Special Message from Willet

I just returned to my hometown in Maryland after a 2 1/2 week tour with WILLET at Ichthus Festival, Bash on the Farm, and Alive Festival. On this tour, over 150 children got sponsored between Willet shows and the festivals! Praise God!

I decided to spend my off day in Westminster, MD where I was meeting a friend for lunch. As I was waiting outside the restaurant for him to come, I overheard a conversation between a college-aged girl, and an older gentleman. They were talking about “helping other people”, and made this comment;

“I’m so tired of hearing about people going to Haiti, and helping poor kids in Africa! We have our own problems here in America!”

I have heard this argument a thousand times, and It took everything inside of me to stay silent, especially because they made mention of the places that we primarily work in (2 communities in Ethiopia, 1 in Mozambique, and 1 in Haiti). Although I do agree that we have problems in the U.S., and I do believe that we should be very active in helping those on our own soil, I disagree that we should only be interested in helping domestically. I could have given them 100 reasons why we should serve both locally and abroad, but I refrained from confronting them about it because sometimes simply our actions speak louder then arguing over where we should help. I thought about this statement all day long, and wondered, is there one main reason to summarize why we should help children around the world as well as the United States?

When I got back to my office to begin going through a mountain of mail, it hit me.

In the mail was a letter from a boy that my wife and I sponsor through Food for the Hungry. Meet Mathewos from Belo, Ethiopia.

Mathewos lives with his parents, 5 brothers, and 3 sisters. He is in 4th grade, helps with farming, and is turning 11 on July 28th! I had just written Mathewos a few weeks ago asking him some questions. His response gave me the reason that we should help ALL children around the world. I have received many letters from him, but this one was different…

“Jesus Christ greatly changed my life and we now have a Bible in home and we read at devotion evening and morning. All family, brother, stister, father, and me read Bible everyday and we also believe every word.” – Mathewos

“Jesus Christ greatly changed my life“. Since the last time I wrote our sponsored child, Mathewos prayed to trust Jesus as his Lord and Savior! Rejoice!

That is the reason that we cannot ignore the poor around the world. Jesus saves.

We can discuss all day about physical needs and specific strategies for relief, development, building projects, hygiene, food distribution, medical stations, school buildings, and clean water, but when it all comes down to it, a child living in poverty, or in wealth is a child who is lost unless they’ve found the Savior; Jesus.

The God I serve is not confined to one country in the west. To believe that we should only be concerned with fellow Americans rather then helping globally is to suggest that 95% of the world’s population does not count. I’m not OK with that. The rest of the world does matter, and people, like Mathewos, are coming to find the love of Jesus!

I find great joy in knowing that FH is helping to provide clean water, food, education and medical assistance through our sponsorship…but the salvation of one of our precious sponsored children is reason to celebrate! Today, the angels in Heaven rejoice! Let’s join them….

To experience the joy of sharing the Gospel and providing for physical needs to a child living in poverty, join us today by sponsoring a child at www.willetonline.com/sponsor.