Nothing is more uplifting than seeing the smiling face of a hungry child receiving a nutritious meal, or a mother with tears of joy in her eyes because she knows she’ll be able to feed her family with the bag of food staples she just received.

During a recent trip to Guatemala and Honduras, a couple of our staff members were able to capture some moments like these with photos. Below are a few of the many grateful faces they saw while visiting feeding programs we support in Central America.

We are able to feed needy people such as these because of the continuing support of American Catholics. Click here to learn more about the feeding programs we support around the world and how you can help.

As Jesus said in Matthew 6:19-21, “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Father Oscar Camomot, who runs KAMAMA Orphanage in the Philippines, takes this passage literally by placing his treasure in the Lord and in the children he cares for each day.

Father Oscar Camomot trusts that God will provide for the children in his care.

In Cebu City, Fr. Oscar devotes not only his time to the 19 children that live at the orphanage, but also his small personal pension from the Archdiocese of Cebu. If the orphanage falls short from time to time, Fr. Oscar uses his own money to pay the bills. To a man who gives almost everything for the children in his care, amassing worldly treasure isn’t important. Fr. Oscar knows that if he didn’t use his retirement account when necessary, the orphans might not receive the meals and school tuition they need.

Fr. Oscar also lives out Jesus’ words in Matthew 6:25: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear.” Fr. Oscar trusts that God will provide for him and the children at KAMAMA Orphanage. With his faith and leadership, the children at KAMAMA  understand how important it is to store up treasures in heaven, not here on earth.

Cross International Catholic Outreach is committed to helping Fr. Oscar meet his orphanage’s budget. We commend Fr. Oscar for giving so selflessly out of what little he has, and we hope that American Catholics will help us make sure he has enough money each month to keep this important ministry running—without using his whole pension.

Click here to read about KAMAMA Orphanage and other programs for orphaned children that Cross International Catholic Outreach supports around the world!

First the good news: ten African countries are only half as poor as they were two decades ago.

Young children in sub-Saharan Africa face an uphill battle for survival against poverty, hunger, and infectious diseases.

Now the bad news: child mortality rates have actually gone up, rather than down, in six sub-Saharan nations. Sub-Saharan Africa holds the unfortunate distinction of being the only region in the world that has seen an increase in the mortality rate of children under age 5. That’s according to the U.N. Millennium Development Goals Report Card released on Tuesday.

What makes this report particularly relevant to us at Cross Catholic is that most of our work in Africa is in the sub-Saharan region. Two of the six countries listed in the child-mortality report are Zambia and Kenya, where we are providing food, health care, housing, and education to the poorest of the poor.

Waterborne illnesses and other infectious diseases are leading causes of child deaths in sub-Saharan Africa, while HIV remains a major threat, directly and indirectly, to the health of children. In many cases, lives can be saved by simple improvements in home sanitation and by educating HIV-infected mothers to bottle-feed their infants. Good nutrition plays a vital role in fending off disease, and children must be kept in school because they are the producers of tomorrow’s wealth, which will in turn provide the food, medical care, and healthier way of life their society needs. Cross Catholic is promoting all these developments through partnerships with local Catholic clergy and laypeople who understand Africa’s struggles and know how to make a difference, one family at a time, one village at a time.

Click here for a complete list of all our current Africa projects that you can get involved in today!

This past Sunday, many of us took time to honor that special someone who taught us how to ride our first bicycle, change our first tire, catch our first baseball, and get through life without calling a plumber or asking for directions. Father’s Day was celebrated in 52 countries around the world, from Cuba to Greece to Afghanistan.

Reencontro is saving the lives of orphans and vulnerable children in Mozambique.

The Bible has some important things to say about the value of godly fathers. “A righteous man who walks in his integrity – How blessed are his sons after him.” (Prov. 20:7) Even the Trinity itself is described in terms of a Father-Son relationship.

Sadly, many children have never known a father’s love. Some are orphans, others abandoned, others imprisoned in a home life wrecked by drug and alcohol abuse. The absence of a father figure helps to perpetuate the cycle of poverty in countries where even healthy, intact families struggle to get by. That includes Mozambique, where Cross Catholic is working with a local ministry called Reencontro to provide shelter, food, clothing, health care, and emotional support for AIDS orphans and other vulnerable children.

Thirteen-year-old Alicia came to Reencontro after her father passed away and her family was thrown out on the street. The Catholic-led program gave Alicia’s family a place to stay, saved her little sister Lidia from severe and incapacitating malnutrition, and enrolled Alicia in a Catholic boarding school, where she has learned to trust in her heavenly father to supply all her needs.

“I used to think that I wanted to become a nurse, but now I feel that my vocation is to become a nun,” Alicia said. “So in the future, I want to dedicate my life to the service of the church and to those who suffer.”

Click here to learn more about how Cross Catholic is reaching out to fatherless and vulnerable children.

This week, Cross Catholic was visited by Fr. Marc Boisvert from the Espwa orphanage in Haiti. One of his staff members, Nathalie Amyotte, shared a personal story that painted a vivid picture of Haitian poverty and the importance of Fr. Marc’s work.

Jamesley (center) and two of his brothers getting a physical at the Espwa orphanage.

One night, as Nathalie was getting something to eat, she saw children on the street begging for food. They were calling to her by name, because she often would help them. But this time, something was different.

“There was one child who was apart from them and he wasn’t begging and he wasn’t asking for anything,” Nathalie said. The boy was holding a plate of old chicken bones, and she realized he had collected them because he had nothing else to eat. Suddenly, another child bumped into the plate and knocked it over, scattering the bones across the ground. The boy raised his voice and cried as if grief-stricken.

“His cry will stay with me my whole lifetime. It haunts me. Because his little chicken bones had been thrown to the ground and that is the only meal he was going to have that day,” Nathalie said. “I went to see him because I heard this cry. He was trying to wipe the dirt off his little chicken bones. And I said, ‘No, no – let’s go eat.’”

After feeding the boy, whose name was Jamesley, Nathalie visited his home. She learned that his mother was pregnant with her eighth child and about to get kicked out of her home. Nathalie rushed to Fr. Marc and told him there was a family that needed help. Without a second thought, he responded, “Let’s go.”

Fr. Marc gave Jamesley’s family money for food, paid for a year’s rent so they wouldn’t be kicked out, and welcomed Jamesley and his brother into the orphanage.

Nathalie told us, “They’re going to school. They eat three times a day and he is thriving. I said to Fr. Marc, ‘I love that you didn’t even question it. You just said, let’s go.’ And he said, ‘But that’s why we’re here.’”

That’s also why Cross Catholic is there – to reach out to children like Jamesley and save them from despair. Click here to help us make a difference in the lives of impoverished Haitian children at the Espwa orphanage.

It is sometimes difficult to hear the heartbreaking stories of the people we help, especially when they involve children. What keeps us encouraged are the stories we receive from our partners detailing how dire situations have been turned around and lives are renewed.

(Left to right) Siblings Nancy, 5, Humphrey, 8, and John, 4, had been living on their own for three years until a Catholic school supported by Cross International Catholic Outreach rescued them and placed them in a loving home.

One of those recent stories came from a Catholic school we support near the second largest urban slum in Africa.

Meet siblings Humphrey, 8, Nancy, 5, and John, 4. Four years ago, their mother sold them to a woman living in the infamous Kibera Slums of Nairobi, Kenya. When the staff of a nearby Catholic school we support found out what had happened, they helped the children enroll in school and put them in their grandmother’s custody.

But their troubles were far from over. After a few months, their destitute grandmother abandoned the siblings to go earn a living on a distant farm, and the children spent the next three years caring for themselves.

They lived in a one-room, iron sheet house in the middle of the bush. The windows and door didn’t close, the floor was made of mud, and there were gaping holes in the roof. Humphrey, who wasn’t even in third grade yet, juggled work and school, desperately trying to support his younger siblings, but they often went without food. Weekends were especially difficult because they did not receive a school lunch to fill their empty bellies.

When the staff at the school went for a home visit, they quickly realized that the siblings had been abandoned. The staff arranged for the children to stay with a catechist and his family at the local Catholic mission compound. The siblings are now clothed, well-fed, and able to attend school every day. Their happiness is evident by the gaping smiles always on their faces. They are now receiving the care and love every child deserves.

Our Catholic benefactors enable us to support several life-saving programs like this one in Kenya and other Sub-Saharan countries. To learn more about our work with orphans and vulnerable children in Africa, click here.

In Haiti, one thing has always been certain. Through all the poverty, tragedy, and violence that has plagued the small Caribbean nation, Haitians have always celebrated Carnival.

Many churches were destroyed in the earthquake. But Haitian’s faith in God remains strong

But not this year.

The lively annual festivities, which would have begun Sunday and ended today, have been set aside, so the Haitian people can observe three days of mourning and fasting. Haitian musicians cancelled their Carnival performances and instead are raising money for earthquake relief.

It’s amazing how God can use the worst of tragedies to remind us that he is in control. We are confronted with our own helplessness, with our absolute dependence in God’s mercy and compassion. Shortly after the earthquake struck, our own staff reported seeing groups of people openly praying and worshiping God amid the ruins of Port-au-Prince. Though the church buildings were destroyed, the faith of the people remained intact.

As Cross Catholic begins to look forward to Haiti’s long-term recovery, we consider our spiritual focus an integral, rather than peripheral, part of our mission to the poor. The people of Haiti need hope, and our mission partners are there to lead them to the only hope that lasts. Whether we are supporting orphans at Pwoje Espwa, building houses for destitute families through the Kobonal Housing Project, or helping the Haitian Health Foundation rescue malnourished children from the brink of starvation, we do our work in Christ’s name, because he is the one who changes lives. A meal will sustain a child for a day, and the sturdiest rebuilt house will eventually weather away, but Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection sustains us forever.

This week, Cross Catholic staff met with Haitian mission partner Gladys Mecklembourg, who runs an orphanage on the country’s west coast, to learn how her ministry is coping with the earthquake crisis. We have provided funds to help Gladys meet emergency needs as she balances her responsibility of caring for her children with efforts to reach out to suffering people throughout the community.

Gladys Mecklembourg’s orphanage is providing space for earthquake victims to stay while receiving post-operative care.

By God’s grace, all the children and staff at the orphanage were unharmed. But Gladys says the kids are afraid to sleep at night because of the aftershocks, and they are worried about relatives they haven’t heard from since the quake. The children will need a lot of counseling to recover emotionally from what has happened.

Gladys told us that four nurses are currently staying at the orphanage to provide post-operative care for medical patients who are being brought in from an overcrowded hospital. Gladys has an on-site clinic, and she has turned the boys’ dormitory into a temporary hospital where amputees and other wounded and ill patients can recover in safety and comfort. The boys have been relocated to other facilities on the 93-acre property. Gladys said there is also possibility of setting up a tent camp on the grounds for the many refugees who have no place to go.

Despite the challenges facing Haiti and our Cross Catholic mission partners in the aftermath of the quake, Gladys expressed a positive vision for the future, applying the words of Isaiah 61:3.

“We trust in our heavenly father to raise up a new Haiti, to bestow on us a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. We will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the lord for the displaying of his splendor. This is the word the Lord had given us at Togetherness for Christ, and we believe in this, and we know there will be a change in Haiti. Not only in the structure, but in the heart – the heart of the people…. There is solidarity among us.”

For the latest news on how we are supporting our Cross Catholic mission partners in Haiti, visit www.crosscatholic.org/relief.

Old news: a prominent religious scholar wants China to pass a law guaranteeing religious freedoms.

New news: The scholar, Liu Peng, is getting publicity for his cause in China Daily, the official government English language newspaper of China. How’s that for a twist!

Cross Catholic President Jim Cavnar recently visited a Chinese orphanage for disabled children.

Liu Peng’s freedom to promote legal reforms in a government newspaper is being interpreted by observers as a sign that Chinese officials want to build a better relationship with unsanctioned religious groups, including the Protestant house-church movement as well as “underground” Catholics, who comprise about two-thirds of all Chinese Catholics.

Earlier this year, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao extended an olive branch to religious-minded citizens when he announced the government’s intention to “enable religious figures and people with religious beliefs to play a positive role in promoting economic and social development.”

The impact of Catholic social services in Chinese society has no doubt played a role in weakening the walls of distrust between the Church and the government. That should be an encouragement to our Cross Catholic ministry partners in China, as they go about the business of rescuing the country’s most vulnerable children from abandonment and death.

Without Catholic agencies such as China Little Flower in Beijing, the government hospitals and orphanages would not know what to do with the many premature babies and critically-ill or disabled children who are left there by parents. China’s one-child population control policy has had an unintended side-effect of encouraging families to abandon special-needs children. This in turn has created a need for Catholics to step in and do the work that no one else wants to. Many times, this means simply loving a child and being there for them during the final days of their very brief lives.

God’s call to defend the orphan is as relevant today as it was when the Bible was written!

Sunday, Nov. 29, marked the advent of Advent – a traditional Catholic observance that often gets upstaged by Thanksgiving on one end and Christmas on the other, especially now that the Christmas season seems to begin on Black Friday or even earlier!

But Advent is important. For one thing, it’s the liturgical version of New Year’s Day. Everything begins with Advent. Catholics prepare themselves during this time, through prayer and fasting, to be in the right place spiritually to celebrate the anniversary of Christ’s birth and to receive him as our Redeemer.

First Things editor Joseph Bottum writes that Christmas needs Advent, and Advent needs Christmas:

“Through all the preparatory readings, through all the genealogical Jesse trees, the somber candles on the wreaths, the vigils, and the hymns, Advent keeps Christmas on Christmas Day: a fulfillment, a perfection, of what had gone before. I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not nigh.”

This Advent, we should contemplate the hope we have in Christ, and how we can share that hope with others. We bear the good news the world has been waiting for! And we can demonstrate the power of the message by joining it with acts of compassion, such as by providing food, shelter, and medical care for orphans.

Like the angel who appeared to the shepherds bearing the news of Christ’s birth, you can be a bearer of peace and hope to the world. Celebrate this Advent by joining with Cross Catholic and serving the poorest of the poor today!