my compassion mother's day gift

A few days ago I received a new letter from our sponsored child, Brayan. We sponsor Brayan through Compassion International. I also do volunteer work through Compassion but this is really about him today and not quite as much about Compassion. Getting a letter from Brayan is always very exciting and this one was no different! It came with a picture of him with a box and a huge smile on his face. It reads as follows:

Receive a cordial greeting full of a lot of kisses and hugs. May the Lord Jesus bless you and protect you. I thank you very much for that beautiful gift: it is a pair of shoes and some socks. Thanks-you for thinking of me. I feel very happy for being at the Project, because they are giving me many things like: the Word of God and how to obey my parents. I also want to tell you that I am back at school. I want to ask you: what was your favorite subject? Please, I ask you, in a very special way, to keep on praying for me. I say bye with hugs and a lot of love.

Brayan

Now, this is a great letter and it in and of itself would have been extremely well loved in my home and reread by us many times BUT... what I noticed after reading it is that his instructors name WASN'T on it. Usually it will say towards the bottom of the letter,"Written by Mary C**** because Brayan isn't old enough to write the letter on his own." Suddenly I noticed that this wasn't mentioned this time and I looked up at the top portion of the letter to find that the cursive writing at the top of the letter, where it is written in the original Spanish, was certainly that of a child. My eyes widened as I realized that I was holding Brayan's first letter written by his own hand to us! This letter will be treasured even more then the others from him. I have loved watching this little boy grow. It is now almost two years since we first sponsored Brayan. His hair has darkened as his nutrition has improved. His smile is brighter and he often talks to me now about prayer in his letters. He seems to also talk to us in a more familiar way and I love answering his questions and sending him letters back with small gifts enclosed.

My son, so far away in Colombia gave me such an honorable Mother's Day gift.

Please join me in praying for Brayan, and for his family. Please consider sponsoring a child through Compassion International. I would be happy to answer any of your questions.

Compassion in Haiti

Tonight I was searching for more information on Haiti and of how Compassion international was working with their centers there in Haiti when I came across this information.

I read through and not having a child sponsored in Haiti I didn't look for a specific center.

I did however read the comments and I read the comments and I read the comments.

It wasn't long before I had tears in my eyes. There were 100 comments, most from sponsors looking for ANY information on their child. They sound desperate and I am sure they are. They were trying to figure out exactly where their child was on the map and comparing that to where the epicenter of the quake was.

Some of them left comments that they were glad that their child was on an island far away, other left comments that they child was just 7 miles from the epicenter and they simply asked for prayers.

The pain and emotion is raw in the comments and to me sounds like so much more then simply a relationship where money is just sent.

It is obvious that these children are loved, cherished, prayed over, thought of and believed in.

These sponsors sound more like parents, longing for information yet fearful of what they will hear.

If you are looking for a way to help in Haiti, you should consider Compassion International. They have a large network already at work in Haiti. They know the people, they are the people there and they are already in place to start helping.

This page has all the Haiti updates from Compassion and it has specific ways in which you can help and what exactly your donations will do for the people of Haiti.

Please check it out.

new letter from brayan-- my compassion international child

I wanted to share this letter with you...

Dear Anna *******,

Beloved, it is a great pleasure wishing that our God fill you with blessings. The tutor Mary ****** writes you because Brayan still doesn't do it. He finds very well and he sends you thanks for everything and for being a blessing for him. He tells you that his dad is restoring the house and it is looking like very pretty. His granny was operated of a hernia, but now thanks to God he is fine. At school he is doing well and he will learn to read and to write the letter soon by himself. Brayan wants to hear: how is your home? Do you have garden? I ask you that you pray for him. He says goodbye with kisses. May God bless you.

Brayan ************

He drew me another sweet picture on the back of the letter. It is translated from Columbian Spanish to English and so there are obviously some translation issues, but really they are minor. I am always SO excited to hear from my little Brayan and since some of you had expressed interest in the sponsorship program I wanted to share this letter with you. I look forward to getting new pictures of Brayan soon. He reminds me quite a bit of my own little boy and I really have such fun sending him letter and pictures and things like that.

I am going to try to resurrect this blog and start writing again. We had an insane fall with so much going on, but I think now things may hopefully slow down slightly and I am hoping that I will have more time to post.

If you would like to sponsor a child, please go to this link and look at the needy children. If you have any questions please let me know and I will do my best to answer them.

compassion in kolkata

I have discussed Compassion International here in the past. They are an amazing international organization that does work with impoverished children. They spread the Gospel of Jesus and they assist the child and the family in ways that are desperately needed, like school fees and clothing and food and medical help. The assistance that they offer varies from project to project and from need to need. What is amazing is what they do for these people. What YOU can do for them as well. Compassion works largely on sponsorships and what that means is that people like you and me will sponsor a child and the money that you pay each month helps that child with their needs. Knowing that someone out there cares enough to do this is huge!

What was surprising to me though was how much just having a real life person sponser them means to them. They know that someone cares. Someone believes in them. Someone LOVES them. When the children are reading the letters that are sent to them and seeing the pictures it is enough to boost their self esteem to the point where they can see the outside of the poverty stricken area they are living in. It lets them dream and dream big!

It really is amazing what $32 a month can do.

I spend that same amount every month for just one of my children to take gymnastics lessons once a week for an hour.

Just an hour a week.

When Compassion takes that same amount do you see what they can do?! It amazes me everyday.

The amazement doesn't cease... I have read accounts and read accounts of the poverty and the desperation in these places. I have seen the pictures and have f0llowed bloggers as they went on the last two Compassion trips. They are doing a trip right now in which they take bloggers and they take them to Compassion sites in a country that Compassion works in and they show them what they do and the Compassion Bloggers will show the pictures and they will tell the story. This is a very effective way to spread the news of what Compassion does. It reaches so many people to let them know of this opportunity to reach out and be blessed... blessing your socks off kind of blessed!

If you would like to follow the Compassion Bloggers on this trip as they visit India, please check out the following links.

Angie @ Bring the Rain

Melissa @ The LPM Blog

Robin @ Pensieve

Anne @ Flowerdust

Pete @ Withoutwax.tv

Please consider sponsoring a child. It is a decision that I do not believe you will ever regret.

advocate for compassion

I had my Compassion International interview recently. I think I mentioned some of this back in my post about Compassion Bloggers. I am in the process of becoming a Compassion Advocate. This is a purely volunteer position and I will be a voice here in our area to try to get the word out about helping these children.

I had sent in all of my information to Compassion including the paperwork for my background check and was awaiting my training DVDs or something. I didn't think it would take that much for me to just tell people that they need to sponsor a child in need. I mean... really. Then I found that Compassion isn't like most places with volunteers. I received an email from a wonderful lady and then a phone call from her and she scheduled an interview for me to speak with her uninterrupted for at least 45 minutes. I gulped. That is a long time for an uninterrupted phone call in my house. I homeschool! I have kids that think they should and can have access to me at absolutely ANY time of day or night.

Thankfully it worked out fine because my sweet John had the day off work.

We talked on the phone for over an hour, she explained how the Compassion advocates work and how the training works and how we have meetings and get togethers and conferences and many other things. That made it sound really complicated and demanding but it really isn't. There is a great support network and there is awesome training and there are wonderful opportunities for ministry as well, but you set up how much you can do and you make those decisions for yourself and your family. I am hoping that our whole family can have opportunities to become involved in this ministry.

What I am impressed with is that they have all of this set up for volunteers! They will have people in place to help me with my training. Some of which is done online and some on a conference call. They do not want volunteers telling people wrong information because we are the ones on the ground here and in many ways we are the face of Compassion here where we are. That makes so much sense.

I am looking forward to my training. To learning more about this company and to being able to help more children find someone to help them.

My family has been blessed beyond measure already through Compassion. It is amazing how blessed you can be while blessing others isn't it?!

The kids and I wondered in the past what the world would be like if everyone in our country stepped out and sponsored just one child with Compassion. Just ONE! What would the world look like? How many lives would be literally saved from hunger?

I will keep you updated on this training of mine and what it entails. I decided to go ahead and post this information on my blog because maybe some of you would consider becoming an advocate as well. Maybe once you see what it is like through my eyes you will be encouraged.

In the meantime, there are waiting children. Even though my training isn't done, I can help you find a child to sponsor. Please let me know if you are ready to reach out to a child in need.

Compassion... meets blogging!

I have mentioned Compassion International on my blog here before and I have had the little compassion button on my sidebar for a while, but I haven't updated you all recently on Brayan and honestly that is not what I am doing now. Right now, I am cluing you in to something else.

Some bloggers go on trips with Compassion. They blog the journey and give people back here a blogger's eye view of the trip.

I have been reading these blogger trips lately and honestly I was reading the last Compassion blogger trip to Africa as well. I have been very impressed with what I have seen coming across these blogs. I have been impressed with Compassion enough that I am now going through an application process to become a Compassion Advocate. Which is essentially a volunteer for Compassion. I will be helping around my area to get the word out about Compassion and what they do. My application process isn't done yet, but I have already received information from them and I have filled out my background check info to send back to them.

Much of this has happened from me reading these blogs, although I was considering becoming an advocate before and I have spent much time praying about it. I felt that this was the right time and I made the plunge. I am very excited about volunteering my time in this way.

I wanted to share the link to these blogs with you. Check them out. Check out Compassion and reach out to a child in need. You will make a difference, not just for now, but forever.

There will be an update on Brayan soon, as I really do want to include all of you in the life of my sponsored child. There is this incredible connection to him that I feel that I never could have imagined. That all needs it's own post, so I will wait until I have more time to write, in the meantime, check out these blogs and think about what you can do.

My Second Son

For more years than I can look back and count, I have wanted to sponsor a child from a developing country. When I was quite young, I asked my father about it and he asked me if I would always, every month, be able to pay that thirty-dollar amount. He discussed with me that this was a very big commitment, that once you sponsor a child, you have made a commitment to them until they are done with the program. I could not, at that age, commit to sponsor a child.

I remembered my father’s words for many years when I would see these pictures of children. I remembered them as I went through college and as I started my own family. I remembered them well as I struggled to keep quality food on our own table. Finally, this last year, I remembered them as my husband and I talked about sponsoring a child. We were ready. I looked over the website at Compassion International and peered into the eyes of hundreds of needy children. They all needed help, EVERY single one of them. I wanted to sponsor every last one of them. My momma heart wanted to scoop them all up and hold them close and smell their hair and sing sweet songs. I just looked over at John and told him that I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t chose just one! How could I know who needed us, who we needed? It was impossible for me, so I chose instead to press the button on the side that would link us up with a child in greatest need. A child, who had been waiting the longest, or for some other reason, was put into the greatest need category. I thought we would find out right then whom we had been paired with, but that was not the case. I was told that we would find out who we had been paired with in a week or two when our packet would arrive.

I anxiously waited. The day the packet came I honestly cried. Our relationship, our bond was born on that very day. We had a new child in our hearts. His name is Brayan, and he lives in Columbia. His birthday is the day after Christmas and falls right between my own two little ones birth years. He just turned 6 and mine just turned 7 and 5. The first letter we received from him was such an extreme delight! He had drawn us a picture and had inquired about us, his sponsors. My children loved the colored pencil drawing that Brayan had sent to us and they quickly pulled out their own crayons and paper to respond to Brayan. They drew pictures to send to this little boy and I wrote him a letter, and sent the money to cover a birthday gift for this precious little one.

Brayan’s picture is right on the front of our refrigerator and it will always have a place of great importance in our home. He is the child that we love, that we hold in our prayers that someone else gets to hold and sing songs to.

The drawing at the top of this post is the one that Brayan sent to us. I imagine that this is a drawing of the mountains of Columbia and that the building with the cross on it and the rainbow above is the center that he now attends because of his being in the Compassion program.

When you are able, please consider sponsoring a child like Brayan. On the side bar of my blog is a link to Compassion International, you just may want to check it out.