The young Chinese girl was beaten and fled home for professing faith in Christ after hearing the American evangelist's message of a loving God. "What are you going to do about her," the veteran missionary Tena Heolkeboer asked the young evangelist Bob Pierce. Tena was already caring for six children; another was financially impossible.

That question prompted a response that has been changing lives now for 50 years. Bob gave Tena money from his pocket to care for White Jade and, like the biblical Samaritan, promised to send money for her upkeep. Such were the humble beginnings of World Vision and child sponsorship.

Bob was never the same after that encounter. In the early 1950s he became a voice for the suffering in war-torn Korea. The needs of Asian orphans compelled him to serve and engage other Christians in acts of caring. While reporting on the war and its terrible impact, he wrote this in the flyleaf of his Bible: "Let my heart be broken with the things that break the heart of God."

For 50 years this has been World Vision's prayer--our guiding passion.

Bob Pierce ministers to children in Korea.