Childhood should abound with joy, fun, laughter, and carefree wonder—yet for millions of children around the world, these formative years are marked by hardship, hunger, pain, and struggle.
Globally, nearly one in five children live in extreme poverty, lacking the resources to sustain their growing bodies and minds (UNICEF, The State of the World’s Children 2025 Report). Children require the basic essentials of education, health, housing, nutrition, sanitation, and clean water to live and thrive. Yet today, 417 million children are severely deprived in at least two of these categories.
These numbers paint a painful reality for vulnerable children around the world—but we cannot simply stare at this heartbreaking picture. We must act!
Through One More Child’s Global programs, we meet the physical, spiritual, emotional, and medical needs of vulnerable children and struggling families in 19 countries. By partnering with local leaders, we address the unique challenges facing each community while prioritizing efforts that uplift and strengthen them.
One primary way we accomplish this mission is through Child Sponsorship. Our sponsorship program supports children in developing nations by providing food, medical care, clean water, educational opportunities, and the chance to hear the Gospel. Sponsorship empowers families and gives children the opportunity for a more stable childhood and a brighter future. For just $42 a month, you can plant seeds of hope and transform the future of a child in need.
Love Grows Here
Mardi felt a calling from God to serve children. After moving from Taiwan to New York City, he knew he wanted to support those in need but didn’t know where to start. Through serving at his local church, his path became clear: invest in the lives of children and make a lasting difference.
Mardi continued to seek the Lord in prayer, and eventually he learned about child sponsorship, wondering whether it truly made a meaningful impact. Then God opened the door for Mardi to join a mission trip with One More Child to the Dominican Republic.
Despite being the only member from his church on the trip, the team welcomed him like family, and they joyfully served together. While in the Dominican Republic, Mardi saw One More Child’s sponsorship program in action. He witnessed the partnership with the community, the provision of nutritious food, the teaching of Scripture, and the genuine love growing throughout the community.
He saw that Child Sponsorship makes a tangible and eternal difference.
Then Mardi met a young girl named Reyna.* While the team served the community, Reyna often approached Mardi, eager to play. The joy of this 8-year-old girl touched his heart, and he saw how our ministry cared for Reyna and her mother. However, while they received general support, Reyna was not yet sponsored.
Moved by compassion, he met with Reyna’s mother and shared his desire to sponsor her daughter, committing to pray for and faithfully support this family.
God answered Mardi’s prayers, guiding him to Reyna, a child made in the image of God whose life Mardi could invest in and impact for eternity.
In reflection, Mardi shared with our team, “This was a life-changing experience for me—one I will never forget.”
*Name changed for privacy.
Answer the Calling
“But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.”
1 John 3:17-18 (ESV)
Scripture is clear—we display God’s love through our actions, through our care for the vulnerable. Just as Mardi felt a direct call from the Lord, God calls all His children to this mission.
Here is the challenge we give you: go to the Lord in prayer and ask Him to reveal how you should live out this calling. May we not be idle in doing good, but eager to bless others as God has blessed us.
You can show God’s love in deed and in truth by sponsoring a vulnerable child today.
