Minutes for Mission

Think of your favorite seafood restaurant. About what would it cost to have a nice fish dinner for two?

For about that much money, you can provide someone in Bolivia with 500 fish fingerlings to start a fish farm that can feed people day after day after day. Add the cost of a few more meals, and you can also provide fishing nets.

Two-thirds of Bolivia’s people live in poverty. Often hungry, perpetually malnourished, they are easy targets for illness. Out of every ten children, one child will never have a fifth birthday. In the Andes Mountains where these families live, it’s hard to find good sources of protein. Raising cattle is out of the question because cattle require land for grazing and plenty of food to eat.
Fish farms, however, give Bolivian families protein-rich meals, meaningful work to do, new hope for the future, and even ways to help others.

Through gifts from Week of Compassion, Bolivia’s people can “farm fish” in local ponds. Healthy fish help create healthy families; and healthy families — stronger, prouder, and with blessings they can pass along to others — help create a healthier world.


In darkness the wind howls, the rain pelts fiercely, the streets fill with rushing water. You and your family, huddled together in a corner of your house notice the water seeping into the room; then you hear the roof and the walls beginning to give way.

During Hurricane Mitch, one family after another experienced such terror. As the entire village of Los Corralitos, Honduras, was washed away by the storm, the 309 inhabitants struggled to save their lives and to keep their families intact

But the nightmare didn’t last forever. Funded in part from Week of Compassion, volunteers soon arrived with blankets, tents, medical supplies — and willingness to help. The people of Los Corralitos, stoutly putting aside their despair, added their efforts to those of the volunteers. Amid the mud and mess, rebuilding began right away.

And new hope followed. As the tiny village worked to put itself back together again, a restored village began to arise out of the devastation. Today, Hondurans haven’t forgotten their fear of the hurricane; probably they never will. They also have not forgotten that the outside world cared enough to help them start over and that a new life is possible. The rebuilt village, which its people have appropriately renamed, is now called Nuevo Corralito.


A little over a year ago when 1999 be came 2000, many people wondered if the dreaded “Y2K” predictions would come true. Would havoc erupt? Would we find ourselves without electricity, food, water? One man in southern California, fearing a water shortage, reportedly stockpiled some fifty barrels full! Villagers in Prey Char, Cambodia, weren’t worrying where their clean water would come from once the calendar changed. Funds from Week of Compassion had helped them dig new wells and buy pumping equipment. The whole village participated and the whole village rejoiced. These Cambodian villagers illustrate how gifts to Week of Compassion help recycle blessings. We give to the offering, which translates into tools and supplies for people who need them — and who put them to work. As that work keeps on working, the benefit spreads to countless others.

The villagers of Prey Char no longer fear the dry season — the time when in years past, cattle died and children inevitably fell sick. Week of Compassion, in partnership with the Cambodians’ own willing labor and meager resources, has helped establish a new pattern of long-term health and security. Because you have given a little, the Cambodians can do a lot. In return, who is blessed? A family. A village. A country. Ultimately, all of us.

Rows of beans, corn and squash. Vine- ripe tomatoes from your own background. A plot of herbs ready for the picking. For many of us, a kitchen garden is a kind of hobby. We buy seeds and tools, seek advice from a friend, and spend leisure hours cultivating our own source of summer vegetables. If you lived in another country, your family might well have to depend on home produce for survival. But what if you lacked the basic tools for starting a garden — and had no way, no hope, of getting them. Simple material things, so readily available for us, may be a huge hurdle for people elsewhere in the world. By giving to Week of Compassion, you can help put tools in the hands of people who need them. A wheelbarrow. A hoe. A shovel. A rake. To many families, such tools are treasures.

Throughout the world, families are waiting to partner with you. If you can help supply the tools and seeds, people can plant their gardens. And if people can plant their gardens, God can feed us all.

Many more stories of your WOC dollars at work can be found on this WOC web site.