What Does Jesus Say?
About Children?
Jesus urged us to care about children.
Jesus cared about and blessed little children.
“.... little children were brought to Him that He might put His hands on them and pray.... Jesus said ‘Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them.... And He laid His hands on them....”
He equated receiving a child to receiving Him.
“Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones.”
“Whoever receives one of these little children in My name receives Me.”
Have President Trump and his administration treated children like we would want them to treat Jesus?
Starvation, Poverty and Death
Overnight, the United States Aid Agency (USAID) that was ensuring the survival of hundreds of thousands of children around the world was gutted, with the President’s knowledge and approval. People on the ground have borne witness to the devastating impact of these cuts, as children are already dying of both starvation and illness. We all agree that wise and efficient use of funds is important, but no efforts were made to evaluate or improve the efficiency of these programs; they were simply slashed, with no collaboration on how the impact of the cuts on children could be minimized.
Journalist and USAID expert Nicholas Kristof took a nine-day trip through East African villages in March of 2025 to assess the impact of the USAID cuts. Click here for his report, which includes estimates from the Center for Global Development of the number of lives now at risk. Kristof reports on deaths that had already occured in March due to Trump Administration decisions. His assessment was that “the toll is likely to soar in the coming months as stockpiles of medicines and food are drawn down and as people become weaker and sicker.”
An April report on the impact of the Trump Administration USAID cuts in Sudan highlights the starvation and deaths of children due to the closure of feeding stations supported by USAID. Click here for the report. Below is a photo of severely malnourished Fatima Bahlawi, 20 months old.
Is this how we want Jesus to be treated?
Kristof made additional visits in June to USAID locations, and confirmed the extent of the tragedy through what he learned and witnessed. Click Here for more on-the-ground reporting on the impact of the Trump Administration’s gutting of USAID.
The medical journal The Lancet published a study in July with a retrospective on the impact of USAID on reducing child mortality over the past 2 decades, and an assessment of the impact of the cuts. This assessment evaluates that by the end of 2025 there will have been hundreds of thousands of deaths of children under the age of five, and between 4 and 5 million excess deaths in that age group over the next five years. Click here to read the study.
In September, Kristof again visited locations in Africa and reported back on the impact of USAID funding cuts. From Uganda he observed and discussed with the victims the impact of the withdrawn funding, including the accelerating toll in child deaths. Read here for personal stories of tragic child deaths, as well as Kristof’s larger assessment of the situation on the ground. Estimates from multiple credible sources are now in the hundreds of thousands of child deaths this year alone, with that toll accelerating.
In the same article, Kristof addresses the hope of many Americans that these cuts will at least be saving us money. He points out that a June 3 State Department memo, headed “sensitive but unclassified,” says that the shutdown of USAID will “cost taxpayers $6.4 billion over two years” for the management of “litigation, claims, residual payments and closeout activities.” He also points out that the government is paying $10,000 per day, ($600,00 so far this year), for storage facilities in the U.S. for 300,000 cases of inexpensive lifesaving peanut-based nutritional packets that could make all the difference for starving children.
“88 children dying each hour of Trump’s second term because of his aid policy.”
More from Kristof on the impact of the USAID cuts in particular on girls and women.
Is this how we want Jesus to be treated?
In seeking to help children around the world have better, healthier lives through the work of USAID, our country was aligned with something that Jesus cared about and highlighted during his ministry on this earth.
Why would we, as Christians, want to choose leaders who care about children?
Why would it matter to us if our leaders, among the wealthiest men on earth, take strong and irreversible actions that are harmful to the most vulnerable children on earth?
Why would we want to do something about this?