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Helping Hands: A Family ActivityThis activity helps children focus on the idea of helping others.

Count the number of hands in your family. If you have pets, include the paws and wings! How many total hands do you have in your family?

Discussion: • Why did God give us hands? Together, list all the ways you might use your hands in

the next hour (make lunch, scratch your head, point, etc.).• How often do you use your hands during a typical day? Track the number

throughout the day by writing tallies. Summarize your findings at the end of the day!• Discuss the everyday events of your child’s life that involve using his or her hands.

Activity:• Trace each of your family members’ hands on a piece of colored construction paper. Cut them out.• On each paper “hand,” have the participant write a way to use his or her hands to help other family

members this week.• Display the hands on your refrigerator or string the hands together on a piece of yarn to display in your

home.• For more fun, cut out more hands and write other ways to help family, friends or neighbors in the coming

week. • At the end of the week, look at the paper hands you created together, then celebrate and thank God for

the many ways your family used their hands to help others during the week.

Discussion: To help your kids link the idea of helping others with reaching out to children in poverty, read and discuss this passage from Leviticus 23:22: “‘When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and for the foreigner residing among you. I am the Lord your God.’”

Explain that God teaches His people to care for those who don’t have enough food to eat. Ask: Why is it important to help those who have less than you?

Point out to your kids that there are some children their age in the developing world who can’t go to school because they have to work to help their families have enough food to eat. Ask: How would you feel if you couldn’t go to school and learn, but had to work instead?

As a family, talk about what you can share with people in need.

PARENTS’ GUIDE TO EDUCATING KIDS ABOUT HELPING CHILDREN IN NEEDAdapt these ideas to fit the children in your life! Help kids learn about children who live in extreme poverty and how they can make a difference.

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All About Shelter: A Family Activity This activity helps children become aware of what it means to live in a safe home (something not all children get to experience).

Activity:If possible, take a walk in your neighborhood or on a safe city street. Ask your children the following questions:• Try to imagine who lives in all of these homes or apartments. Are they families,

young singles, college students or elderly folks? What kinds of jobs do you think they have? Where might they go to school? How might they have fun? Do you think they go to church and believe in Jesus as their Lord and Savior? What might be some of their needs?

• Make a list of all the different kinds of materials that were used in the construction of the buildings you observe. Write them on your notepad as you walk. Are there bricks? Wood? Nails? What kinds of windows, doors, etc.?

• What is a shelter? Are these shelters? (Hint: A shelter is a safe place that protects us from the weather and other dangers.) Discuss with your children their opinion of what every person needs to survive and live in addition to a protective shelter (air, water, food, love, friendship, etc.). Encourage your children to think beyond the typical “surface” answers a child might give.

Have your children read or listen to the following scriptures that refer to shelter: Psalm 91:1-2; Isaiah 25:4.

Discussion:• Think of all the ways you feel and believe God is a “shelter” for you and your family. What do you think

the word refuge means? How does God protect us? Why does He take care of us?• Can you remember a time when you were afraid and turned to God in prayer to help you?• “Shelter” can be more than a strong building, home, or place to stay. You can be a “shelter” for someone

else. What qualities of friends make them a safe person for you to talk to or trust? How might you be a “shelter” or safe person for your friends?

Activity:• Using five to 10 index cards, invite your family to brainstorm and draw a picture on each card to

represent things that many children do not have. (For example: food, clothes, shoes, water, medicine, family, house, bed, school, etc.)

• After a few minutes, place all of the cards in the center of the table and have each family member pick a card and talk about what life would be like without the item on the card. Point out that many children around the world have little in the way of those basic items.

• Ask each family member to write a prayer on the back of his or her card related to the pictured item, then place the cards in a container. Adults or older children can assist younger siblings.

• Choose one card each day of the week to read and share for prayer time with your family.

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Family Table Talk: Safe Water

Present your child or children with this fact: Most kids in developing countries don’t have safe water to drink. During the time you are talking together, keep a glass of safe water nearby. It will be a reminder of how blessed we are to have safe water every day.

Discussion:• 4,000 children in developing countries die every day from diseases caused by

drinking or bathing in filthy water. What kinds of things can make water unclean or unsafe to drink? [Pollution, parasites, bacteria ...]

• How does pollution make water dirty and unsafe to drink? What kinds of waste do you think might pollute the water?

• Unclean water also carries harmful bacteria and parasites. Remember a time when you were really sick to your stomach (and/or had a bad case of diarrhea)? Imagine feeling that way every day, and not getting better. What would that be like? This is what children in poor regions suffer when they drink unsafe water ... bacteria and parasites make them very sick, and many even die.

Ask children to imagine they are riding a bike or playing games or sports really hard, so they are hot and thirsty. Suddenly they see a water fountain in the park or gym and run over to get a cold drink. Ask: Where does that clean water come from? How can we as a family help save God’s water and His creation, the Earth? Have kids thank God together in prayer that they enjoy safe water to drink.

Activity:• Cut out some very large “drops of water” from blue paper. • Look at a world map/atlas as a family. Choose a country where many children do not have access to

safe water on a regular basis.• Write the name of that country on the cut-out water drop. Put the drop near your water faucet or

refrigerator.• Every time you get a glass of water to drink this week, pray for that country to help its people get

cleaner water. • Put into practice some of these ideas: Turn off the water while you brush your teeth or shampoo your

hair; fill your water bottles instead of buying new plastic bottles of water for daily use; take a shorter shower or use less bath water in your next bath. (Together, come up with more ideas!)

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Additional Ideas Here are some more ideas to help children engage with the issues of poverty.

Don’t Be a Party to Poverty

Hold a party for a group of children. Set up tables with six children at each table. Set out plates and cakes, finger foods, drinks – but only for four of the six places.

Ask the children at each table how they feel about it.

Explain that the two children at each table who don’t have any food represent the world’s children who live in poverty and hunger, which is one-third of all children. And the children who have food represent the children in the world who have plenty to eat.

Encourage the children with food to share with those who do not. Tell them there is more than enough food in the world for everyone – we just need to get better at sharing it.

A Thankful Picture

Collect some magazines and catalogs that have lots of pictures. Ask your children to go through the magazines and cut out pictures of things they like. This might include pictures of toys, food, holidays, friends, etc.

Have children glue their pictures onto a sheet of paper and write prayers of thanks for the nice things they have in their lives.

One-Dollar Day

Agree as a family to have a one-dollar day, on which each person has only a single dollar to spend for the entire day. Give each family member a dollar. Discuss:

• What choices will you make?• What will you do with the dollar?• What can’t you do – what will you have to miss out on?• How can you be creative with the dollar – perhaps as an individual, or as a family, or as a whole

community – to make it really “work”? (For example, combine all the dollars to produce tickets for a fundraising event.)

At the end of your one-dollar day, share stories about how the day went. Consider donating the average amount that you or your family would typically spend in a day to help others in need.

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Compassion Homeschool Curriculum: Exploring God’s Global Family

You can find a variety of detailed lesson plans to help children experience ways to care for children in need, including:

• Reaching out with the gospel to children in poverty• Praying for those in need• Giving and tithing• Being stewards of God’s earth• Helping others in need

Just visit compassion.com/christian-home-school.htm.

BRING YOUR FAMILY TO THE COMPASSION EXPERIENCE

Compassion is bringing a free, all-ages event to your community that will help your family experience what life is like for kids in the developing world. Change the Story: The Compassion Experience is a 3,000-square-foot immersive exhibit that lets you step inside a home in Uganda, walk through a market in India and visit a school in Bolivia — all without getting on a plane. The event features the true stories of three children who give you an inside look into their world, how they live and why their stories will never be the same.

To find out more about this free event and reserve a spot for your family, visit

compassion.com/change.