Survive Under Five

"And God will generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others." -2 Corinthians 9:8

As I read and watch the reports from our mission partners around the world, there is one particular concern I see woven in almost every report, and I believe it is something we must respond to immediately.

Young children, under the age of 5, are in great danger.

The first five years of life are the most critical for survival; and severe drought, famine and shrinking food supplies in many parts of Africa, South America and India are quickly pushing up mortality rates among this age group.

We have seen an increase of babies and young children who are severly malnourished coming to our LIFE Centers, feeding outreaches and medical clinics. Sadly, it's a need that will not just go away, and it certainly cannot be ignored.

We need to act to help these youngest of the young, those most vulnerable to sickness and disease.

While you often see smiles on the faces of even the poorest children in this part of the world, there are no smiles at this clinic. For these children, life is measured in hours, not days or weeks.

Our goal and mission can be described by this one phrase: "Survive under Five."

Caring for extremely malnourished children is more intense and more costly than our normal outreaches. But lives CAN be saved even in the face of pending death, and because I believe this is something we need to do . . . we have made a commitment to provide a minimum of 400,000 Emergency Nutritional Feedings with your help.

Powdered milk, an extra fortified nutritional soup mix, and feeding administered through I.V. lines all add to the cost to help save an infant child's life, as much as tripling the cost in most cases.

But even with those added costs, it's only about 50 cents per emergency feeding! That means every $100 we can invest in this outreach will help provide 200 Emergency Nutritional Feedings (ENFs) for children under the critical age of five.

With our immediate goal of 400,000 ENFs, time is not on our side, but I believe we can and will save lives through our extra efforts. Young lives are counting on us!