 |  |
 |
| |
|
| Sponsorship is Born
On Xiamen Island in the Formosa Strait, at a school run by Christian missionaries for 400 Chinese girls, he encountered a ragged and hungry child named White Jade. Her father had beaten her and kicked her out of the home for visiting the mission. The school, with not enough food for its pupils, had none to give her. Bob Pierce suddenly came face to face with the enormous social implications of the gospel wrapped up in the vulnerable child whose arms were wrapped around his neck. Dr. Pierce gave the school’s headmistress his last $5 and promised to send more. He continued supporting White Jade each month until he lost contact with her in the 1949 communist takeover of China. This means of monthly support in a Christian school environment would later become a founding plank for World Vision’s child sponsorship program. Applying a Model of Support After traveling again to Asia — this time to Korea to shoot scenes for another film — Bob Pierce felt God’s call to develop a more formal means of raising support for victims of emergency situations and orphans. On September 22, 1950, in Portland, Oregon, Pierce signed incorporation papers for a new service organization called World Vision, formed to meet the critical needs in Southeast Asia. With a press pass as his ticket to the Korean War, Dr. Pierce returned to Korea and captured on film the suffering of this land’s abandoned, lost children. Roaming Korea’s bombed-out streets in search of scraps of garbage as their next meals, these orphans had touched his heart. Remembering the support he gave White Jade, Dr. Pierce offered U.S. Christians who saw his film a chance to help Korean orphans the same way he had photographed them — one at a time. World Vision took the word "poverty" and gave it a face — a photo on each of the small folders Dr. Pierce offered his listeners in churches across the country. |  | 1-888-511-6548 : P.O. Box 9716 World Vision is a Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to working with children, families and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
© 2008 World Vision Inc. | Site Search : Sitemap : Privacy / Security : Contact Info : Careers : Spanish : Korean : FAQs : Links : Donor Service | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
