Chedeline and Vidler

Since 2016, the youth program of our church has been using monies collected from fund raisers to help two children in Haiti. Their names are Chedeline, a girl and Vidler, a boy. The program is part of Compassion International . The money used comes mostly from the chili lunch and the decorated pumpkins event held in October. Our church sends in a monthly donation plus a little extra for each one's birthday and for Christmas. We often receive a letter from the children, written in their language and handwriting and translated in English. They tell us about their daily life and how much they love their church and Jesus. My Children's Worship class has written back a couple of times.

Here is a little information about the children, who are now teenagers. Chedeline is seventeen years old. She lives with her mother and helps take care of the family's animals and helps with cleaning. Her favorite subjects in school are Social Studies and Language. She is attending vocational training and is studying Para-Medical/ Health services. She hopes to have completed the training by December of 2030. Vidler is sixteen years old. He lives with his father and helps by gathering firewood. He likes art in school and football and soccer. He is not currently enrolled in any vocational training.

Compassion International is a Christian child sponsorship organization that helps to raise the sponsored child out of poverty by meeting the child's "right now" needs of nutrition, medical care, and encouragement, and their "long term" needs of education and vocational training. This is done with the help of their local church. The pastor and other church workers know the children in their community and know what needs are most important. They come to love the children and share the gospel in ways the children can understand.

This should sound a little bit familiar. In our church family, we work to know and come to love our children, too. When they meet the requirements, our church helps them to attend the college/university of their choice through the Ealey Scholarship Program. In our community, we support The Samaritans Food Pantry that we know feeds many hungry children, as well as the Nora Sparks Warren Library afterschool snack program. Our church has helped older children by donating to the Ministerial Alliance Youth Fund (twice a year). We have also accomplished a lot for children with the monthly Narthex box collection: we collect toiletries and sanitary items to give to the high school counselors to distribute to kids as needed; we help the Mary Abbott House by donating art supplies that help a child who has suffered a traumatic event; this month we are helping LOVE PV to give all students the same, best school supplies. So, please remember this article for each month's donation for kids here and especially give generously to this October's lunch and Decorated Pumpkin youth event to support our kids in Haiti.

--Tina