This week I've been sharing stories from the Compassion bloggers in Nicaragua as they've been traveling to different centers and visiting the homes of their sponsored children.
As someone living in my suburban home with the comforts of food in my fridge, a roof over my head, a comfortable mattress and cool air provided by my air conditioning it's hard for me to imagine what "extreme poverty" looks like. ("Extreme poverty" as defined by the UN is living on less than $1 USD a day) Last night Kelly at Faithful Provisions wrote a beautiful story from the perspective of Daisy, the mom of a sponsored child.
In recent months I've been struggling with fitting in with my culture and truly living like Jesus. While I know (in my head) it's not about my home being "updated" (which it's not), having new furniture (we're 37 & nearly 47 and most of our furniture is still second and third hand from our parents and friends) I'd be dishonest if I were saying I didn't want those things. Then I read stories like Bending For Treasure In The Trash by Shaun Groves and I'm reminded what's truly important in this world.
I love how Traci describes the role of a Compassion sponsor in the Body of Christ.
By going on this virtual trip to Nicaragua and immersing myself in the work of Compassion for the past few days I have been changed. Being fully honest, there have been times I've looked at our monthly charitable giving and thought "If we didn't give to (fill in the organization) each month we'd have room in our budget for (my want)." God has been shifting my heart and aligning it more with His. Instead of looking at my "wants" right now I'm finding myself looking at our budget and finding where else we can cut/"find" money to sponsor another child.
The Compassion bloggers are going to be in Nicaragua for a few more days and are going to continue to post so please continue to follow their stories and be introduced to the amazing lives being changed by sponsorship.
Up until recently our Compassion children have been chosen for us. As I've mentioned before, my husband started sponsoring children through Compassion before we met and his first 2 children were chosen for him. Over the years we've had 3 girls from the Dominican Republic and one boy from Peru who wasn't even in (our equivalent) of Kindergarten when my husband started sponsoring him, and is now 17 and getting ready to graduate! Though we've sponsored 4 children over the years, we've never sponsored more than 2 at a time. Recently I was thinking of friends (who have 5 kids) and who have a Compassion child for each of the children living in their own home so their kids each have a friend they get to write to. Compressing the story, a few months I went to Compassion's website and searched for a 4 child between 4-5 with no other search parameters set. After seeing all the children in that age range I entered our daughter's birthdate in the search box and there was an adorable little boy in Peru staring at me. I told my husband what I'd done and asked, "Do you think we can make this work?". He agreed with me and we added Alexis to our family. A few weeks later I did the same thing, this time looking up a child with the same birthdate as our 6 year old and we were introduced to Sharon in Kenya. We have friends who live overseas (in a country where Compassion works) and they've told us that if we end up sponsoring a child near them (there are several centers in their area) that they would go visit the child on our behalf, which would be wonderful so we've considered that as well. Who knows . . . maybe we'll add a 5th child in their region before much longer :)
If your heart has been stirred by my posts, and the stories of the Compassion bloggers, please consider the $38/mo it would take to provide food, education and medical care for a child living in poverty. You can start your journey to sponsorship by clicking the banner to the left or the widget below.
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