Releasing Children from Poverty in Jesus' Name

I recently wrote a book review on Too Small to Ignore by Wess Stafford, president and CEO of Compassion International.  I promised to elaborate on child sponsorship, so here you go...

Compassion is an organization that works with children in poverty all over the world to give them the tools and the means to rise above their circumstances and become independent Christian adults.  They do this through providing health care, education, life-skills training, nutrition, and opportunities to hear about and respond to the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Sponsorship does much to enhance this whole process for the children because it puts the child in contact with someone on the other side of the world that is supportive of them and loves them.  It is clear from the life of Christ that Jesus loved children deeply.  In Matthew 18:10-11 Jesus says, "See that you do not look down on one of these little ones.  For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven."  Obviously Christ cares about kids, and if He does, we should too!

Abhinav

We began sponsoring Abhinav, an 8 year old boy from India, two years ago, and we have been blessed by him as I'm sure he's been blessed by us.  We write letters frequently back and forth, and we love to hear about what he is learning and what his life is like in his rural village.  Recently the Harbor partnered with Compassion and challenged the church to sponsor 50 kids.  So back in April we began sponsoring our second child, an 8 year old girl also in India named Lakshmi.  We are waiting to receive our first letter from her and we're both excited to get to know her as well!  Patrick and I are hoping to travel to India in the next few years to visit both children.

Lakshmi

It might be easy for Americans to brush off the idea of sponsoring an individual child and opt instead to just send money to organizations like Compassion.  But sponsorship has benefits for us too!  Not only to we get to connect with a child and invest in a relationship through letter writing and in-country visits, but it also puts a human face to the problem of poverty.  I know for me the issues of hunger and poverty seem overwhelming, and I feel like there's not much I can do to exact global change.  But by sponsoring children, we are able to make a difference.  Over time we get to see those kids released from poverty and begin making a positive impact on their own communities.  It's only by investing in the younger generation that we will truly overcome the problem of poverty.

If you are interested in what Compassion is all about or want to learn more about child sponsorship, check out their site below!

http://www.compassion.com/