Hey Guys!  Until I figure out how to include his blog as a smaller segment of my website, please check out his blog via this link Ben Gagne's Blog .

Ben is on a Missionary World Race - visiting 11 countries in 11 months.  Extraordinary!  Please follow along with his journey - you will be amazed and fascinated about the reality of the world's various cultural practices and encouraged by the profound impact that simple kind gestures can have.

Here is an excerpt from his latest entry:

by Ben Gagne on 3/16/2011  Cambodia was definitely a milestone month for me...

R.E.A.CH. stands for Relief, Education, And CHild sponsorship. A small Canadian registered charity run by Nicole's husband, Art Barron.

Most of R.E.A.CH's programming is in Uganda, Africa. For only $20 a month, sponsors can help a child to get everything they need to get an education.

“It's hard for most people to believe how bad it really is in Uganda,” Art comments about his first trip to Africa. “We hear about the African people and everything they face, but it’s hard to believe exactly how bad it is until you see it for yourself. They have so much stacked up against them. The communities where these children live are in dire poverty - the poorest of the poor – so their families are not able to provide the basic necessities of life like education, medical services, clothes and food. And they lack the required knowledge to break that cycle of poverty.”

“But I have to believe there’s hope,” Art exclaims. “Our organization believes that education is the key to breaking that cycle of poverty. One child at a time, we can make a difference by making sure he or she gets everything needed to stay in school by linking them with sponsors from Canada. Education helps him or her to develop skills and knowledge to bring them up into a better way of life.”

“We send every penny of the $20 per month sponsorship to provide necessities such as medicine, food, books and school fees for the child. Part of the money also goes toward providing rural community development projects and HIV/AIDS Awareness programs for their guardians and community. We do separate fundraising to raise money for our operating expenses so that we never have to touch the sponsorship money.”

For more information about R.E.A.CH. or to become a sponsor, visit www.reachint.org.