Children have an amazing ability to relate to others their own age, regardless of cultural differences. They are able to understand and sympathize with experiences in ways that adults never can. For this reason, children are often the best advocates for other children in need.
Taking your child overseas to visit the developing world can be one of the most effective ways to help your child understand the realities of poverty. Hearing teachers instruct school children in a foreign language, smelling the pungent odor of a rotting garbage dump, eating fried plantains and other culturally unique foods, hearing a child cry because of hunger pangs, seeing hundreds of rickety shacks so close together they are practically stacked on top of each other – these are experiences that will stay with your child forever.
In Deuteronomy 4:8-9, God instructs the Israelites to teach their children the laws He has just given them.
And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today?
Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.
God's Word is filled with commands regarding our calling as believers to reach out to the poor. Don't we, then, have the same responsibility the Israelites had to teach these things to our children and our children's children? What better way to do this than to give your children firsthand experience with poverty and allow them to develop their own heart for reaching out to the poor?
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