In 2007, Christian Missionary Fellowship launched a bold initiative to help the children living in the urban slums of Nairobi, Kenya: a church-based child sponsorship program.

The program is an important ingredient of Hope Partnership developed by CMF missionaries Keith and Kathy Ham and Wallace and Mary Kamau of Missions of Hope International in the Mathare Valley of Nairobi.

The Kamaus opened a school, Mathare Hope Center, for poor children living in the Mathare urban slum in 2000. Many of the children are orphans whose parents have died from HIV/AIDS. All live in abject poverty. The child sponsorship program was developed as a way for churches stirred by the poverty and toll of the AIDS pandemic to offer direct help to the “least of these” in Jesus’ name.