, the parent's always off in the sidelines, they're never actually in the main action of what's happening. And I think child sponsorship programs and our own was sort of guilty of this to have a way of sort of perpetuating that and creating that sense. So that when we started to transition, one of the first things we did was insist that photographs and letters came from the family and included all the members of the family family and not just the child, because it made me uncomfortable to ignore the fact that this child has siblings and a grandmother who lives with them and you know the parents and the you know, and then the aunts that also lives with them well and Laura, the list would be long.
Speaker 3:There's so many, not just inefficiencies but almost jaded framings that the child sponsorship agencies, you know not, are forced to. But you know use to be able to ensure donor loyalty in the case of people who are giving to support a child. But I think there's an antidote to that. If the biggest problem is that the mission agencies create this illusion of a relationship and posit us, as you know, a divine answer to this kid's problems, I think there's a golden rule. If we could just apply the golden rule, you know, just think back to Christ, the essence of Christ's teachings, which was, you know, put yourself in that person's shoes. What would it feel like if and I remember a conversation I had with a Peruvian mom to the north of Lima, a major US child sponsorship agency was working there and had been in this community for a number of years, and I was interviewing these mothers and asking them what was good about the program, why were they appreciative and they long list very appreciative Nutritional support that they couldn't have gotten. It was helping their kids in school. Their kids' grades were getting better. There were so many good things about it, full stop. And then there was a pause and there was a woman in the group who kind of looked me over and I don't know if she was trying to assess if this gringo had what it took to hear a negative word. But I said well, I'm sorry, what are you thinking, senora? And she said she goes. Well, how would it feel to you if a foreigner was writing your 11-year-old daughter every month? Your 11-year-old daughter every month? And it just, I mean, it was such a powerful moment for me because I had never, even though I was sponsoring a child at the time, it had never occurred to me. What hubris, what blindness am I operating with in this world that I assume I have the right to advise this 11-year-old girl on her problems in life, the challenges that she's facing? My daughter was about that age at the time and I was like heck. No, are you crazy? Don't you dare think in those terms. You have nothing to say to my daughter. I don't even know you, and yet we believe you know the mission.
Speaker 3:Industries have lulled us into thinking that we, because we have money in our pocket, that we're the answer to these kids' needs, and that's false, and so I think the antidote is to consistently ask that question. Someone needs to stand up and say, huh, how would this action, this project, this drive, this campaign, this effort feel if we were on the receiving end? And I think, what a what a powerful question she gave me. I think we need to apply that potentially dangerous situation that the mission industry sets up is to think in terms of you know, even you know Christ's golden rule. You know that we might, you know, love the other as much as we love ourselves. What would it feel like if we were in their shoes? So I think that's it gives me a little more hope in this situation.
Speaker 3:And I thought to myself what, what is wrong with us? Because I was sponsoring a child in Honduras at the time and I said what is it? I mean, what hubris, what a blind spot that I've never, ever considered how my actions would impact not only this mother but all the folks who care for her. And what advice am I giving her? And what am I basing that advice on? And just the fact that I've got 30 bucks in my pocket each month gives me the right to give her advice for the deepest of her challenges and hurts and dreams. I mean, it's just, it boggles the imagination.
Speaker 3:So I think the gift of this Peruvian mom on that day for me was just to be able to say you know, use the golden rule ask always the question. What would it feel like if we were on the receiving end of this project or campaign or intervention or whatever? Because I think it'll soften a bit, it'll cause us to pause and it'll slow down. Sometimes it's I mean, our mission, project, development ideas can be like a runaway train they just pick up steam and nothing's going to stop them. What if it causes us to pause and we ask the question? I think we need more information. Who could we ask? Well, all of a sudden, that's going to bring us into three cups of tea, or 20 cups of tea, with some of these mothers whose kids we're thinking about and we're hoping to improve their quality of life. Well, let's start asking the mothers, because they surely know what works and what doesn't work in their own community.
Speaker 2:Exactly. I mean, we had a sponsor years ago who kind of reached out to us and said you know, I want the child I sponsor to go to this school instead of that school. And we were like that's not really a decision you get to make. That child has parents and they've selected this school for their child. And it just baffled me that the sponsor would think they had the right for $30 a month to you know and some letters going back and forth to have any say you know, in that decision, you know in that, in that decision and that that thing that you do, the golden rule piece of you know. Ask yourself if, if you were in that position, if the positions were reversed, I found that so helpful. Even down to you know, if, if my allies were to travel to my office here in Northern Virginia on a two week mission and spend, you know, all day, every day, looking over my shoulder and telling me how to do my job better, I might have some feelings about that.
Speaker 2:I might have some you know, questions about that, and so I have found that little trick really, really helpful that just ask yourself, you know, as a parent, how would you feel if some stranger from another country was sending your, your child letters?
Speaker 2:yeah yeah, that's really really good. Um, you posed a question in the book that really stuck with me, um, and and really made me question myself. Um, so I sponsored a child for years and years and years and years. Same child for 10 plus years, probably Same amount every month. Never thought to ask myself why isn't it getting any better? Why does this child still need the same thing year over year over year over year over year, year over year?
Speaker 2:over year over year, if this program is supposed to be improving things, and the thing that struck me about that was not only had I never questioned myself about it, but I never even thought to yeah, yeah, you're not alone.
Speaker 3:You're not alone, laura. Yeah, I do think and this is not about you, because I'll say it on myself right I consistently do this and with all that I've learned in studies and life experience and I spent five years in the Congo and 10 years in Peru and have worked internationally for 30 years Even with that, my privilege blinds me and unfortunately, I can't see around the corner. I've got to go up to the corner and turn and look. And so what I love about short-term mission, what I love about people reaching out through efforts like child sponsorship programs, all of these ways allow us to walk up to the corner. And now we've got to take show the discipline, the gumption of turning and looking in a new direction and opening our eyes and saying what do we see? Because I do, I fear that. I mean, when you look at all the Christians in the world line us up from richest to poorest American Christians, we're in the church of the 1%. We are. We are among the most privileged and and you know current political debates to the side.
Speaker 3:We are among the most privileged and secure economically secure Christians that have ever lived Um, and that that carries with it some real challenges in terms of the lenses that I have to read the Gospels to understand what Scripture is saying, to look at my life, to look at my engagement with the rest of the world, how I'm treating this woman and her child. Not even thinking, you know, not even questioning my own right to write and give intimate advice to her 11-year-old daughter. What the heck is going on here. I do think we're in a sense, addicted to that privilege. Church's engagement in that mission, whether it be through child sponsorship, through orphanages, orphan care, through institutional responses, through short-term mission trips, through sending a group of young people to the food kitchen down the street to help feed some folks who are living in homelessness, Whatever that action is, it gets us off the script. It causes us to stop for a moment. We're leaving that comfort zone that we're all so accustomed to. We know the script, we know what I'm to say and do. It's the typical classroom interaction. Teachers know what they're supposed to say, Students know they're supposed to be passive, compliant and regurgitate for the teacher at the end of the day, what the teacher wants to hear. I mean, that's the game we're playing, right, but mission changes that it allows for the about face that is essential to a turning to Jesus Christ.
Speaker 3:It is as profoundly important as the moment of conversion, and so I think we need grassroots leaders in the church, in every congregation, who are willing to raise a question or share a think piece with folks before a committee meeting is getting together or challenge a comfortable assumption in non-threatening ways.
Speaker 3:All these things that we can do enable us to look with new eyes at this relationship that we're in with the world. So I again, I don't condemn the child sponsorship programs, because I think, if we see them as a stepping stone, Someone needed that concierge care, Someone needed to imagine that Manuel, you know they were Manuel's gift and they're Manuel's salvation. Well, that's bad theology. We all can name that when we say it that baldly. But I think it's a first step and I think God accepts us in our first steps, our desperate efforts to take a step closer to God. And so I think it's now the responsibility of mission leaders, like many of whom are listening to this conversation, to take the next step and help people in their congregation take the next step, so I think that can be really valuable yeah yeah, the next step.
Speaker 2:So I think that's, I think that can be really valuable, yeah, yeah, yeah. You said something a few minutes earlier that I think some in our audience might be surprised by and you talked about. I think you used the word fictive, but you were talking about the relationship the quote unquote relationship that exists between a donor and the child they sponsor, and I think you did use a word like fiction or fictive. One of the challenges of making this transition is facing some difficult realities around what, what it actually is, what, what sponsors think about their money is doing. You know where they think it's going. I think some sponsors think their, their $30 goes to that child or to that child's family, and and that, that, that relationship through letters, what, what is the reality of that? That might surprise some people.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I use the term and it's a technical term in anthropology fictive relationship as opposed to a blood relationship or a marriage relationship. I'm related to people because of blood or marriage right, and that's the only way I'm related to people. Adoption is in fact, a fictive relationship, though it's deep and it can be a lifelong thing, et cetera, but I'm not using it so much in that sense. I do think that the um child sponsorship agencies let's call it an industry because it's it's a big moneymaker, um, billions of dollars, we got to name it what it is Um, those uh industries are working hard to create, um, uh, a sense of relationship where there is not one and at the start of the relationship clearly there's not one. They don't. You know sponsor A doesn't know child A. At the same time, those sponsor agencies work hard through this rain of letters, through responses. You know a teacher will write and say well you're, you know the student did better in scores and congratulations. Or sometimes some of the agencies not all will have other voices that actually write letters, or they'll quote them in the sponsor letters to thank them for what they're doing, either for the individual child or in the conglomerate, for the group.
Speaker 3:And I just think this is a very dangerous thing, because this is playing with the essence of what it means to be human. My relationship with a person I'm constantly assessing, and I'm looking through the lenses of my experience to see who that person is and how they're responding to my every movement and word, and all of that. The agencies come in, though, and they twist that and they say you are everything. Look what you're doing. This kid is so appreciative. You are the cat's meow, you are God's salvation to this child. You should be proud. Thank you, do it again next month. And that, I think, is a very, very dangerous message, because it's creating, out of nothing, a sense of relationship, and that causes me to say, oh well, I think is a very, very dangerous message, because it's creating, out of nothing, a sense of relationship, and that causes me to say, oh well, I've helped. Oh, I understand.
Speaker 3:Oh, honduras, I know all about Honduras. I sponsored a kid there for 10 years, right? Oh, really, really Well, that's great, but I think your hubris, hunter, is blinding you to the complex reality that Hondurans face every day. I don't think you know anything about it. So, yeah, again, not to throw the book. I'm not condemning anyone. I think it is a beautiful first step and if folks are sponsoring children, god bless them. Second step after hearing this podcast, after working with you all and your organization, which you know, hats off to you. It's not easy to be the bearer of some challenging news. We have to face our addiction to this sense of privilege and benevolence and turn a corner and say OK, Manuel, now I'm ready for you and your family, your community, to walk with me so that I get a clearer read on what's really going on in Honduras.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, all right, I'm going to ask you two questions in the interest of time. So the first one is OK, now what? So? Now I've sponsored a child, I've listened to this podcast episode and I still really want to support a vulnerable child somewhere in the world. What should I be looking for instead? What would be a better way for me to engage?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah. Well, I got three quick and easy answers. The first is find other programs, maybe with the same agency. Like, if I'm sponsoring a child through World Vision, shift gears and support the work that they're doing in water development, you know, and it just then all your money goes to these community based actions. So I think finding another program that addresses the root causes of the community's needs and not just rely so as not to rely on that top down development style, I think that's a first choice. So choose a program that doesn't spend so much on making you feel appreciated. That's the first. The second would be pair your support to a child overseas with a child in your own community, a disadvantaged child in your own community that people have understood for a long time. They love those global communities because they always say thank you, they always smile, they never criticize us, they're always appreciative. But folks in our own community, when we help folks across the tracks on the other side of the tracks, they're not as appreciative and that's a tougher relationship. Well, of course it is. We have some history together, right, and we've done that better or more poorly in different moments of that relationship.
Speaker 3:A series of relationships with kids in your own community. It helps to give you eyes for how you can come alongside that circle of care among the surrounding disadvantaged kids in your community. Suddenly, you're going to be wanting to spend some time, you're going to want to have a cup of coffee with that group of moms so you can hear them and what is their solutions. You want to talk to the teachers and the doctors and nurses, the dads who care so much about these kids. So I think it just kind of makes our conversation more honest. We can idealize and exoticize global communities and the kids in them and if we pair it with someone in our own town, it's going to change. We're going to say, okay, but wait, I shouldn't expect that of the foreign kid either. Right, I know I can't say that to a kid in my town, then I shouldn't be able to say that to a foreign kid. So I think that it just makes our conversation more honest. So you know, finding a different program, I think, that doesn't spend so much on concierge services is important.
Speaker 3:To pair your support for a child overseas with a child in your own community is the second. And the third is this let's never stop asking the question. Our five-year-old children and grandchildren ask us, which is why they keep asking that question. So okay, so these people are hungry, got that? And that's why we're sending this team to go and cook for them for a month or two weeks or 10 days or whatever. Great, great. And then, but why?
Speaker 1:Why is it that they're hungry?
Speaker 3:I mean, I'm not hungry in my community, why are kids in other communities and in that community hungry? Suddenly it puts you and there's great resources for this out there, from Heifer International to other groups that can help walk folks through let's play the why game, other groups that can help walk folks through, let's play the why game. And what would happen if we played that why game together with our companions in mission? Suddenly we're going to be seeing both our worlds in very different lenses. And so I'm aware of some communities that have worked on violence in Honduras and gun violence in their Michigan community together because, playing the why game, suddenly they're asking very different questions and those quit that those new lenses are given to them by the power of that relationship yeah, that's really powerful, really, really powerful.
Speaker 2:my friend, jared Shetland, at a Kesa place, this game, that's a version of the why game he calls it, but what's the cause of that? So these people are hungry, but what's the cause of that? Yeah, so these people are hungry, but what's the cause of that? Well, it's hard for people to get jobs, but what's the cause of that? And it's this game of sort of like trying to see how far down you can dig to find a root cause that you can start to address instead of trying to just solve the symptoms on the surface. So, hunter, it's been great to have you on this episode. Really, really love your book. Highly recommend Freeing Congregational Mission to everyone listening, get it, check it out, dog ear it and highlight it the way that I've done my copy. One last question, hunter, and that is what keeps you optimistic about child sponsorship and those kinds of programs and sort of where we're at in this moment.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So at one level, I'm appreciative of the increasing number of questions and critical questions that are coming at the child sponsorship programs. I think that's a good thing, but a lot of people get bogged down. Child sponsorship programs I think that's a good thing, but a lot of people get bogged down. They see, you know it's such. I mean, it's three and a quarter billion dollars, for goodness sake. This is a lot of money and it's a lot of people deeply invested and it ain't going away anytime soon, right?
Speaker 3:I think for me, the cause of hope is that we're not alone, that there are thousands of thoughtful, grassroots leaders asking these same kinds of questions.
Speaker 3:I mean, Laura, you started asking them early on and we are seeing a significant shift in this tide. I do think that now is a time for the I call them disciplined efforts on all of our part to complete this change. So we have each other and I think just to know that there's I mean, this is happening in congregations all across the country I'm not the only one asking these, you know crazy eye questions. At the same time, I think we need to name and just understand that God is with us, because the God who expresses the very image of God as a disadvantaged child whose family is forced to flee violence and immigrate to another country. I mean, this is a God who understands and is seeking to bless, you know, kids all over the world, in our communities and across the tracks from us and around the world. So I find a deep sense of hope that God is moving churches to engage in mission in more faithful and effective ways, and I want to be a part of that movement.
Speaker 2:Me too. Thanks for your time, Hunter. Thanks for being with us. It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 3:My pleasure. Thanks so much for the invitation.
Speaker 4:Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, share it with others, post about it on social media or leave a rating and review. To catch all the latest from us, you can find us at Helping Children Worldwide on Instagram, linkedin, twitter and Facebook Hashtag Optimistic Voices Podcast.
