Watermark in Africa

Someone recently asked this question.  Below is the specific question, and our answer.  I am sure others have the same question, so we wanted to share more broadly.  Let us know if you have more questions.

Question:  I have been wondering about this ministry and would like to understand why we are starting a support ministry for children in Uganda, rather than partnering with Compassion International, or World Vision, ministries that are already up and running, that are doing an incredible job of mentoring and raising up children in the faith of Jesus Christ.  (Like Paul, I am a fan of run-on sentences!)  I support a little boy in Kenya through Compassion International, and that is why I want to know the answer to this.

Answer:

Thanks for the note.  We are definitely encouraged by the work of Compassion, WorldVision and the hundreds of other ministries that are caring for children.  Likewise, we are grateful that our partner, ALARM, has identified these 300 children in great need that are not being cared for by the other ministries caring for children (like WorldVision and Compassion).  We see how God has chosen to have ALARM help minister to these children, and we are humbled that we get to care for these children with ALARM, along with the microfinance, water wells, education, trauma healing, and other ministries we do with ALARM.

Watermark has been caring for these children with ALARM over the past couple years, and as we looked to move from having the church simply support all of them to having individual members sponsor them, we looked at a lot of options.  We met with Richard Stearns, CEO of World Vision, and other leaders of World Vision about Watermark and ALARM caring for these kids while placing the kids in the World Vision program.  We also met with Tom Davis, CEO of Children’s Hope Chest, about a similar set up.  We considered other ministries as well.  None of them was ideal.

At the same time, some members of Watermark who do technology work and love using their gifts for Christ asked if we would let them create a website to easily allow our members to sponsor these kids we were already caring for alongside ALARM.  We soon realized this would drive the administrative costs to be much lower than having another ministry administer the interface for us.  At the same time, it would allow ALARM to continue caring for these kids in a way that encourages us in its holistic, gospel-centered, church uplifting manner.

We are grateful for all the ministries that care for children, and love how God uniquely allows each ministry to identify kids in need of holistic support.  This includes ALARM, World Vision, Compassion, Children’s Hope Chest, Rafiki, and many others.

We continue to meet with many of these ministries, considering whether this is who God wants us to partner with, along with our many EXISTING partners in Africa, including ALARM, e3, Living Water, World Vision, IJM, World Relief, and others.

We have a team of men and women in Burundi right now.  They are teaching in Gitega, which is the geographically  central city in the country.  This is also the first town where we ever taught in Burundi, back in October 2006.  I received info from Kyle Thompson today, who is one of the key leaders for our Africa ministry.  He went along with our core team in order to further explore how we can build our ministry beyond teaching in Burundi along the same lines as what we are doing in Uganda.  Kyle reported back today that things went very well on this front.  He met with leaders from ALARM and Living Water.  The rig we assisted Living Water in purchasing is now in country, and Living Water has begun hiring staff in Burundi.  They are currently working out of ALARM’s office.  I can’t tell you enough how encouraging it is to see parachurch ministries work so well together.  It is a real testament to the Christ-centered focus of both of these ministries.  We also began to catch a vision for our orphan care ministry in Burundi as well.  More later!

Also, please remember that the next two teams will be heading to Uganda and Congo in the next few weeks.  Please be praying for both teams.

We shared the below video with our church body on Sunday.  If you are a member at Watermark and want to join us in sponsoring a child, please go to http://watermarkworldwide.com/ and select Meet The Children.  To God be the glory…