FH’s Community to Community (C2C) partnership is a relationship between a community in the developing world and an American church. By getting personally involved with the poor, churches are able to work towards lasting change within the context of a strong relationship. FH strives to facilitate true transformation for both the American church and the international partner community.
Every C2C relationship is different. However, we have found that over the long term, the most vibrant, successful C2C relationships regularly serve, give, and connect with their partner community, and regularly educate their church congregation about issues of poverty. Two important ways C2C churches serve their partner community are through short-term teams and by identifying a core team of people (led by a volunteer church advocate) who are catalysts for keeping the church engaged with their community. Through child sponsorship and donating to community projects or relief efforts, C2C churches give financially to their partner community. By praying, communicating updates about the community, and consistently bringing the community before the congregation, C2C churches connect to their partner community. And, successful C2C’s educate their congregation about the issues of poverty through opportunities such as FH’s annual Summit conference, 6:8 Sunday and other educational resources and programs.
Food for the Hungry will walk beside you as you partner with your international community. A Food for the Hungry Regional Manager or Leader Advocate will meet once a month via phone with your church advocate to offer encouragement, updates and resources. Once every three months your Regional Manager or Leader Advocate will have a conference call with the church advocate and core team to pray and plan a strategy for keeping the church involved with the community.
Core Elements of the C2C Partnership: Serve, Give, Connect and Educate
SERVE
Church Advocate
Identifying and nominating a Church Advocate is a key component of initiating the C2C relationship. This representative from your congregation will serve as the liaison with FH and link your church to your partner community. The Church Advocate will receive training and meet once a month with a Food for Hungry Regional Manager or Leader Advocate.
Note: The Church Advocate nomination process and interview will be conducted by an FH Regional Manager or Leader Advocate.
Core Team
We encourage C2C churches to identify a Core Team, led by the Church Advocate, that will work together to spread the vision of the partnership in the congregation, and in the church’s neighboring community. The Core Team plans and implements the church’s strategy for serving, giving, connecting with the community, and educating the wider congregation about the work of Food for the Hungry and issues of poverty. This Core Team meets four times a year via conference call with a Regional Manager or Leader Advocate for encouragement, prayer and accountability.
Short-term Teams
We require each C2C church to go on at least one short-term team to their community. Teams focus on a specific need or project determined by the field they are visiting, such as building school classrooms, water systems or latrines. The team provides essential skills, labor and funds to help the community meet its needs. Teams also typically visit the homes of community members, teach the local children in a Vacation Bible School type setting, and sometimes preach or teach in the local church. Short-term trips are great opportunities for team members to meet their sponsored children in the community.
Hunger Corps Missionaries
Food for the Hungry offers the church a chance to make a longer term impact in their partner community by sending church members to serve 3-4 years as Hunger Corps missionaries. Hunger Corps missionaries live and work internationally and raise their own support. Opportunities vary community to community, but include work in the following areas:
- administration
- agriculture
- child development
- communications
- community development
- computers
- short-term teams coordination
- education ● health and nutrition
- social work ● teaching English as a second language.
GIVE
Child Sponsorship
Your congregation and local community will have the opportunity to develop personal relationships with needy children in your community through child sponsorship. Both the children and your church benefit from this relationship. As the people of the church support, pray for, and communicate with the sponsored children, your church will gain a new understanding of another culture and what it means to bring help and hope to a child. Conversely, through your church’s involvement, some of the world’s most disadvantaged children will have their most urgent and basic needs met, such as nutrition, healthcare, and education. Each year, your Church Advocate will work with the Core Team and your Regional Manager to determine a goal of the number of children your church wants to sponsor.
Community Projects
Most likely your church will have the opportunity to donate financially towards special projects in your partner community. Community leaders, working with FH staff, have the final say in prioritizing special projects in the community. In the past, C2C churches have raised funds for projects such as water systems, latrines, school buildings, and libraries.
Disaster Relief
Thirty percent of Food for the Hungry’s work is with disaster relief. Churches have donated funds towards relief work all over the world, and also have donated towards disaster relief specifically in their community when their community has suffered from flooding or other disasters. If your C2C community suffers from a natural disaster or complex emergency (such as political unrest) we will keep your church updated on what is going on, ways to pray, and ways to give towards FH’s relief efforts.
CONNECT
Prayer
One of the most important elements of a C2C partnership is prayer. Prayer is the fire that fuels the work that is happening in churches and their partner communities. Your church will discover important ways to regularly pray for your communities during your short-term team visits, and through the community updates and prayer requests sent from the field.
Community Updates
Three times a year you will receive written updates from the field staff about your partner community. These updates will include progress of special projects in the community, major events in the community, and prayer requests and praise reports. A great way to help the church stay engaged with the community is to share these reports up front in the worship service, the church newsletter or Sunday school classes.
Field Staff Visits
C2C churches can initiate visits from international FH staff to their church. Because this means time away from their field responsibilities, it must be approved by the Country Director, and coordinated through FHUS staff so that the visit can be maximized- i.e. other churches or the FHUS office may want the staff to visit. Churches can begin the process by talking to FHUS staff, who will seek approval from the Country Director, and will then invite the field staff. C2C churches are responsible for funding the visit to their church, but often expenses can be mitigated by coordinating with another US trip.
EDUCATE
Summit Conference
Every winter, Food for the Hungry hosts the Summit Conference, a time when Advocates, Short-term Team Leaders and members, C2C churches and others come together with international FH staff to learn more about FH and the work around the world. At the conference, participants hear first-hand stories from the field, learn what other churches and Advocates are doing, discover new resources and tools, and become better equipped to lead short-term teams. We encourage all C2C churches to send Core Team Members, Church Advocates, pastors, Short-term Team Leaders and others to the conference.
6:8 Sunday
Every October, churches around the nation wrestle with the mandate of Micah 6:8 by hosting 6:8 Sunday in their congregation. Churches explore such questions as: How can we be a part of doing justice for the oppressed around the world? What does it mean to offer mercy to those who are suffering? How can we humble ourselves before God as we care for the poor? On 6:8 Sunday, people learn about the need around the world, understand more about God’s heart for the poor, and find out ways they can get involved. FH provides resources such as sample sermon outlines, small group Bible studies, templates for 5, 10 and 15-minute presentations, DVD’s and children’s sermons and lessons. 6:8 Sunday is a great way to bring your partner community before your congregation and help the relationship grow deeper.
Educational Resources
We believe that a Biblical approach to development is crucial for long-term success in helping a community rise out of poverty, and want to help churches understand this vision. We offer resources, including Bible Studies, the Poverty Unlocked podcast, a four-week poverty curriculum and books that will further introduce your church to Christian principles of development, God’s heart for the poor and FH’s model for international development. FH also offers several interactive teaching tools: the Hunger Banquet, Hungry Decisions booklet, Disaster Relief Simulation and Answer the Call Weekend guide. All of these resources are available either online or from your Regional Manager.
GoED.
The GoED Semester Abroad program allows college students to receive course credit for working overseas in an FH field. The program offers students the chance to live life in an international community, participate in guided spiritual formation, study under a rigorous academic curriculum and engage in a supervised practicum field placement. GoED. is currently offered in China, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia. Other countries will be added in the future.
Domestic and International Internships
A Food for the Hungry internship is a supervised work experience that exposes college students and recent graduates to the vision and mission of meeting spiritual and physical needs worldwide. Domestic interns get a first hand look at what it takes to run an international Non-Government Organization (NGO) stateside. International interns work side by side with our international staff while engaging community members on a daily basis. Internships are 20-40 hours a week, and range from 2-6 months. Domestic internships are offered in both FH’s Washington, DC office and Phoenix, Arizona office. International internships are offered in the following countries, though the list may vary year to year: Bangladesh, Burundi, Dominican Republic, DR Congo, Indonesia, Philippines, Rwanda and Uganda.
