I don't know why, but I still get surprised when God uses my selfish motivations and changes my heart.
It started over the weekend when I was writing about perspective and was looking for links to add to the post. While I was on Compassion's website I read about the Compassion bloggers trip to Nicaragua. A few days later I got an e-mail from Compassion (several months ago I signed up to be a Compassion blogger, but sadly have never written anything using the prompts they send out each month) saying they were having a contest related to the trip and that there were ways to get up to 22 entries a day.
The prize pack includes 9 books including some that have been sitting un-purchased on my Amazon wish list: One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp, The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Food from My Frontier by Ree Drummond and Plan B by Pete Wilson.
Confession: Compassion Week on Heidi's @ Home has been motivated by the fact that I would get 10 entries for each blog post about the trip to Nicaragua where I linked the Compassion bloggers. (I could only enter this portion of the contest once a day)
I figured it was a win/win because I got to write about child sponsorship, which is near and dear to my heart, while also doing everything possible to win books. I love to write and I love to read. Doing a writing assignment so I'd have more books to read? Yes, please!
The contest ended Thursday afternoon.
By the time I wrote the final post in my "Compassion Week" series on Thursday morning I had spent hours on the Compassion website, on the Compassion bloggers website, on twitter following the bloggers, reading their posts on Facebook, going to their individual sites, etc. My blog wasn't the only thing that was consumed by Compassion International this week--it felt like my entire life was.
On the way to getting the maximum 88 entries (max of 22 entries over 4 days) a funny thing happened . . . I started caring less about winning the contest and more about finding a sponsor for as many children as possible. 9.5 years after my own sponsorship journey began (when my husband and I got married and I "inherited" his Compassion children) I thought my heart had already been changed by sponsorship. I mean, we made our Compassion children a priority in our budget, ahead of things like eating out, going on "date nights" or getting a babysitter to preserve my sanity while I got out of the house for a few hours during the day. I take my kids to doctor's appointments rather than pay a baby-sitter so we can sponsor our kids. I was wrong. There's still plenty of room for God to work. As I've been reading the stories coming out of Nicaragua this week my heart started changing even more.
For the first time I was in the home of a child being sponsored. For the first time I caught a glimpse into the life of a mom who had been forced to choose between her child receiving an education or feeding her family and I met a dad who has defied the cultural norm and is sticking around to raise his children.
There's already more month than food in our grocery budget and yet I'm left wondering today . . . where can I find another $38/mo to bring hope to another child?
As I've read these stories and seen these pictures this week I've been changed and I never left suburbia. I've served on foreign mission trips and seen those who don't have much materially, but this virtual trip has changed me more than those ones I've been to in the barrios of Chile (twice) and having built houses for people whose homes had been made up only of pallets.
The contest is over, and for the first time this week I'm not submitting my blog link to Compassion to be eligible for to win 9 books, but I'm ok with that because I know God has started a movement in my heart that (I believe) will continue to go forward.
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