Three Year Sponsor-versary

Have you ever checked out Compassion’s ‘Children Sponsored Today‘ page? Can you believe that by 9:30 A.M on this relatively uneventful Saturday morning, already 22 children have been sponsored? 22 children’s lives have been changed for the better! It’s phenomenal!

I got an email from Compassion this week in their usual bright, happy blue that proudly announced:

It was a Saturday. I remember that. Because on other days, it was too busy for me to do much on a school day and you know, Sunday is family day meaning that we’re away from the computer. I don’t know why I chose Faith. I don’t know what made me think ‘this is the child I want to encourage’. I just remember that I saw her and knew that she was the one. I know that she had waited about a year, because I wanted to sponsor someone who’d been waiting a while. And she was just a little younger than me.

It was two weeks later when I got her information packet in the mail. That was a long two weeks, let me tell you! I wanted to know all about her and write to her as soon as possible! As soon as I had read through her packet, I started to write. I sent the snail mail letter and then found out about the letter writing program on Compassion.com. Thank goodness for that! I sent her so many letters we would have been broke buying the stamps. 🙂

I got a letter from her a day after Compassion sent that email. We both come from farming communities, even if we have very different methods and so we both understand the importance of the weather.

Hello! Receive warm greetings from me!

Our family is happy in Kenya. The climate is hot and wet and we are happy. Know I am in school and continuing with my studies.

She always asks about the ‘climate’ in the United States and how she hopes that everything is going well with me. She tells me how she’s doing in school and how her family is.

It’s one of the best feelings when I open up one of those many letters. Her life is changed. It’s an amazing feeling to know that I helped to change her life in a way that will impact her for the rest of her life.

Does it even work? I know there’s skeptics out there. There always is. But the answer is a resounding yes! Sponsorship does work! There’s an article that goes through it all and is very interesting to read if you would like to. (Click here to open it in a new tab.) If you don’t want to, that’s fine. Here’s the basics:

Sponsorship does work. It works in incredible ways that I cannot even explain here. Why? Because of Jesus Christ, people like me and you, and hope.

So what does sponsorship include?

Well, let’s take a look at what Compassion says:

Your tax-deductible contribution of just $38 a month connects a child living in poverty with a loving, church-based Child Sponsorship Program.

Your support provides:

• Medical checkups, which often save lives
• Nutritious food
• Health and hygiene training
• Educational assistance
• Access to special services like surgeries and disaster relief
• Mentoring to help children discover their incredible value as God’s children
• Most important of all, your sponsored child will hear about Jesus Christ and be encouraged to develop a lifelong relationship with God.

When you sponsor a child, you’ll receive your child’s photo, personal story and a child sponsorship packet by mail in approximately 10 days.

When children find out they’ve been sponsored, the joy they feel is indescribable. Just knowing that someone across the globe cares means more than you can imagine. Sponsoring a child in need will profoundly change the future for your child, and will change your own life as well.

Would you like to sponsor a child? To be the person who brings change to a child’s life? To be the hope that they need to break the cycle of poverty?

No? Ok, go back to the top of this post and read it again.

Now yes? Great! I am so happy! You are helping to change the world, one child at a time!

To sponsor a child and change the world, please click here.

By the way, 31 children have been sponsored now. 😀 Are you going to make that 32?