Changing the Story

Today was a very special day for thousands of children around the world.  Today was Compassion Sunday, a day when sponsorship advocates all over the country shared the blessings of child sponsorship with their church families and encouraged them to become sponsors themselves.  Several months ago the Lord called me to be involved in Compassion Sunday, so I had the wonderful opportunity to share my heart for child sponsorship at my church this morning.

Compassion International is a child advocacy organization, which is involved in ministry all over the world to release children from poverty in Jesus' name.  It is an incredible organization that Patrick and I are proud to support.  I've written several times about the kids we sponsor, and our recent trip to India to visit them in person.  You can read that post here.  Our experience in seeing firsthand the impact of our sponsorship was a huge inspiration for my presentation this morning.  When you've had the opportunity to see with your own eyes the blessing of sponsorship, you can't help but want to share that blessing with as many people as possible.

The slogan for this years' Compassion Sunday was "Change the Story."  This is really what Compassion is all about; giving children a chance at a new life as they are given the resources to rise out of poverty.  Compassion sponsorship gives children resources like education, food, clean water, clothing, etc.  But the most important thing the kids are given is a chance to heard the gospel of Jesus.  It would be easy to meet physical needs and call it good, but meeting spiritual needs is really the crux of the matter.  Meeting physical needs might make people more comfortable for their brief stint on Earth, but until we share the Good News of Christ, we have left their spiritual state unchanged.  It is through belief in Christ that true transformation happens, and real hope is experienced.  Compassion is all about meeting needs both physical and spiritual, and this is what I love about the organization.  Lives are being transformed in all sorts of amazing ways as children are provided clean water but also Living Water.

The Lord did an incredible thing within our church family this morning.  I had received packets for 15 children needing sponsors, and I had been praying for weeks that each and every one of them would have sponsors by the end of the morning.  After the service my sponsorship table was swamped with people whom God had called to be a blessing to a child in poverty.  Within minutes all 15 child packets were gone!

The goodness of God was made so evident to me yet again this morning.  It brought tears to my eyes to think of the joy of those children who received sponsors today, and the way that their story will be changed by it.  Because really, you can't experience Jesus without being changed in incredible ways!

If you are interested in sponsoring a child through Compassion, please check out their website.  There are thousands more children waiting for someone to change their story.  It can start with you!