Join Mark Turman, Executive Director of Denison Forum, as he sits down with Jason Pieratt, President of Children’s Relief International (CRI). In this episode, they discuss the mission and work of CRI, which focuses on meeting both physical and spiritual needs in some of the world’s poorest regions. Learn about Jason’s personal journey from reluctant teacher to dedicated missionary, and the incredible impact of CRI’s programs in areas like child nutrition, education, shelter, and more. Discover how you can get involved, whether through prayer, sponsorship, or mission trips, and be inspired by stories of transformation and hope in communities across the globe.
Powered by RedCircle
Topics
- (00:43): Exploring biblical righteousness
- (02:22): Introducing Jason Pieratt
- (04:37): The founding of Children’s Relief International
- (08:22): Jason’s transformative experience
- (13:21): Core mission and distinctives of CRI
- (18:32): Living bridges: A unique approach
- (22:27): Addressing global poverty
- (25:39): The power of education
- (29:08): Integrating physical and spiritual needs
- (31:38): Raising local leaders
- (33:52): Sponsorship and personal connections
- (36:03): Encouragement for aspiring missionaries
- (39:24): Future vision for CRI
Resources
- Children’s Relief International
- Instagram: CRI
- Facebook: CRI
- X: CRI
- How has Denison Forum impacted your faith?
- Stand firm. Engage boldly. Transform deeply.
- Subscribe to The Daily Article by Dr. Jim Denison
About Dr. Jason Pieratt
Dr. Jason Pieratt grew up in Iowa and Brazil, the son of missionaries, and began his career as an elementary school teacher. In 2002, he took his first trip with Children’s Relief International (CRI)- an experience that stirred a deep sense of calling. After several years of discernment, Jason said yes to the missionary vocation and joined CRI full-time in 2010.
He holds a Master’s in Cross-Cultural Ministries from Dallas Theological Seminary and a Doctor of Intercultural Studies from Western Seminary. Since joining CRI, Jason has helped shape programs, mentor missionaries, and deepen global partnerships. In 2020, he was named CRI’s President.
Jason and his wife, Lindy, live in Rockwall, Texas, with their three children—Keller, Cannin, and Merit. He enjoys time with family, working in the yard, and cheering for the Nebraska Cornhuskers.
About Dr. Mark Turman
Mark Turman, DMin, serves as the Executive Director of Denison Forum, where he leads with a passion for equipping believers to navigate today’s complex culture with biblical truth. He is best known as the host of The Denison Forum Podcast and the lead pastor of the Possum Kingdom Chapel, the in-person congregation of Denison Ministries.
Dr. Turman is the coauthor of Sacred Sexuality: Reclaiming God’s Design and Who Am I? What the Bible Says About Identity and Why it Matters. He earned his undergraduate degree from Howard Payne University in Brownwood, Texas, and received his Master of Divinity from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. He later completed his Doctor of Ministry at George W. Truett Theological Seminary at Baylor University in Waco.
Before joining Denison Forum, Mark served as a pastor for 35 years, including 25 years as the founding pastor of Crosspoint Church in McKinney, Texas.
Mark and his high school sweetheart, Judi, married in 1986. They are proud parents of two adult children and grandparents to three grandchildren.
About Denison Forum
Denison Forum exists to thoughtfully engage the issues of the day from a biblical perspective through The Daily Article email newsletter and podcast, The Denison Forum Podcast, as well as many books and additional resources.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
NOTE: This transcript was AI-generated and has not been fully edited.
Dr. Mark Turman: [00:00:00] I am Mark Turman, executive Director of Denison Forum, and this is the Denison Forum podcast. We’re glad to have you with us as we think about things that matter. Our goal at Denison Forum is to equip and empower you to think live and serve intentionally for the kingdom of God. Kind of that Matthew 6:33.
Experience of seeking first the kingdom of God and that as we do that together we will hopefully see God bring about the cultivation of great flourishing communities, both our community and communities, where he is already at work and where we might be able to get involved. With him in various ways.
And so we’re gonna talk about that today. One of the things that’s a big pillar for us in terms of, of kingdom work is what we sometimes call biblical righteousness. How do we raise up ministry and how do we become servants intentionally that help the world to be a better [00:01:00] place? Whether we’re talking about how we treat immigrants, how we treat the the orphan.
How we treat the widow, how we treat the alien. The Bible has a lot to say about that Jesus and other places in the Bible. How do we share the gospel and, and share it creatively and intentionally? How can we meet physical needs so that we have the opportunity to also meet? I. Spiritual need.
We wanna try to bring all of those things together and our conversation today is gonna help to do that in many ways. Many, many years ago, my pastor preached a sermon I’ve never forgotten based on Matthew 25. And he said in that sermon that what we get to do is we get to do little things that help little people that we ought to do with little thought of reward.
That, that when we’re doing that, as Jesus said, you’re doing it under the least of these and you’re doing it unto me that his presence is very, very much connected to the least and the last and the lost people in our world. His heart is for those people as it is [00:02:00] for all of us. That we wanna focus on that in an incredible and specific way.
So we wanna help you to do that in various ways. We’ve highlighted and we’ll continue to highlight people in ministries that are making a difference in all kinds of places and in all kinds of avenues. So that God might lead you to serve in one of these ways intentionally. And so today we are gonna talk with the President of Children’s Relief International.
And let me just plug a couple of times through this conversation where you can find that on the internet, learn more about them. It’s simply children’s relief.org. And Jason, if I don’t get it right, please tell me children’s relief.org. And today we’re talking with the president of this organization.
Jason Pieratt the president. If I don’t get your name right, Jason, I apologize. I’ve been practicing. But we’re glad to have you with us. Jason is kind of a dual citizen of the world, if you might say. He grew up in both Iowa and in [00:03:00] Brazil, which to me is a Texan, or that’s basically like two foreign countries but Iowa and Brazil.
The son of missionaries and started his working career as an elementary school teacher, which is a mission field that maybe he can give us some insight into. He traveled as a young person with Children’s Relief International. I. That started to stir in him a sense of, of calling that maybe he can unpack as well.
But ultimately that led to him becoming a full-time servant with CRI in 2010. Jason also holds a master’s degree in cross-cultural Ministries from Dallas Theological Seminary. And is also the holder of a doctor of intercultural studies from Western Seminary, lives in the Dallas area as I do.
And we have some mutual friends, but we’re gonna share a little bit about what Children’s Relief International is all about. I. Jason, welcome to the Dennison Forum podcast. Tell me anything I got wrong or left out that you want us to know.
Dr. Jason Pieratt: Oh, that was [00:04:00] great. We’re kind of Yankee, so we say our last name, Perot Py Rat.
Okay. To say Py Rat. It’s spelled Pyra, so I get it. But. We say per, but it’s not a big deal. I was
Dr. Mark Turman: gonna say, I was gonna say pure rat because pure rat’s close. The first part of it looks like a pier, like out in the lake. A pier. That’s,
Dr. Jason Pieratt: yeah. I used to tell my students it’s pie, like a pie and rat.
Like a rat. Like I say, you spell per like a kitten and rotten like an apple per rot.
Dr. Mark Turman: Okay. I, you know, I have to confess, I’m from East Texas, so it could come out in all kinds of ways.
Dr. Jason Pieratt: I married a, I married a Texan, and that poor girl, she’s had to deal with that ever since she married me, so
Dr. Mark Turman: Fantastic.
Dr. Jason Pieratt: Yeah.
Dr. Mark Turman: Tell us a little bit about how this Ministry of Children’s Relief International where did it come from? How long’s it been around, what’s the. What’s the origin story?
Dr. Jason Pieratt: Yeah, great. I have, I’m blessed with one of those stories that involves my family. So my parents founded Children’s Relief International 25 years ago this year, and it started mom and dad were students at Liberty [00:05:00] University back in 1975, and dad tells the story.
He had a professor that said, the need for missions was great and he, and he told it in a way was, I said, nine, imagine people carrying a log and 95 of the peop a hundred people, 95 of ’em are carrying this side of the log, and five are carrying that side of the log. 95% represents the amount of pastors working in America.
And the five represents how many people around the world globally are sharing the gospel and sharing Christ. And Dad heard that. And the guy, guy, which side are you gonna pick? And then he read one Corinthians 15:34 words, basically says, some men have no knowledge of God. And I say that to your shame. And, and to, to my father, that was like, okay, this is the first time he heard the great commission.
And he was like, this is it. We’re gonna, we’re gonna lean into missions and ministry. And so they took the challenge and years later took our family to Brazil to be a seminary professor and run a, a Christian publishing house. Mm-hmm. And it was while mom and dad were in [00:06:00] Brazil. That they were exposed to the depths of deep poverty, really deep poverty amongst the street kids of Sao Paulo, Brazil.
And so dad and mom started, we want to do something to help these kids, but found the experience of trying to help them to be so far away from who, where they were and what they knew about the culture and the language mean. They’ve learned Portuguese, but the language was difficult. The kids have kind of their own language even, and so they didn’t know what to do.
The Lord happened to have dad bump into a young man named Joel, who had grown up on the streets of Brazil himself and had become a Christian in his early twenties. And he was trying to find a way to help these kids too.. And so they came together and prayed and, and formed a ministry to the kids that actually worked, that actually took root because Joel was leading it and Dad was encouraging and strengthening Jerome in kind of a discipleship and financial kind of way.
And so from that experience, I think that ministry is still running today actually. And from then, from that experience, they returned home [00:07:00] furlough and said, Hey, I think we want to try to help more children in deep poverty around the world. What would that look like? And from that, Children’s Relief International was born in the year 2000.
And so they started their first partnership in Mozambique, Africa, and we’re still working there. So you.
Dr. Mark Turman: So you kind of grew up breathing the air of missions and particularly CRI from your earliest days. Is that
Dr. Jason Pieratt: I would say no. I was in my twenties, so I was, they moved us to Brazil when I was in, when I was a teenager.
Don’t necessarily recommend doing that. Yeah. But we, we had a, we had a real strong, I was in Brazil about almost five years, four and a half years. Mom and dad were there 10 years and I. I had no interest in being a missionary, no interest in my early my career, my as a teacher, and I was gonna help on the side, but I wasn’t gonna do this full time.
And I took my first trip with Children’s Relief International in 2002, just as a Okay. Was like the first team into Mozambique and brought some friends in, tried to help the babies, try to help the kids, you [00:08:00] know? Yeah. So that was, that was kind of my first experience with CRI.
Dr. Mark Turman: And tell me you were how old when you took that first trip?
Dr. Jason Pieratt: It was 20, was I 22? About 22. 20, yeah. 22. 23. 22. Yeah. 22 years old. I’ve been teaching for two years as part of my local church and went and went and had that experience. And I, if you wanna hear part of my story, it’s not necessarily CS story, but that trip changed everything for me.
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. Tell us a little bit more about that.
Yeah, I mean, I, you know, I, you hear this story fairly common in church life of somebody that grows up in a pastor’s home or grows up in some kind of a ministry context. They’re like, oh, that’s great. I’m glad my parents or my grandparents are doing it. Yeah. I don’t want to do that fulltime. Yeah. Tell, tell us a little bit more what happened on that trip.
Dr. Jason Pieratt: That’s great. Sure. So that trip I, I wanted to go see what mom and dad were doing in Africa. Of course you have the summers off. And I love kids. I always knew from a very young age, I knew I wanted to help [00:09:00] kids somehow. So I wanted to go there and help those kids. And my faith, I wouldn’t say my faith was super strong at the time as a believer.
I was a Christian, but I was pretty Luke born Christian. And so it was much about the adventure as it was serving. And like the second day we were on that trip, we walked into a, a hospital and, and to serve and pray and help some kids there. And I just happened to witness, I. A little baby girl die right in front of me.
Mm. Wow. A little, little malnourished, starving little baby. Mm-hmm. Mom was there. The missionary we were with our partner when we had was, it was a, it was a unique moment, right? And that, that experience immediately was like, what am I looking at here? What is going on in this part of the world that babies are, are dying?
And the little baby story was malnutrition combined with some, local witchcraft, care, care that had basically bled the baby out. And so at that point, the seed was planted of who are you, Jason, to these kids? [00:10:00] And who are you gonna be and what, how, how might you be used? And first my internal conversation was, I want to be a superintendent someday and make money.
And, and I’ll do this on the, I’ll do this on the summers, I’ll just, I’ll do.
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah,
And got, yeah, God, God’s had some other ideas.
Dr. Jason Pieratt: God, two year, two years of that, two years of wrestling with that, I went back the second year and for a month, the first year I was there a month. The second year I was there for six, six weeks.
That one was a little harder. That one was, yeah. I didn’t, I wasn’t sure I was gonna be able to help, or it was, we were doing much help, but it took a, it took a supernatural experience with a, with a. I even struggled to still kind of tell it, but basically a supernatural experience of a dark demonic force telling me Jason, you can’t change.
Hmm. You’re never gonna change. I own you and you can’t change. And this was, this happened on an evening at a retreat that I’d gone to with my [00:11:00] church and during worship, I’d had kind of a thought, or not, not a better word, an impression. No. Of many hard things I’d done in my life. And I’m like, why am I seeing this?
I’m forgiven. And I didn’t know what to do with it. And I said, Lord, you gotta show me what to do with it. And the counselor said, I don’t know what’s happening, because I was scared. And then that, no, I said, went to my room, started praying, reading my Bible, and that’s when that demon came in and said, I own you and you can’t change.
And it terrified me. Wow. And I was terrified for about a year and prayed for a year that God would help me understand what that meant. And at the end of that year on a run, back then I used to run a lot. It was like a light went on and it was, Jason, you’re lukewarm and you’re gonna have to pick one or the other.
You know, you know about these babies, you know about the children. You know my word. I grew in the word, you know what I want you to do, and you can say no. And you, you can say no, or you can say yes, but you can’t do what you’re doing. That can [00:12:00] say that. Now, back then it wasn’t that clear and it weighed me low and I said yes.
And I heard him say, will you, will you take care of my weakest children? Will you take care of my, and so at that point I said yes and left my job and started raising support and all that. So anyways, that was a little more I had planned to share, but,
Dr. Mark Turman: No, thank you. Yeah, thank you for doing that. ’cause it, you know, it.
It just resonates so deeply. And, and especially with just how God gets our attention when maybe we’re least expecting it.
Dr. Jason Pieratt: Yeah.
Dr. Mark Turman: And in some ways, you know, getting involved in what God’s doing in the world is both an incredible adventure, as you said, but also sometimes risky. That while he may be asking us to be a part of what he wants to do in some place and through us, he always has things he wants to do in us at the same time.
Absolutely.
Dr. Jason Pieratt: And,
Dr. Mark Turman: Those things tend to run on parallel tracks in many ways.
Dr. Jason Pieratt: Yeah.
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. Thanks, thanks for sharing that. Yeah, for sure. It can be a little dangerous to get near what God is doing. It can rock your world.
Dr. Jason Pieratt: It’ll rock your world. I, I don’t recommend doing it that way. I would recommend listening.[00:13:00]
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah, listening and listening earlier and listening.
Dr. Jason Pieratt: Don’t, don’t wrestle. You don’t, I don’t recommend it, but I’m so thankful for it and for the, for the way God’s been merciful in my life.
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah you’ll hear us as you listen in this conversation. You’ll hear us refer to Children’s Relief International as CRI.
That just makes it a little bit easier in some ways. But Jason, help us to get our mind and heart around what the core work. And the heart of what y’all are doing. People go to the website, they can see that there’s six or seven kind of main buckets or priorities. Kind of explain the core mission and passion that y’all have.
Dr. Jason Pieratt: Yeah. Great. Our mission statement is to share the lot of Christ with the poor of our time and word indeed, and it’s rooted in the heart. Behind that is Jesus’ words and Moses’ words. They both say. The poor will always be with you in their own way. They will say the poor. And very similar to your introduction, that’s 25.
The poor are here and you’re responsible to take [00:14:00] care of it. So the poor will always be with you. So open your hands freely and give, and part of giving is service and give. So that’s kind, that’s a foundational principle for us is we’re called to share letter Christ with the poor of our time.
So we really historically have focused on the bottom billion parts of the world, like places like Mozambique, which is in the top five and has been forever just. Deep, deep poverty and get behind local partners or local pastors and or in some cases these folks aren’t necessarily from that location, but know the culture, know the language from that part of the world, and kind of get behind their vision and their understanding of what can actually help in both word being the gospel word is the gospel teaching discipleship local church.
And then the deed is. Is the care. Basically, it’s the, all the practical ways and compassionate ways you can help someone who’s in deep poverty. And so we use the acronym care as a way to describe our work. You’ll see that on the website. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that’s, that’s part of the heart. You know, we, we [00:15:00] wanna help the poor, we wanna help people help the poor.
So we’re, and we’ll kind of get that into in a minute, but. We’re both a missionary sending, missionary enabling organization and an aid and relief organization, so we’re kind of
Dr. Mark Turman: focused Okay. In that. Alright.
Dr. Jason Pieratt: Yeah.
Dr. Mark Turman: So you, you probably have confronted this question at times, but I, I got the privilege of pastoring churches for 35 years.
Yeah. And we had a number of different efforts that we made in every one of those churches to be involved both locally, regionally, and globally.
Dr. Jason Pieratt: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Mark Turman: Somebody, you know, many people who listen to our podcast are either pastors or church leaders in some capacity. I suspect many of them serve on committees and they’re passionate about various things including mission work.
What would you say if somebody says why did you, why did your parents, why do you feel like we needed another mission agency as a relief organization, ascending organization? What’s unique about y’all’s approach to international relief? And. And sharing of the gospel that you know, might [00:16:00] be happening in other organizations in similar, similar ways, but what, what would you say is distinct about y’all?
Dr. Jason Pieratt: Yeah, it’s good. It’s great. You know, I, I would say that there’s, there’s an enormous amount of need, especially amongst the board of our time. And so if you put ’em all together, all the organizations and all the churches that are doing international missions and you squeezed it and something came out of it, it’s just a drop.
That actually ended up helping. So one reason to exist is because the, the need is there and you can exist and Right. And you’re gonna do good. So yeah, in that sense, you know, I don’t know there’s any, there’s nothing super, super unique about how, how we, that distinguishes us from others because per se, ’cause every other people are doing awesome and awesome work in an awesome way.
If you think about CRI though, and the way we do it one way, one thing that makes us succinct is we’re both missionaries sending, enabling, and sending. And aid and relief, which is not a lot. Some people are just missionaries and some organizations are just aid and relief, right? Lot, not very many [00:17:00] staff, very efficient.
All the money’s going just serve. They pay some salaries. Other organizations are just missionary enabling. They don’t really get behind the missionary to fund the programs. The missionaries kind of involved in doing that. We combine the two. So I raised my support to be the president of the organization, top down, and I’m raising funds for all the programs.
So that’s, that’s a unique thing. I, there’s not too many out there like that. But we, but it works well. It works well, and it has, it’s worked for 25 years and we think it’s a, a strong way to do it. Yeah. Another, another distinctive thing is that from about our organization is we have a very strong, you wouldn’t know this unless you get into it, but very strong prayer culture.
We believe in the power of prayer, and we believe in it so much that it’s part of our, almost our charism. We pray every single day, five days a week as a staff from eight 30 to nine. Using a a, a, a mode of prayer that we call the sin prayer, which is a combination of liturgical prayer and then petitions and intercession on behalf of the partners and ourselves and Thanksgiving and gratitude and all [00:18:00] that.
So every day, anybody who’s, anybody who’s in the building, anybody who’s around the country, you’re on staff. Most of our partners around the world are invited, but the timeframe is, is so wide that we don’t necessarily, that doesn’t always happen. But we pin that down. Missionaries tend to be entrepreneurial and kind of squirrely.
It’s hard to pin ’em down, you know, it’s one thing. And in our, in our organization, we believe in the power of prayer so much that we pray every single day in a very structured and, and faithful, faithful way. So that’s, that’s another distinctive. And I think the third one would be probably we, we use the, the term living bridges and or long-term commitments.
Um mm-hmm. We, we. There’s a lot of models out there, wonderful models, and are totally appropriate, which is to set a goal to eventually leave, to work yourself out of a job. Isn’t that kind of the missionary model? You gotta work yourself out of a job, right? Totally agree with that part of it. For the most, for the most part.
Yeah. Our commitments to our partners in the places in the world that [00:19:00] work we found are more fruitful. When we make long term commitments. We’re not trying to achieve and leave. We are, we are gonna make a long term commitment. Because, partly because the, the poverty is so deep that you could work somewhere for 25 years and not get three blocks and making a difference, but there’s another 10 blocks that still need help.
Why would we leave? You know? Yeah. We don’t want to create dependency. We don’t want to create all the negative things that can happen from, not, from not having an exit strategy. So we say we commit for the long haul, but we, we revisit our goals and our commitments to each other very, very often. And we know, we know what our nos are and we.
When to identifies a problem and, and address it and all that. So we, we, we stay for the long haul. And the, the Living Bridge analogy is there’s a lot of bridges and mission agencies that use bridges. I like to use the word living the, the idea or the concept of a living bridge, which really comes from a, a National Geographic show I watched mm-hmm.
About the state of mega, I dunno if you’ve seen that one. [00:20:00] The state of mega Northern India is the wettest, is the wettest part of the world, and it’s full of these huge valleys and there’s these tribal. Tribal tribal villages and communities there that had to navigate that land for centuries. And so they learned to coax vines together to make these living bridges that go over the valleys and they come together and they withstands the deluge of this rain.
But no, no, no. Metal manmade structure could probably withstand it. I don’t think they haven’t done it yet. Yeah. So I love it because it’s like a living bridge for CRI is the, the missionary, the home office. All of us here, it’s the donor that’s making all this work that we can’t do it without the donor, can’t do without your peers, can’t do without your money.
And then it’s the missionary partner on the field and the poor that we’re reaching and we all twist and turn together and we can span culture, we can span geography, and we can withstand the deluge of poverty, ’cause poverty. We call those the giants. Poverty, the giants of poverty are horrible and they’re, they can just wear you out and run you over.
And so this bridge can withstand that. [00:21:00] So long-term commitments is that, is that living bridge. It takes a long, it takes a long, it takes generations to build a living bridge. And that’s what we’re hoping to do here.
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. What a great, great metaphor and a great picture of what it’s like to, to, to span these deep, deep valleys of poverty and brokenness and.
In many ways, desperation. So we’re, we’re talking today with Jason Perra and learning more about his work with children’s Relief in International. We’re gonna step aside here for a moment. Take a break and let him catch his breath and let you catch your breath. And we’ll be right back in just a second.
All right. Welcome back everybody. We’re continuing to talk about Children’s Relief International with Jason. Jason, I heard a great quote from another friend of mine. His name is Steve Bessner. He is a pastor down in the Houston area. Also teaches with Truet Seminary at Baylor University, which is dear to my heart in many ways.
Anyway, [00:22:00] Steve gave this great quote today. He said, sometimes I joke about what I would do if I had one day left to live. Hmm. I might eat a lot of junk food, go crazy, have my favorite sport, that type of thing. And then he says, today it hit me, Jesus knew and he chose to wash feet. Hmm. That’s a, a great way of thinking about how to live your life intentionally and with some sense of good urgency.
I. Let me ask you about some of the needs you mentioned as we started about going on a mission trip where you saw this little baby that passed away. In a hospital setting in your midst that was very meaningful and powerful in terms of how God got your attention. I’ve read a couple of books in the last few years that people have said, you know, we’ve, we’ve done some amazing work around the world.
All cultures have around, oh, at least somewhere around 75 or 80 years, we’ve done a lot to push abject poverty. Away [00:23:00] some you know, as a researcher from Sweden named Hans Rosling, who said, you know, with a little bit more effort, we could eliminate the worst levels of poverty. Then I heard another writer talk about this recently, who said yeah, we’ve done a great job in many ways of feeding the world in a, a much more substantial way.
But there are at least 7 million people today who don’t have enough to eat. What are some of the needs that y’all have witnessed and are working on that are really some of the most difficult and desperate kinds of needs?
Dr. Jason Pieratt: Yeah. So the most, I, I think for me, watching babies come to mind, there are a lot of malnourished babies around the world, especially where we work.
And with just a little bit of help, you can keep ’em alive, but if they don’t have the help. They’re, they, they’re gone. They’re gone. They’re gone too fast. So we have a very strong baby nutrition program that we, we, we have four locations. We’re doing it now. So I would say medical and nutrition for [00:24:00] children.
Not just food, but good food. I. There’s lots of chips around the world now. There’s lots of junk food reaching parts of the world that I have not seen over my 15 years. So they’re getting food, but it’s junk food. So having good nutrition and having, and then food in general. I think too, just a little bit of food in Malawi.
There’s a hungry season. Every year, almost Now, the last, since we’ve been helping them for five years now, every year there’s been a hurricane or a crisis and these families, they live off the food, they live off their crops. Mm-hmm. There’s no crops. So there’s no food. And they’re literally feeding their kids one day a week, one, one time a day.
Maybe a little more than that. Parents love their kids. No matter how poor you are, you love your kids, so you, you give your kids everything. But just a little bit of help with food can, can go a long way and there’s been a lot of advancement in there. But this, you know, when you jump from $2 a day to $4 a day, it is a jump.
But it’s still only $4 a day. It isn’t that big of a jump, like some of those books, you know, it isn’t that big of a jump. So I’d say nutrition and food. I would say shelter. I met a mom. I was in Malawi again, I’m talking about Malawi while I was just there this [00:25:00] winter. And there’s her house laying on the ground and in, in a mud pile.
Because of the last hurricane that flew, or a typhoon that went through there. And she’s got a little mud brick hole, you know, thing that her and her four kids are living in. And that’s it. And then she’s, and, and they’re, I don’t know how they all fit. They’re, they’re pretty big little kids. So shelter, shelter is a really big deal if you can provide shelter.
And we, we have a ministry that’s been helping with shelter and we’ve seen that you give a gift of a home that will last a lifetime. Last a lifetime. You see the whole thing rise. The whole community starts to rise just a little bit and even just a little bit goes a long way. Food, nutrition, shelter, education, always education.
I got so many stories about helping kids get through, just get through elementary and then get through high school. And now we’re seeing, ’cause after 25 years we’ve, we’ve seen handfuls and handfuls of some of these kids that get a good enough grades to get into university or a book tech and you can get ’em [00:26:00] through.
And then they, they get out and they have a job. They know Jesus. They have a job and then they start to help their families and their communities and it starts to lift. Yeah. So education, Don would never, don’t ever reduce, if you can, the impact and power of a sponsorship that’s helping a child get an education.
’cause it really does change
Dr. Mark Turman: everything. Is it? I know with your background as a teacher, this must be really powerful. Is there a story of a, of a person, of a child that you think of when you think of, wow, this is a success story. This is what it looks like. When you empower a young person with educational opportunity and it lifts their life, lifts their family.
Is there a story that stands out?
Dr. Jason Pieratt: Yeah. That you
Dr. Mark Turman: remember?
Dr. Jason Pieratt: Yeah. Which one? Which one? No.
Dr. Mark Turman: You pick,
Dr. Jason Pieratt: yeah. Yeah. There’s a really hard one that’s not just there’s a story of Ali who is who, who, because we were able, because we have a partner who loves the children on the mountains and the western mountains of Uganda.[00:27:00]
And we met him and, and his passion was to help these girls not become child brides. Hmm. So that’s very traditional over there to, for these families to marry off these little girls. 12, 13, 14, 12, 12, 13-year-old girls and they sell them to these old men. I. In the village for, to basically be able to take care of the rest of their family.
Now, whether in this, in Ali’s case, her dad was a wicked man and her mom was distant, but a lot of, I’ve met men, I met fathers who aren’t wicked to just have to have to do this. I think they have to do that, right? Cooley, Reverend Cooley, who’s there, he says, Hey, family, if we can keep your daughter in a boarding school, so she’s not, she’s in a boarding school, getting education, getting food.
Will you not sell her please? Please and it worked. He said, if you’ll help me with Damali, Damali was one, the first one we helped. So we got Damali off the mountain into a boarding school. She was able to get through three years of high school, had good enough grades that she is now in her, I think, believe in her second year of nursing school, which is just pennies on the dollar compared to here.
Like you put a girl in nursing school for a couple thousand [00:28:00] dollars and then, and then she’s gonna make, she’s gonna make an income, make a living be exposed to the gospel and be exposed to a lot of Christ. I believe she’s a Christian, but sometimes you don’t know if they’re Christians yet or not. But it doesn’t like in that part for me, like we just gotta keep talking about it and keep showing up.
Just keep showing up and be Jesus and then see what happens with these girls. So Ali’s story is from a child bride to a nurse that, that, that loves Jesus and is gonna help her community someday and maybe pull more eyes. So we have 13 girls like that, that we’ve committed to help. Year after year, assuming the donors will keep helping us to keep out.
He has a hundred girls, he wants us to help, but we don’t have the, we don’t have enough capacity as an organization to do that just yet. We were willing. So her story’s really cool. That’s a really cool one. Yeah, I, I, I have three, I have two daughters and five nieces, and I can’t even begin to imagine.
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah, I just situation, you know, so yeah, I have a, I have a daughter and a granddaughter and just yeah.
To, to think about what, so
Dr. Jason Pieratt: put her, if we can’t put her in school, she’s a, she’s a bride. She’s a, she’s married to a [00:29:00] man who has three, already has three wives, you know?
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. Wow.
Dr. Jason Pieratt: That’s critical story.
Dr. Mark Turman: Just amazing to be able to make an intervention like that. You mentioned just obviously sharing the gospel with her and with others.
There’s sometimes this unnecessary tension between physical need and spiritual needs, sharing the gospel and. Helping people to have shelter and food and clothes and medicine.
Dr. Jason Pieratt: Yeah.
Dr. Mark Turman: Talk about how those weave together in the work of CRI and how y’all do that dance, how you look for creative ways to share the gospel, how you disciple people who respond to the gospel.
What does that look like in the context of your ministry?
Dr. Jason Pieratt: Yeah, so because of our model, which is to follow the, the, the leadership and the vision of our partners. They’re all, all of them are very embedded in their community and have basically a reputation that is christocentric. So they are Christians working in the community and everything that comes out of there is about the [00:30:00] go.
So it’s, it’s, if it’s compassion, it’s compassion with the gospel. If it’s the word, it’s always combined with some sort of care for the poor. So if they’re doing a lesson or a discipleship program, they’re asking, Hey, how’s everybody doing? Can I, can we help with some food? Or whatever. So just weaves hand in hand.
I, as far as creative ways of doing it, and they’re, they’re, I’m, there’s, I don’t know that I can think of what’s one good example in a creative way of doing it. We, we do these, these green door homes. And when they give a gift of a home, they first talk to the family. Tell them why. Tell them who Jesus is and why this gift is happening in the first place from a Christian here in the US supporting this effort.
They don’t have to be Christians to get a home necessarily, right? No. And then they meet with them at throughout the process to disciple, to evangelize and encourage and strengthen and continue to say this because of Jesus. Do you wanna know more about Jesus? And we hope that seeds are planted from that.
And then in the end we, we [00:31:00] dedicated, so
Dr. Mark Turman: why, why do you call it a green door house?
Dr. Jason Pieratt: Yeah, that’s an interesting name. The, the, the couple that was helping us in Brazil, I’m sorry, in Mozambique that started it, wanted to call it green door because of the new creation. Green has a genesis and a new creation.
And here’s a new opportunity for a, for you to have a a, a, a, a start over experience with this gift from God. And he loves you. And this is a. Starting new, so it just kind of stuck. Yeah. Okay. Points creation and opportunity and God’s grace and love in our lives and in his provision and, and it just stuck.
Yeah.
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. That’s great. I great idea. So you mentioned earlier about having a real strong commitment to kind of work yourself out of a job in a particular place that seems to point in the direction of investing in local leaders, raising up local leaders. Tell us a little bit about what that looks like in the, the model that you follow.
Does that mean your church planting? Does it mean. You’re coming in and working with [00:32:00] existing churches to try to you know, implant the resources and the, the help that you’re giving. How does that work from the standpoint of raising up local leaders who can carry on the ministry after you’re gone?
Dr. Jason Pieratt: Yes. So again each of our, each of our partners has its own. Vision for what they’re trying to do. And almost all of them are pastors and all of them are connected to their local church or are leading a local church, right? And so in, in in Malawi right now, rising up local leaders looks like discipleship program through the church, training them and doctrine.
Which is one of the bigger needs too on, by the way, among and the poor is doc, like teaching the word and really teaching the word in a way that they can understand it and, and not have these variances. So discipleship programs in the, in India, it looks like a group of 35 pastors that we’re supporting in a network in the, in a deep forest area.
And getting behind them. And they’re all, most of them are young men. Some are old, some are young. The young men are rising up, the old men are working with them, and they’re gonna take over as these old older [00:33:00] guys have to retire and, and take down and, and Myanmar. With Leon, it looks like sending people that are part of his community that were, he raised up in his school to Bible school and some of them are, come back and serve with him when it’s.
When he’s, when he’s, when they’re done with school and they’re ready to help. So it’s lots of, lots of, lots of different ways actually. It’s always there though. These guys are, these guys are discipleship makers, disciple makers, and, and so it’s, it’s just what weed into what we do and how we do it. So you, it’s like really you want to get into the weeds for each one of our partners?
It’s 13 different. Small businesses is one way to have, that has its own model of being excellent in their community about creating disciples and about creating evangelists and moving on and sharing. I don’t know that you work your eye out of a job eventually. ’cause we all go see the king or the king comes home, so you’re doing a job. Yep.
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. Okay. So part of what you do includes sponsorship. That’s one of the ways that people can intentionally become involved. They can [00:34:00] obviously travel with you as a a part of the ministry. They can become a part of some of the travel mission trips that you are planning in various places around the world and find out all about that on the website.
But you’re obviously not the only Christian Relief and mission organization that has a sponsorship model. But why do you think that is a good tool, and what does it look like to sponsor either a child or a pastor, one of these entrepreneurial individuals that you’ve been relate referencing?
What, what does that relationship look like? If somebody goes from this podcast and they look at your website, they wanna become more involved, they’re interested in a, in a sponsorship of some kind, how does that kind of work and what does it look like?
Dr. Jason Pieratt: Yeah, great. So if you, if we’re. Believe in a concrete and personal concrete being very, very transparent and very personal.
So if you spon, if you sign up to sponsor a child, or if you sponsor a Bible student or if you sponsor a pastor or you sponsor an activist that helps the widows, [00:35:00] you’re gonna get at least four touchpoint from us about that, that relationship with that person a year. So the bio of them, you’re gonna be invited to send them letters and a picture of your family.
All the, all the ways that sponsorships do it, like mm-hmm. We’re not doing anything new here, but you’re, we want a concrete and personal relationship between you and that ministry and that person, depending on what you’re helping. And so you’re gonna be invited in and showing how to do all that with us and then.
You know, over time we hope that, that you get the chance to go and visit the person you’re helping, the child, you’re helping, or the activa or the pastor come and see ’em and meet ’em. Give ’em a hug, pray with them, you know, that that door’s open, right? And our, our sponsorships range monthly from anywhere from a 25 to $40, kind of that normal range of what you’ve seen in sponsorships right now.
So we try to be really, really personal as much as we can be let you in and, and see it, all the warts and everything.
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. Yeah. And, and all of that is introduc introduced on the website and can Yeah. Can get our folks to plug into [00:36:00] that Yeah. If they so choose. Jason, let me ask you if, if you could talk to you when you were 22, 24 years old and some of the things that you talked about earlier on and kind of where you were having a sense, now looking back on that, of being a, a lukewarm believer in some ways, if somebody’s listening to this podcast by whatever means God chooses to get it into their ears and something starts to move in them about wanting to make an impact both locally and globally. What would you say to them as a, a good way to get started of you know, in your case it was, you decided kind of for adventure reasons to go on this initial trip when you were 22.
What would you say to that person of, Hey, put your foot in the water and see what God does?
Dr. Jason Pieratt: Yeah. I would say put your foot in the water. There’s a ton of, ton of awesome organizations out there. You know, like CRI, doing really good work. And if you’re thinking about it, if you’re just playing with the idea of doing [00:37:00] it, like just take, take the next step and learn more about what is, what’s available to you.
Do the research. We can do research today better than any other time in history. Do your research. Learn about the organization. Find something that makes your heart skip a beat a little bit, even if it is adventure. Adventure’s not bad. Bible soul adventure, you know? And if you feel God’s asking you to do it, if you feel the sense of man, if I was just willing to, to let go of that, I would argue.
God is asking you to consider to being willing to let go of that. Don’t ignore it. Don’t think God doesn’t care. He cares about you and he cares what he’s asking you to do, and he wants you to be faithful in taking a step and all. It’s just the step. You don’t have to commit. Just take the first step of learning about it.
Find something you like. Talk to that organization or that church and see how they respond to you. See if they, see if they’re gonna interact with you in a way that, that that you need to be able to be faithful in this step. ’cause again, there’s a lot of folks out there that do it differently and someone’s gonna, someone’s gonna talk to you and invite you [00:38:00] in, in a way that’s gonna make your heart beat a little bit, and then pay attention to that and then lean in.
Volunteer a little bit, go on a trip. You don’t have to go overseas to start this stuff. You know, take a little step towards it, you know, whatever that, whatever that invitation might be. And then see where it goes. And then keep leaning in and don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t ignore it. Don’t ignore it. A sense that God might have you do more, because I believe he would have you do more.
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. Yeah. So be curious. Yeah. I love that. Yes. There you go. Idea be curious and. You know, look, look for, and, and listen for those things that yeah. God will use to make your heart beat faster.
Dr. Jason Pieratt: Yeah, I, that’s right. And I’d say this, when that happened to me at 22, I, for whatever reason, I don’t think I, I don’t think I was as smart, but I was praying, I.
The Lord might give me make me a man after his own heart. That was just, that was a prayer that was on my mind as a young man. I wanna be a man after my own heart, which is a dangerous prayer if you don’t wanna be changed. Yeah. Yeah. So you might, you might take, have a little courage and [00:39:00] maybe pray that a little bit too.
Lord, increase my faith, Lord, make me a man after your own heart and see and see if you can’t find yourself in a, in a new spot. And,
Dr. Mark Turman: you know, yeah. As, as somebody said years ago, I never forgot it. Tell me. Keep, keep your eyes and ears open for what it is that makes you cry and what it is that makes you sing, you know?
That’s
Dr. Jason Pieratt: right.
Dr. Mark Turman: And God can work through either of those pathways. No doubt. So as the leader of Children’s Relief International, this is 25 years of ministry and leading this organization, what are you hoping for as you look forward for CRI? As you think about what the needs are, as you understand them right now, what are you, what are you.
Anticipating, what are you excited about over the next few years as you celebrate? Your silver anniversary in industry. Yeah,
Dr. Jason Pieratt: I, you know, I’m just so thankful for the 25 years the Lord’s used CRI and allowed us to be on, be on Mission and all the unspoken unknown heroes that are part of this. The [00:40:00] people that helped Damali, that nobody’s ever gonna know.
No, that, that’s not something’s. Yeah. That CRI is made up 25 years of people doing that kind of praying and that kind of helping, and I love it and I’m thankful for it. And as I think about the future, you know, I have the privilege of taking a founder’s organization and taking over and I’m, I’m, I’m relation, I’m the son.
So my goal, my hope is that over the next 25 years that CRI, we can help create CRI to be a hundred year organization. Which is, which is a big goal. Yeah. That was a big goal, which would mean, you know, more, more missionaries coming on board, more of God’s people engaging in prayer with us as a, as a praying community and being known as a, as a organization that prays and invites people into pray for the poor and to pray for missions, and to pray for God’s heart.
Heart, you know, and then more, more of the poor reached, I think. I think with what’s happening with AI and all these things, the gaps are gonna grow. Hmm. And there’s gonna be a [00:41:00] deeper need and a deeper poverty’s gonna not gonna get better. It’s gonna get worse in some, in the, in the hill country. The Hill country’s gonna get worse.
And I think on this side of things, people are gonna be looking for meaning and looking for purpose. And some of them are gonna find it in, in Jesus Christ. And some of them are gonna find it in serving on mission and being part of a mission agency like Children’s Relief for National. And I wanna be ready for that.
I wanna be, I want our relat to be ready to invite people in to serve and share a lot of crisis. The part of our time all over the world in our own backyard. This first time in our history, we’re starting to do some local things. We’re testing a, a homeless ministry care evangelism in Iowa. We’ve done a little disaster relief.
So I think the Lord’s opening that but always felt a little bit like mission drift for us to say. We’re helping the bottom billion. There’s already people helping here. Why do we need to do that? And for whatever reason, I feel more I feel like the Lord’s saying, Hey, you know what? You should help your neighbor if you can.
You should. What are you gonna do? Yeah. And so maybe, maybe some of that too. I’m super excited, you know? Yeah. We got some of the [00:42:00] hardest jobs in the world. Lots of people are distracted. The giants of poverty are, are deep, are horrible monsters. That’ll lay you low, that lay people low, you know? And the hill country’s steep.
We trust the Lord and the Lord’s with us. And so I always say we have the best jobs in the world.
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. It’s a model. God goes, yeah. God goes before us and all those things. He’s, he’s not intimidated even though we are sometimes. For sure.
Dr. Jason Pieratt: Yeah.
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah.
Dr. Jason Pieratt: Best job in the world.
Dr. Mark Turman: Jason, thank you so much. It’s been great to get to know you and to get to know your story as well as the story of CRI.
And folks, if you’re interested in knowing more, you can find children’s relief at children’s relief.org on the web and learn about ’em, some great tools of information and sharing and how you can plug in and you can follow up, connect them directly contact them and learn more. Find a way to pray for them.
Find a way to support them financially, find a way to go and be a part of what they’re doing. Personally, we want to help you to find trustworthy pathways [00:43:00] that you can be confident that you can step into. And be a servant along with the spirit of God. And maybe for you, for your family maybe for your church.
Helping your pastor to find places where your church can engage and have an opportunity to make a difference. And this one we would recommend to you highly Children’s Relief, international children’s relief.org. Thanks for listening to our conversation. We hope it’s been helpful to you. Please rate review us on your podcast platform, share it with others so they can be a part of the conversation, and we’ll see you next time on the Denison Forum Podcast.
God bless you.
Search
