Charity

I’m sure that most of you are aware of the horrible situation that has been ongoing in Kenya all weekend.  I stay away from the news in general but Jason has been keeping me apprised of the situation.  We are particularly concerned about the situation because we have recently gotten to know a young woman named Stella who is from Nairobi and was a child in Compassion’s program.  She is currently living in the US for another month before she is scheduled to return to Kenya and she keeps James while Charlotte has art once a week.  I wanted to share some of her story so that you can pray for her, her family and friends, her country, and the Compassion program.

Stella grew up in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya in a home about the size of an average sized bedroom in the US.  She lived there with her four siblings and her parents until her father passed away when she was in elementary school.  She said that her older brother would often find other places to sleep because they were so cramped and that they would roll up their bedding and put it out of the way during the day when they were awake.  She said that even with their bedding moved there was so little room that they very rarely spent time inside their home.

She was accepted into the Compassion program when she was five years old and talks about what a blessing it was immediately to her and her family.  I plan to describe the education process that she experienced later in the week, but to summarize, she knew that her school fee’s were all paid for through Compassion as were her uniforms and school supplies.  She knew that she would receive a healthy meal every Saturday when they met at the Compassion program and that she would be taken care of medically, physically, and relationally at the program.

Compassion typically only accepts one child from each family into their program and Stella was the only one of her siblings to be in the program, but she is so thankful that she was because she says because of Compassion her whole family knows Christ.  She received her first Bible from Compassion and was able to share it with her family so that now they can pray together and for each other and discuss the word of God.

Stella has also seen other ways that her entire family as benefited from her sponsorship with Compassion such as being able to share some of her food with them and receiving gifts from her sponsor at her birthday and other holiday’s.  She said that Compassion would make sure that the sponsored child purchased something for themselves first with the gift and then the child usually spent the remainder of the gift on food or clothes for their family.  Her younger brother has also had more opportunities in school due to her excellent academic progress that was aided by Compassion.

It is hard for me to wrap my mind around what it is like to grow up in a country like Kenya.  To look at the intelligent, well rounded, caring, nice, articulate woman that Stella is and imagine her as a five year old living in a slum.  But that’s where she started.  With the help of one lady from Seattle, Washington, her entire family’s lives changed over the years that Stella was a sponsored child with Compassion.  One sponsor, sponsoring one child, helped an entire family rise above their current conditions to thrive.

Stella has been able to meet her sponsor twice.  She said that her sponsor used to write her letters and encourage her so much.  Through the encouragement and Bible verses that her sponsor sent, Stella says that she felt so loved and cared for.  God used Compassion and her sponsor to break her free from the jaws of hopelessness so that Stella now has hope in Jesus Christ and knows that she and her future family will no longer live in poverty!

I look at this situation in Kenya (and other countries around the world) and sometimes wonder how a stay-at-home Mom in Alabama can help.  I have so little to give.  And then I’m reminded of stories like Stella’s where the $38 a month that one woman saved for, struggled for, scarified for, made a huge difference in not just the sponsored child, but in the entire family.

Please join me in praying for those who are hurting in Kenya right now.  We don’t know the whole story and we probably never will, but know that they need our prayers and our help.  There are children all over the world who have the potential to do great things in this world, they just need a little extra help to propel them out of the poverty that surrounds them so that they can change the world.

If you’re unsure of what you can do to help, what you can do to change the world that seems so dark and hurting and terrible, start first by praying.  Praying for the people who are hurting.  Praying for the children who struggle to find food to eat and a place to sleep.  Pray for God to show you how you could help just one of them, and by helping one of them, help so many others.

Child sponsorship is not easy.  It is hard and it is a sacrifice for families across the world.  But it is so worth it when you see the children you are sponsoring break free from the chains of poverty.  They just need our help to get past it so that they can change the world.

Let’s start small in our goal to change the world and make it a better place.  Pray and sponsor a child if you feel led.  You can make a difference in this world through the life of a child.

Over the month, I have blogged a few times at Compassion’s request about children who need to be sponsored.  Each week they have given us a topic and I have usually mulled it over for the week before finding time on the weekend to write on it.  As the weeks have gone on the requests have gotten harder.  When they asked us to write a letter to God, I struggled over whether that was too personal or showy to include on my blog.  But after praying about it, I decided to ask God to give me the words and to use them as He saw fit.  As long as I’m blogging with the goal to please God, I should trust him to take control of where my words go and who they impact.

And then the last assignment came last Monday.  Write a letter as if you are a sponsored child.  And I felt totally overwhelmed.  Even as I’m sitting here writing this post I have no idea what I’m actually going to say or whether I will actually complete this assignment.  How is it possible for me to possibly know or imagine what it’s like to be a child living in the depths of poverty?  Isn’t is demeaning for me to try and act as if I know one shred of what they’re going through?

So I’m sitting here thinking about what I know about these children.  Our family has sponsored a little girl in Rwanda since Charlotte was born (we picked her because they share the same birthday).  We’ve been receiving letters from her for three years now about what her life is like.  We know that she lives with her Mother and Father and siblings but that her parents aren’t consistently employed.  We know that she loves Jesus.  We know that she isn’t a spectacular student but that she is trying.  We know that she helps her mother with the laundry and gathering food.  We know that she likes animals but the animals that she references are different than the typical dog and cat that we mention.  We know that when we send her a birthday gift she talks about using it to buy food for her family.

We started sponsoring a little boy from Bolivia when James was born (again, the same birthday).  We chose him because he had been waiting for a sponsor for over six months.  Over the past year we’ve corresponded with him and learned about him.  He loves soccer.  He went to visit his grandfather during a school break.  His father is sometimes employed as a bricklayer and his mother is unemployed.  He also talks about buying food for his family with his birthday gift.

These children live in homes that have dirt or cement floors.  Tin roofs.  The common medical problems in their communities include worms and parasites.  Instead of big birthday parties with lots of friends, they buy food for their families with the money that they receive.  Their only access to medical review is through Compassion’s child development center and Compassion provides support for not only the child but their whole family.

When I was at dotMom last weekend, Compassion had a former sponsored child, Olive, who spoke to us.  She spoke to us about spending the first five years of her life living with her grandparents and spending years spending the night in the woods because that was when the rebel army would come and steal children to join their army.  She talked about meeting her mother for the first time when her grandparents could no longer care for her and standing in a line and getting her picture taken because her mother asked her to.  She had no idea what the picture was for, but she says now that it was the best day of her life.

She talked about going to school at the place where her picture was taken and still not knowing what it was or why she was there.  And then one day she received a letter from a couple in Australia that said that they were praying for her and that they would pray for her for years to come.  She still has that first letter that she received over 20 years ago from her sponsors.  She said that knowing that someone out there knew who she was and were praying for her changed her life.  She began to believe in herself because they believed in her.

Olive now lives in America (she came to the US on a volleyball scholarship for college) and has a daughter who has chosen a child to sponsor.  She didn’t mention if she ever got to meet her sponsors or if they’re still in touch, but the fact that they radically changed her life was evident in every word that she spoke.  This couple paid $38 a month and that $38 gave Olive hope and a life.  Their sacrifice and generosity changed her life and the life of her child and family and is still being felt as Olive travels and speaks on behalf of Compassion.  They’re changing other children’s lives by choosing one and changing hers.

Compassion has used the month of September as a way to educate people about their mission (Releasing Children from Poverty in Jesus’ Name) and to ask people to join them in their mission by sponsoring a child.  They had a goal of 3,108 new sponsorships this month and as of a few hours ago there were still 266 kids that need sponsors.  If you have been praying all month about whether or not you can sponsor a child, I urge you to go and look at them.  Scroll through the pages of children and pray over each one.  Look at those that have been waiting almost 300 days for a sponsor.  Those who live in a country that is highly affected by AIDS.  Those who have special needs.  Those are all children, real people, who need those of us who can barely grasp the kind of poverty they’re living in to step up and help them escape it.

How hard do you think it would be to wrap your mind around a loving and generous God when the floors of your home were made of dirt?  How difficult to believe that you are worthy of love and that you can amount to something other than an occasional day laborer if that’s the only life that you’ve ever known or heard about?  These unsponsored children are learning about God already in the child development centers.  They are already part of the program even when they are lacking sponsors.  But I would guess that it’s harder to believe all that they’re being taught without knowing that there is someone in a far off country praying for them and believing in them.  This is what I would imagine a prayer from a waiting child would be like.

Lord, I know you’re there.  My teachers tell me that you love me and I guess I know that you do.  I’m glad that I get to come to school.  It makes my Momma feel better to know that I’m getting something good to eat every day.  She worries about me a lot but I think she’s been worrying less since I’ve been coming to the center.

Lord, my teachers tell me that there are people praying for me around the world.  She has always told me the truth so I guess there are, but I don’t know any of their names.  I wonder if any of them know my name?  My friend received a letter from a family last week and they said that they were praying for him.  I wonder why no one writes me a letter and says that they’re praying for me?

Please let someone pray for me.  I just want to know that there’s someone out there in this great big world that you created who knows my name and prays just for me.  Who says that they love me.  I know my Mom loves me and I’m thankful that she does, since some of my friend’s Mom’s are gone.  But it would be really nice if there was someone out there who loved me just because I am me and not because she’s my mom.

Thank you for letting me get to come to school.  Please let my friends know that there’s someone out there praying for them too.
Amen.

You don’t have to sponsor a child this month or this year or this decade.  But please take a second to look through the list of unsponsored children and pray for them.  And if God moves you to sponsor one then please pick one and start breathing the gift of hope into his or her life.  You have no idea what God can do with your prayers and your money if you just give them to Him.

Due to a crazy week I’m a little behind on this contest and post.  Compassion is holding a “My Sponsored Child” Pinterest contest and it ends tomorrow (September 23rd).  You can check out the details for how to enter the contest on their blog post about it.  You can check out those who have pinned in this contest by following this link or searching for #mysponsoredchild on Pinterest.  Please go to Pinterest and spread the word about these children.  These sponsors are hoping to win money for their sponsored child and their family that they can buy important items like food.  With your repins of their pins you will help spread the word about the children that are sponsored by Compassion and those that are still waiting sponsors.  We are 8 days away from the end of September and 1,515 children have been sponsored.  There are only 1,593 that need to be sponsored in order to meet our goal of releasing 3,108 children from poverty in Jesus’ name.