I've thought about Compassion International a lot today.
First, because of our Indian Child, Shilpa. Shilpa is 15 and I adopted her just before AP traveled to India last month. When my husband travels without me and I start feeling all nervous and gittery I often adopt a Compassion child. This could prove to be quite costly for us in the near future. Something about adopting a kid seems to be a big fat slap in the face to that stupid fear that tries to creep in. I say, "no, we are not giving into fear, in fact I'll do more."
Shilpa's very first letter arrived today. She has gorgeous Hindi writing. I want to trace each beautiful character even though I have no idea what it says. Thankfully, Compassion has translators. Shilpa's first sentence to us was "Greetings to you in our Lords name, and I am happy to receive you in my life as my sponsor." Now there is a child who knows God. To know God is to receive from him often. Receive away kid, receive away! We're receiving right back.
Shilpa went onto say that her very poor parents are overjoyed that she has been selected to be sponsored. I imagine their beaming faces, so happy that their precious little girl's picture was chosen and that changed all of their lives. God bless them for not selling Shilpa to the tremendous human trafficking monster that would love to snatch her up. I am confident that my sponsorship will keep that monster at bay. As we fight to free people who are in modern day slavery, this preventative measure feels really good.
Secondly, my friend Lynn and I were at lunch today chatting about Compassion. Her family has sponsored a child, Mario for several years. They have always called Mario their "sponsor brother". In Lynn's household they pray for Mario, they write to him, they talk about him all the time.
When Lynn's son was in preschool they began to discuss the members in each child's family. Lynn's boy talked about his two sisters at home and the brother that his parents "never let him see, they just send him money and write him letters". After discussing this questionable relationship in great detail, the preschool teacher was concerned. She pulled Lynn aside at pick up time and gingerly asked some questions. Shocked by her four year old's story, it took Lynn a minute to come up with the truth. "Oh, he's our Compassion Son!" Ahhhh, relief on the preschool teacher's face.
If you have not sponsored a child yet, go for it. If you have, did you know that you can e-mail them letters though the Compassion website? Of course I still send hard letters, but sometimes I find that shooting off a quick email helps the frequency of my communication with these kids.
5 comments:
Happy Birthday! I am so glad you were born :) AND that you share this kind of stuff with us on this blog. You are a bundle of sunshine!
Just for this posting...I sponsored a kid today! What an exciting thing to do! I've always thought about doing it. I've even talked about doing it. Well...I did it. Can't wait to find out who our addition to the McLain family will be. So exciting!
P.S. Happy Super Birthday!
hysterical about Lynn. we love compassion. i know i told you but the kid we've been sponsoring for years (9+ years) has the same exact b/day as Anastasia and we started sponsoring him within weeks of when Anastasia was abandoned and years before we even knew anastasia existed. thanks for fighting and advocating for these kids.
I love Compassion (and their kids) as well. And if anyone is on the fence, it really DOES make a difference. One of our Compassion kids is from Phillipines and my brother went to the Phillipines 2 years ago to do research for school. We were able to arrange for him to meet our child, Divine Sunshine (precious, huh?!) My brother is not a Christ follower and he vowed for how awesome the program was/is. Our child pulled out all the letters we had written to her and showed my brother. How cool is that?? We would LOVE to be able to visit her someday, but 5 tickets to Phillipines is on the pricey side. Anyway, we got a letter from her this week and this is part of it "I feel missing you. I want to hug you and kiss you. I wish for second time that you'll come here personally (b/c she's asked us before to come in another letter). Who could resist that? Someday, Divine Sunshine, someday. Oh, and one more weird thing is that her dad was hospitalized right before my brother came, but was released after her arrive and my brother was able to meet him. Her dad died shortly after my brother's visit...on my brother's bday. Ok, I'm rambling. That's my Compassion story.
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