How It All Starts

Have you ever wondered how all this charity we're involved in starts? It's not hard to find out and when you go looking you find the stories are all very, very similar. It starts when God connects one person to another person.

In the year before her accidental death my mother had the chance to travel to Thailand. Mom had never had any overseas international travel experience so this trip was a big deal to her. But something happened on that trip I didn't hear about until her funeral when her husband shared this story...

Mom and her husband, Johnny, were shopping in the streets of Bangkok where street children pursue tourists relentlessly asking for money. At some point my Mom stopped, knelt down and connected with one of the children. As she took time with him Johnny said, 'Judy, you can't help all these children.' She turned to him and said, 'No, but I can help this one.'

Dig far enough back into the history of any charity and you will find someone like my Mom kneeling down on the street of some far away place looking into the eyes of a child and saying, 'I can help this one.'

Compassion International, now a global ministry with donations in excess of half a billion dollars started when Rev. Everett Swanson felt compelled to help 35 children orphaned by the Korean conflict.

World Vision, which sees donations in excess of a billion dollars a year and works in nearly 100 countries started when Dr. Bob Pierce, who was an American evangelist and war correspondent traveled to China with Youth for Christ in 1947. On that trip, Bob’s heart was broken when he was confronted with the need of one little girl. 

Kids Alive International cares for orphans in a dozen countries and began in 1916 in Shantung Province, China, when missionaries Leslie and Ava Anglin began taking in homeless Chinese children.

ABAN started in 2008 when Callie Brauel and Becca Brandt took a college trip to Ghana and saw the plight of street children there first hand.

FIKISHA started in 2009 when Sam Bretzmann took a trip to Kenya to climb Kilimanjaro and instead ended up meeting young Isaac on the streets of Nairobi. 

It starts when one person's heart is touched by the need of another person. Often the person in need is a child. Where God takes it once that connection is made is totally up to Him. We simply put ourselves in places where the connections can be made.

God touched my heart when I first visited Kenya in 1999 and saw the needs of so many people. Now I am moved to do more than take the occasional team there to work with the orphans of Jehovah Jireh and the blind children at St. Luke's in Kitui. I am launching The Shepherd Fund to change lives for the better and I have no idea what God will do with it. But that's how it all starts.

Click here and donate to help launch The Shepherd Fund.