Not just educators — they’re ministers of the Gospel to children in need

One of my greatest joys is visiting ChildHope classrooms. Children enter the class and are able to leave their cares at the door. Teachers greet each student, often with a question about their home lives; that is because our teachers care about each individual child and his or her needs….

Recently I was talking to a teacher and she shared a story with me. Ambar told me that math was hard for many of her students. She didn’t like putting red marks on their papers when they got the problems wrong. So when a student would hand in the math test she would quickly review it and often send students back saying, “I think you can do this problem better, try again.” 

She recalled one student, Natalie, who really struggled with math. Ambar encouraged her and helped her through every problem, telling her that she could do it.

Recently Natalie asked her mother to relay a message to Ambar. She was about to graduate from high school with plans to continue on to university, and she wanted her 4th grade teacher to know that she made it.  

Because of Ambar’s encouragement years ago, Natalie believed in herself and was able to be successful in school. The mother handed Ambar a tattered, folded piece of paper. Ambar opened it and immediately recognized her own handwriting: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”  

She remembered a day years ago when Natalie was especially discouraged. The dedicated teacher wrote down the Scripture on a small piece of paper and quietly

handed it to the student. Natalie carried that Scripture with her on that paper and in her heart all these years, and it gave her the strength she needed to succeed.

Stories like this — of dedicated teachers, filled with the love God, who really know their students and go the extra mile to help them know God’s love and to succeed in their education — are repeated throughout Latin America and the Caribbean in ChildHope schools.

These teachers are not only educators; they are ministers of the Good News of Jesus Christ to the children. They take Jesus’ mandate seriously:

“Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these” (Mark 10:14b).

So many things can hinder a child who was born into poverty, but ChildHope teachers — including your sponsored child’s teacher — really know the needs of their students and help remove things that might hinder them from coming to Jesus and from being all that God wants them to be. 

This month I want to honor all of those teachers. They work long hours to educate our sponsored children. They are the ones on the front lines who know each student and minister to their individual needs. 

Join with me in praying for these heroes. They continue to teach, filled with God’s love and hope, even through the COVID-19 crisis — sending lessons home for the children, along with encouraging messages; they’re delivering lessons through text cell phone messages. They’re keeping education and relationship alive for children in need.

Please pray that God blesses the teachers and their families, that He provides for their needs, and that He gives them creativity and wisdom to teach in these challenging times.

Thank you! And thank you for being their partners, through your sponsorship and prayers. Together with these teachers, you’re changing young lives forever.   


[From the September 2020 issue of ChildHope’s Compañeros publication.]