Interns needed to get away from mundane work and onto the mission field

Last summer's five Orphan's Heart
 interns all called their experience
 "life-changing."

Guatemala (MNN) ― Most college students are taking a break now after weeks of hard work and days of exhausting exams. Enjoying the rest could naturally lead to thinking about the summer.

This summer could be more than just enjoying the sunshine though. It could be life changing.

"Very rarely do students describe their internships as a life-changing experience, but all five of our interns said that very same thing at the end of the summer last year," says Howard Hooper with Orphan's Heart.

Most people at the university level need to do some sort of internship. Orphan's Heart summer interns are able not only to get that requirement over with, but to do it while impacting the lives of precious children.

"With Orphan's Heart, you have an opportunity to make a lasting impact on the lives of some of the neediest children in the world," explains Hooper. "Guatemala's known, unfortunately, to have a 45% malnutrition rate among its children."

Interns spend a great deal of their time at the Orphan's Heart Malnutrition Center where kids are nursed back to health. The interns' job is to help direct and administer the volunteers that come to the Center, but also just to love on the children.

While most internships involve being stuck in an gloomy office doing mundane work, Orphan's Heart interns are able to get out on the field and work as a missionary would--living out Christ's love to everyone they encounter in Guatemala.

"We're not only ministering at the Malnutrition Center, but we're also ministering in the grocery store, we're ministering in the local market....We're able to witness, we're able to share, we're able to be light in a dark world wherever we go," says Hooper.

As if these life-changing elements were not enough, the logistics of the Orphan's Heart internships are icing to the cake. Interns essentially get to choose their own schedules: they need to be available for at least four to five weeks over the summer, but it can be in June or July. Orphan's Heart will work around schedules.

As any missionary would, students are required to raise their own support, which, including airfare, is about $3,500. Orphan's Heart will help you get started.

If you or someone you know would be interested in a life-changing summer for college credit with Orphan's Heart, check out the details at the ministry's Web site. Potential candidates can apply atwww.orphansheart.org. 

Beverly Hills and Hollywood High School Students Given Controversial Holocaust/Abortion Movie

Nicolas Cage, Beverly Hills High
 School alumni; Picture
 by Gerald Geronimo

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 9, 2011 /Christian Newswire/ -- Thousands of students from Hollywood, Burbank, and Beverly Hills High Schools received a free copy of "180" the controversial award-winning movie that has had 1.4 million YouTube views and more than 23,000 comments, in just over one month. The movie opens with 14 people (mainly college students) who have no idea of the identity of Adolf Hitler.

Ray Comfort, the creator of www.180movie.com is Jewish, and says "These young people are ignorant as to perhaps the darkest period of human history -- because the American education system has failed them. We want to change that." The movie not only contains graphic Holocaust footage, but it also compares the Holocaust to American abortion. Late last month, over 180,000 copies were given away at 100 of America's top universities, including UCLA and USC. More than 250,000 copies of the DVD were sold within a month of its release.

Comfort said, "Our plan is to give away hundreds of thousands to American high school students, starting in our own backyard and moving across the country. Students from Beverly Hills, Burbank, and Hollywood High are future actors and leaders in the entertainment industry who will eventually influence a generation." Past students from these schools include Carrie Fisher, Nicolas Cage, John Ritter, Scott Baio, Kirk Douglas, John Wayne and many others. Comfort adds, "Young people are more open to ideas than the older generation, and seeing '180' will almost certainly influence them to become pro-life, for life." One student recently wrote: "I'm a senior at a public high school in West Virginia...Because of '180' I was able to turn around the entire class opinion about abortion and by the end of the class 25 of the 25 students and my teacher as well had all raised their hand agreeing that abortion should be illegal." 

Christians respond with prayer to Chile's continuous protests

Chile (MNN) ― Educational strikes in Chile may have lulled in violence, but they are far from over.

One article reports that 20 students from various high schools in Chile are currently on a hunger strike, prepared to forgo their academic year and their health for the cause.

Thousands of high school and university students have been demanding radical changes to the educational system in Chile for the past several months. Over the last two weeks, peaceful protests turned violent as students attempted to takeover a TV station to broadcast their concerns, lit fire to buildings, and led police to bring tear gas into crowds to quell protests. According to the BBC News, damages to public and private property have now reached $2 million.

Crowds of up to 100,000 have stormed the streets of Santiago-crowds including ordinary Chileans banging pots and pans in favor of the students and against the government-to demand fairer education.

Many perceive the Chilean education system to favor rich students, providing them access to elite, private education, while shunting poorer students into under-funded state schools. The BBC reports that the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), which recently ranked 65 countries on various educational components, placed Chile at 64 out of 65 countries for segregation across social classes in schools and colleges.

Some are going as far as to call the Chilean educational discrepancy an "educational apartheid." Most agree that the system could use a reform, especially since the system was mainly privatized under 17-year dictator Augusto Pinochet and has remained the same since his 1990 office exit.

As Christian students survey the scene, however, many are not responding with violence, but with prayer. About 30 students gathered in the Plaza de Armas in Santiago last Friday--and for the last several Fridays--to praise God and pray for peace.

"These students are not protesting the educational system in Chile, like so many of their peers have done in violent street demonstrations across Chile," explains International Mission Boardreporter Wilson Hunter. "Instead, these Christian students are singing praises to God and bowing their heads in prayer."

They're praying for wisdom and direction for everyone involved, but they're also praying for spiritual change.

"They're praying for their universities and for government leaders. They're praying for the violent protests to end. But most of all, they're praying for their peers to come to Christ," notes Hunger. "‘Prayer is powerful,' says the organizer of the student prayer meetings. ‘Prayer is the way to find a solution to this problem.'"

Pray with these students for peace, and for the Gospel to break in and fill the hearts of all those involved. Pray for Christians students to be bold in their proclamation of Christ.

The International Mission Board has a firm presence in Chile. Learn more about their work here.

Kids at Risk of Going Blind Rescued Through Education

Kids at the Bridge of Hope
 centers are taught about
 how to prevent blindness.

South Asia (MNN) ― Imagine waking up and finding that your whole world is dark. Not because the sun hasn't come up yet, but because you are suddenly blind. You will never watch the brilliant colors of a sunset. You will never see the faces of family members.

What if you knew there was a way it could have been prevented?

Bible college students withGospel for Asia (GFA) recently responded to the crisis of blindness in children of developing countries. Educational rallies were held at GFA's Bridge of Hopechildren centers across South Asia.

Blindness has claimed the eyesight of 12 million children worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. 19 million children are deemed visually impaired.

90 percent of these cases are in developing countries. Many cases of blindness could have been stopped by simple education on the needed vitamins and prevention techniques.

A key vitamin necessary for eyesight is vitamin A. Vitamin A is found in foods such as spinach, eggs, cantaloupes, milk and carrots (looks like the eye doctors were right.)

Unfortunately, the developing world is hit the hardest with blindness because kids in poverty often don't have access to these foods with vitamin A. Malnourishment increases the risk that a child will one day go blind.

Part of Gospel for Asia's crusade against blindness is to provide vitamin A drops to the children at Bridge of Hope centers. These drops are taken by mouth and substitute when the needed food with vitamin A is not available.

On top of giving these vitamin A drops to the kids at Bridge of Hope, Bible college students also went out into the village communities to administer vitamin A drops to the elderly. Conditions such as cataracts and myopia put the older generations of a community at high risk to blindness.

Free informative literature was also handed out to further teach people on the causes and prevention of blindness.

This outreach ministry of eyesight education is just one program brought to the children at Bridge of Hope and their community. Bridge of Hope centers exist to educate kids and share the love of Christ.

Children who are enrolled in a Bridge of Hope center learn Bible verses, hear Bible stories and are taught songs that share the Gospel message.

By bringing in a ministry that helps prevent blindness in kids, these Bible college students paved the way for kids at Bridge of Hope to grow seeing the world around them and hopefully come to see the saving grace of Jesus Christ.

See GFA's slide show here.