Well, the Compassion Bloggers have gone home now. No more awesome posts to look forward to every night. *choking sob* But there is always next year and the Compassion Blog is still there as well.
Before I say goodbye to everyone down there, I’m going to give their blogs out one last time.
Bonnie at Faith Barista:
“There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” Leonard Cohen
She lives next the river. Where her mother committed suicide…by drowning.
Elsa. No, she isn’t the queen that lived in an ice castle in the movie Frozen.
The Elsa I met in the Dominican slums of Santo Domingo lived where even the poorest look down on her.
Elsa lives next to the river. Where people get sick from the polluted waters and everything putrid that gets ejected from the slums built up higher always finds its way downhill.
Living next to the river also means your house will be flooded — regularly here in the the tropics when the waters rise. So your home can never be free from the refuse that sloshes in as it washes away all you own and leaves a reside you cannot wipe away….Continue reading
Bri at Our Savory Life:
I’ve been learning stories. Hearing stories. Repeating stories. Banging bold right up into stories.
My pastor, he’s telling that story of Nehemiah. The story of a man who had great influence and how God used him to help His people.
And there are these stories of Esther, Joseph, David, Abraham, Peter…
They all have a string shooting straight through their lives pulling them together. Some of them, they came from places of insignificance. All them at some point were given great influence.
And at some point God called on them. He called them to save His people.
Always weaving through is that story of Jesus. Who had no place to call home. His birth a scandal. Whose crib was of hay. And God lifted Him up.
He called on Him to save many lives.
And here I am in the Dominican Republic exchanging my usual routine for big smiles, stories that cut through everything this world was trying to get me to accept….Continue reading
Holley at Holley Gerth:
I’m borrowing words to share with you today.
Words from someone who knows what it’s like to not only survive difficult circumstances but come out thriving on the other side of them.
Someone who has been told “you are a mistake” and then learned from God that they are a world-changing miracle.
Someone who believes in the power of love to lead us out of the lowest points in our lives and take others with us.
Jonathan {on the right in the photo below} is a Compassion Internationalsponsored child who went all the way through the program, including the Leadership Development Program, and has been with us this week in the Dominican Republic as our host. The following words are from a letter he wrote to his sponsor. As soon as he read them to us today I wanted to share them with you because you love like Jesus and it makes a difference…Continue reading
Lisa at Lisa Leonard Blog:
Before this trip, I had already traveled to the Dominican Republic three times. I’ve traveled to Guatemala multiple times. I’ve been to the countryside in Thailand. I’ve seen poverty and heartache.
So when Compassion asked me to come to the Dominican Republic, I said yes. I want to understand the people more deeply. I want my heart to fall deeper in love with the DR.
But I didn’t want to get too attached. I didn’t want to get too emotional. I didn’t want to be too broken.
As I packed my suitcase for the trip, I was determined to be strong.
“I already know what I’m going to see”, I told myself. “There will be hard moments, but I need to hold myself together.”
These trips can be overwhelming and heart-wrenching and exhausting. “But I’m fine”, I assured myself. I’m not going to let my emotions get the best of me.
And then we went to visit Elsa, who is a grandmother to Jazmin, and her two grandsons. Jazmin was born with a disability. She can’t walk or talk. She can’t chew food. When she was born, her mother didn’t want her. She is completely dependent on her grandmother to care for her and meet her every need. When I saw her curled up in the corner of the couch, I longed to hold her in my arms. With her grandmother’s permission, I scooped her up and I melted into a puddle of tears….Continue reading
Ruth at Living Well Spending Less:
It’s been a long week. In fact, by this point, you might even be a little sick of hearing me talk about Compassion and the Dominican Republic and all the reasons why you should sponsor a child.
I get it. I really do. Extreme poverty is heavy, and it is overwhelming.
It feels so big. So widespread. So endless, as far as the eye can see. No matter how many people you try to help, there will always be a line out the door. No matter how many kids get sponsored, there will always be one more…Continue reading
It has been an awesome week of reading and I hope that you had some good reads too!! 142 children were sponsored this week!!! Thank you to everyone who sponsored!!
There is still time to sponsor a child!!
Have a wonderful Saturday, everyone!!
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I normally don’t make resolutions. My family has never really done it, and so I’ve always thought of it as a way to get depressed early in the year. And then its a joke for the last seven months of the year until December 31st rolls around again and you make more, just to get depressed early and then joke about it and then make more. Over and over the cycle goes.
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