ICCM's Worldwide Impact • 20,250 sponsored children • 97 elementary schools • 8 secondary schools • 14 study centers • 10 hostels • 2 street schools ICCM in India Children who have received spiritual training through ICCM are choosing to impact India for Christ. In April, for the second year, teams of boys from three hostels — Ambarnath, Anandpuram and Umri — embarked on 10- to 13-day evangelistic trips to remote villages. The 60 hostel students accomplished the following: • Tracts distributed — 123,653 • New Testaments distributed — 818 • Personal contact and prayer with 5,072 people A fourth team had not yet completed its ministry at press time.

ICCM Director Ann VanValin with a friend

International Child Care Ministries (ICCM) is a Free Methodist child sponsorship program helping children in more than 30 countries around the world. Through education, meals, medical care and spiritual training, children in need are given an opportunity for a better life. To find out more, check out www.childcareministries.org.

Children Living on the Edge

• more than 1 billion children living in extreme poverty
• 5.8 million child victims of pedophile racketeers per year
• 15 million babies born malnourished
• 70 million abandoned children and infants
• 25 million child-abuse incidents per year
• 349 million homeless/family-less children
• 120 million megacity street children
• 670 million school-agers not in schools
• 3.5 million under-age-5 deaths per year from vaccine-preventable diseases
• 940 million with little or no access to schools (67% of those eligible)
• 15 million orphaned by AIDS
• 2.5 million diarrheal deaths per year
• 340 million handicapped children
• 200 million exploited in child labor
• 4 million child deaths of pneumonia
• 500 million orphans

(Sources: World Christian Trends, David Barrett and Todd Johnson; Viva Network) 

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Epiphany at a Spotlight
Kevin Austin, FM Missionary in Thailand

We are stopped at the red light. Cars and motorcycles, trucks and buses. The time clock next to the light is ticking down in bright green. We all know how much time we have.

She is in the back of a pickup. Twelve years old? She looks cold in the early morning light. Her younger brother wiggles next to her. Where has she come from? Where is she going? She looks around as if seeing things for the first time. Maybe she is from the mountains and going shopping for supplies with her family.

… 59 seconds and counting …

A young boy walks from car to car selling strings of sweet-smelling jasmine. I see him at this intersection day after day, night after night. Dirty T-shirt and worn jeans; jasmine perfectly white on its string. Why isn’t he in school? Where is his mother?

… 31 seconds and counting …

A newly washed Mercedes is in front, a dirty truck behind. The mountain temple in the distance glows gold under a clear blue sky.

… 19 seconds and counting …

Time seems to stop. The crush of humanity rushes to stand still; the clock is counting down.

Down to zero. Down to eternity. Down to a hope sung loud and clear by creation all around us, a grace springing up for all to see, an existence on earth — living or dying, heaven or hell. But does the jasmine boy hear the songs of hope? Does the pickup girl see the grace? What about the businessman in his Mercedes? What about the teenagers weaving to the front of the line on their motorcycles? What about me trapped in my car at the intersection?

Eventually the clock ticks down to zero. The motorcycles roar into the distance. The jasmine boy pauses on the roadside waiting for the next red light. The pickup with the girl in the back turns, and I lose sight of her. I drive on thinking of the faces and lives of just a few caught by the light with time ticking down ... time ticking down ... .