GRANITE FALLS, NC (November 4, 2016)…Compassion International, a leading authority in releasing children from the bondage of poverty throughout the world, will be bringing its tour, “The Compassion Experience”, to the Granite Falls area December 16-19. The event will educate visitors about the realities of life in poverty as well as provide an international experience to visitors who may not ever have the opportunity to travel abroad to a developing country.
Interactive Tour Immerses Visitors into Daily Life in Another Country…
The Compassion Experience
The four-day event will be set-up in the parking lot of First United Methodist Church at 9 Lakeside Avenue in Granite Falls from Friday, December 16 through Monday, December 19. Friday and Monday times will be 12 Noon to 7:00 PM and Saturday and Sunday times will be 10:00 AM – 7:00 PM. Visitors to The Compassion Experience will be invited to take a self-guided journey where they will be immersed in the lives and stories of two children living in poverty stricken nations. Each child’s story starts in hardship but ends in hope.
The experience includes over 2,000 square feet of exhibit space, featuring replicas of the homes and environments of these two Compassion beneficiaries. The event is free but reservations should be made to reduce crowding. The Experience appeals to all ages and is perfect for families with children.
Rev. Howard Fleming, senior pastor of the church, said that “Bringing the Compassion Experience to our community in December is part of our continuing efforts to celebrate Christmas in a manner that would please Jesus. I believe that Jesus would be happy to see his followers make caring for ‘the least of these’ a more significant part of how we honor his birth.”
“We built ‘The Compassion Experience’ in order to really bring the developing world to America,” said Mark Hanlon, Compassion International’s senior vice president of global marketing and engagement. “When people think of poverty, they often think of the lack of things, the lack of stuff, the lack of money. Those are all symptoms of poverty. The real issue of poverty is the lack of hope. Through our holistic child development program, Compassion stirs hope in children. And you’ll see that hope come to life at this event.”
The Poverty Problem
The tour is highly interactive, using individual iPods and headsets to offer visitors a sense of what life is like in extremely poverty-stricken areas around the world where the World Bank estimates that 700 million (9.6 percent of the global population) live on less than $1.90 a day (USD). In the areas Compassion serves, nearly one in five children die before the age of five, mostly from preventable causes, and 124 million children worldwide do not attend school, according to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS). Tour-goers will have the opportunity to “change the story” of children living in poverty by learning more about the issue, as well as Compassion’s child sponsorship program, which tackles global poverty one child at a time. Compassion currently serves more than 1.9 million children in 26 of the world’s most impoverished countries.
For more information about First United Methodist Church of Granite Falls, visit www.gffumc.org or contact the church office at gffumc@gmail.com or call 828.396.1011.
For more information about “The Compassion Experience,” visit www.CompassionExperience.com, @compassion_exp on Twitter, and www.facebook.com/CompassionExperience on Facebook.
About Compassion International…Founded in 1952, Compassion International is a Christian child development organization that works to release children from poverty in Jesus’ name. Compassion revolutionized the fight against global poverty by working exclusively with the Church to lift children out of spiritual, economic, social and physical poverty. Compassion partners with more than 7,000 churches in 26 countries to deliver its holistic child development program to over 1.9 million babies, children and young adults. It is the only child sponsorship program to be validated through independent, empirical research. For more information on the ministry, visit compassion.com or follow them on Twitter at @compassion.