Uganda (MNN) — How might child sponsorship be leveraged to change the child’s community for Christ as well?
AMG International has wrestled with questions like this for years, Brian Dennett says. The organization recently tested a new model called Participatory Integrated Planning, which Dennett says has been used in other development scenarios.
“But we wanted to heavily modify that to be church-centered [and] gospel-focused,” he notes.
“The idea is that we take parents of sponsored children and we help them to learn how to dream, how to plan for their future, how to take stock of the resources that they have, and then consider what the gaps in their life are in realizing those dreams and hopes.”
Sharing their plans for the future (Photo courtesy of AMG International)
Other ministries are working with AMG to strengthen economics alongside its child sponsorships. Pilot efforts in Uganda have had outstanding results. On a recent trip to Uganda, Dennett met a family with a story to tell. After a year of making and pursuing plans, they had new crops, a beekeeping business, and much more.
“They shared images that they had drawn of their living conditions a year ago, and then the plan they had come out with to transform their entire life, including their property,” he says.
“It’s just beautiful to see the pride they had in their property, and all of this operating alongside the child sponsorship program. Then the fact that the family was also encouraged to be a part of our local church there and are growing in their faith.”
In Uganda, one woman shared at a community meeting with AMG and its partners that their local community was working together like never before, “thinking through how how to have a brighter future for the whole village, and AMG, kind of serving as a sidekick, lovingly coming alongside them, along with our partners and and leading them down this path,” Dennett says.
As always, the gospel revolves around everything AMG seeks to do among families and communities.
“We consider these opportunities to start conversations, to love people well, and to show them Jesus through our work,” Dennett says. “To see people come from darkness to light in communities like this is just beautiful.”
Would you pray for AMG’s mission in Uganda and prayerfully consider sponsoring a child in need?
“Visit AMG kids.org and sponsor a child, and you’ll not just change the life of [that] child, but the whole community,” Dennett says.
Click to visit amgkids.org today.
New crops of a family who took deliberate stock and made plans for their future. (Photo courtesy of AMG International)
Header photo of sponsored kids courtesy of AMG International.
