Passions of the Soul

A different kind of tsunami

Please read about "The Silent Tsunami" Compassion's blog.  How much more would people in developing countries have, if the US government encouraged our farmers to produce all the crops they could, for food, rather than either paying farmers to limit their crops (I don't know if that's still done) or earmarking large quantities of some crops for use in creating bio-fuels.  So much of the world is starving, and we're using food crops to burn in our vehicles?

Have you followed that first link, above?  Did you read the post?  Did you notice this sentence:  Our children are feeling guilty for eating one meal a day.  Will you dare to let you heart be broken?

How many ways can you spend $32 in a month's time?  Could you give up a few little things, eat out one time fewer, to help one child in Bangladesh or Haiti?

Compassion International is not a new organization, having begun 55 years ago after the Korean War.  This organization is run with absolute integrity and works to develop a child in all areas of his or her life.  Your money is always used for its stated purpose.  CI is highly rated by several charity watchdog groups.  I've been to several student centers in one of the countries where we serve, and I can tell you that Compassion is helping to break the cycle of poverty for many, many children.

And yet, the current food crisis is taking a toll on even the children we serve.  If you cannot or don't wish to sponsor a child, but would like to do something to help, go to CI's website and look toward the bottom of your screen.  There you will see an invitation to donate to the Global food crisis fund.  Any amount will be welcome, any amount is needed, and it will be used as stated.  Thank you, and God bless you.

Compassion Sunday

Compassion International's biggest annual campaign is known as Compassion Sunday.  Last year, well over 21,000 children in poverty were sponsored through this campaign; the goal this year is 22,000.

The official date for Compassion Sunday, this year, is this Sunday, April 13 '08.  Many, many churches will be hosting CS's, this weekend, although many CS's will be held--and, indeed, have been held already--on other dates throughout the year.  But this weekend is big, in terms of getting close to our goal.  Today, many Compassion employees, volunteers and sponsors are observing a day of fasting and praying specifically for the thousands of children whose packets have been sent out to churches, and for all of the people attending those churches who will have the opportunity to "[release a child] from poverty in Jesus' name." 

If you are reading this, would like to sponsor a child and your church does not (yet) host Compassion Sunday, each year--perhaps never has--you can choose a child right here, anytime.  The cost is $32/month and frequent letter-writing; no, letters aren't exactly required, but if you want to sponsor a child without investing in building a relationship, Compassion may not be your best choice.  On the other hand, if you want to sponsor a child through an organization that is Christ-centered, child-focused, church-based and committed to integrity, but you legitimately will not have the time to build the relationship, you can choose to provide the financial end and either find a friend or family member to be the correspondent-sponsor, or ask Compassion to find such a person for you.  This is not uncommon, especially for large corporations that sponsor perhaps thousands of children, or for doctors and other people who legitimately do not have the time and may, in fact, sponsor many children (like a doctor I heard of who sponsored 100 kids; trust me--she's not going to be able to write letters to them!)

If you are a sponsor or become one and would like to hold a Compassion Sunday in your church, click on the link in the first paragraph of this post and read how to go about it.  You may also pose questions to me, here, or by e-mail.

Sponsoring a child, sharing life with him or her through letters, possibly visiting by traveling with Compassion, loving, encouraging, praying for, nurturing that child may change you in ways you never thought possible.  I know it's one of the best things I've ever done...the other "best thing I've ever done" is to advocate for children through Compassion.

Announcing...

First, my guest post is up at Compassion's own blog.  Reading it is not required, and there will be no quiz.  However, I have it on the authority of my friend Candy, at Compassion, that she laughed, and she cried, while reading it.  (One of my former graduate-school professors would have given me an A on it, simply because a reader was moved.)

Second, and very important, is a bulletin just in from Compassion:  April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month.  Compassion's board policy states:

Concern for children is the cornerstone upon which Compassion International has been built.  We are opposed to all forms of child abuse and exploitation and will do everything within our power to ensure that no harm comes to any child registered in our program due to his or her involvement in the ministry of Compassion International.

The bulletin goes on to define some ways in which workers in the field "safeguard children in Church Partner activities from all forms of abuse and exploitation...:

• Providing a positive and save environment for children that enables them to fulfill their potential;
• Engaging the active commitment of caring adults who surround them, to care for children with dignity, respect and integrity at all times;
• Preventing and/or reducing the risks of the incidence of abuse through enforcing policies, strategies and procedures on child protection;
• Educating children on the limits of acceptable behavior as it relates to physical, sexual and verbal abuse.

"As child advocates, our mandate is to ensure that all children in our care as well as those we come into contact with every day enjoy safe, loving and well protected lives thus releasing them to achieve their ultimate potential."

And anyone who thinks this is just a nice-sounding board-room policy needs to read Too Small to Ignore:  Why the Least of These Matters Most, by Dr. Wess Stafford, President and CEO of Compassion International.

Children of the world

I haven't written a post quite like this in quite a while.  Today, I received the Prayer Partner Newsletter from Compassion, and several of the requests for April really struck me.  The Newsletter is set up with one prayer request or praise for each day of the month.  All are important, but some get between my ribs, so to speak.  I want to share some with you.  We're praying for:

six-year-old Dariana, in Guatemala.  Her mother was hit by a car and killed, after dropping Dariana off at the child development center;

hundreds of families in Ecuador who have been affected by severe flooding.  Besides the losses of many homes, hundreds of Compassion-assisted children have contracted dengue fever or rotavirus;

a child in Nicaragua who was recently diagnosed with HIV.  [In Africa, Compassion would be able to step in and provide treatment for him, and other help for the family to prevent the spread of the virus.]  Please pray that the office staff will be able to find appropriate help for this boy;

50,000-plus sponsored children in Tanzania, many of whom have lost their parents or guardians to AIDS.

Bequer, 7, in Peru, who suffered leg injuries in an auto accident in which his brother was killed.

April 13 is the official Compassion Sunday (Compassion Sundays can be held anytime during the year, however).  Pray that thousands of children all over the world will find sponsors who will love, encourage and nurture them as they are released from poverty in Jesus' name!

Pray for the family of two children in Bolivia, whose mother needs surgery for arthritis.  They face eviction, because she has no money.

Pastor Jose, in El Salvador, whose church runs a Compassion-assisted child-development center.  This pastor faces financial struggles and gang threats.

Many children in Kenya have been scarred by sights of looting, killings and angry people carrying machetes through streets and neighborhoods.

Ten-year-old Anthony, in Ecuador, suffered third-degree burns on his legs and may not walk again, unless God heals him.

A 12-year-old boy in Guatemala has been diagnosed with leukemia.

April 25 is World Malaria Day.  While we praise God for those who have supported Compassion's Malaria Intervention Fund, we also pray for help in combatting this deadly disease.  And please consider contributing to this fund:  $10 pays for an insecticide-treated bed net and other assistance.

Pray also for children in child development centers in Rwanda's western province; an earthquake there left more than 1000 families homeless.

And, of course, if you are interested in sponsoring a child in any of 24 countries, please go here!  All it takes is $32 per month, a caring heart and a willingness to pray for and correspond with a child in poverty, encouraging, nurturing and loving that child as she or he is released from poverty in Jesus' name.  I have seen the work of Compassion in the field, and I know it works!

As Kenya calms...

I'm about three weeks late with this reference, but--having looked over the list of prayer requests at this link--I believe every one of them is still needed.  Please continue to pray for Kenya, for all of God's work going on, over there, including Compassion's.  Pray also for all Kenyans who participated in the violence, that their hearts will be changed through Jesus Christ and they will participate in peaceful resolution, instead.

Praise!!--I have received a letter from Rebecca!  She and her family are okay, and she is continuing her studies at the university.  Thank you, Father!

Advocates in southern Arizona

I've talked before about Compassion's Advocates Network, about conferences and other related topics.  Most likely, I have made reference, somewhere along the line, to my serving as the Area Coordinator (AC; i.e., team leader) for southern Arizona advocates (i.e., v-o-l-u-n-t-e-e-r-s).  When I was named AC, almost a year ago, we were a team of six people.  Mark Gehri, our Regional Relationships Manager, and I had some conversation before he announced me as the AC about whether our team should be reabsorbed into the team in the Phoenix area.  We decided to keep our team separate and pray that God would draw people of His choosing into our ministry.  It's a good thing we did.

At the time of the Advocates conference at the beginning of August, 2007, the Network was about 1,000 to 1100 strong, where it had hovered for a few years.  Every year, a couple hundred people would respond to a mailing from Compassion to sponsors, but along the way, about the same number would drop out, for one reason or another. We were told that the campaign for 2007/2008 would be "Join Me," and we were all asked to pray diligently that God would call more people into the ministry of child advocacy through Compassion.

The mailer went out in August or early September, and the applications and requests for same began to come in...tsunami fashion!  I think we all stopped praying for more people by the end of September:  Those who work at the Global Ministry Center (GMC) in Colorado Springs were praying for strength and for help; the rest of us began praying for them!

As of early last week, we had 1,868 people in the Network.  Don't ever tell me God doesn't answer prayer!  That is positively unprecedented growth.  Yes, the tide has slowed way down, but they're still coming in.  Last night, I had an e-mail from someone who had read my blog, had seen that I am an advocate.  He e-mailed me to express his interest in joining and asked some questions.  I like that.  If you sponsor a child through Compassion and feel a pull on your heart to be more involved, please feel free to do as that person did and e-mail me.  Or go to the Network link, above, and read about it.  You can complete and submit the application online, if you wish.

By the way, our southern Arizona team currently stands at 15, with the possibility that three more more will join us in the next few weeks.  That will mean our team has tripled since the end of September.

I keep wondering why, all of a sudden, God has added so many to our ranks.  Is it simply because we asked, so He said, "Oh, well...okay, if you're sure"?  I don't think so.  I believe with all my heart that He intends to use each of us to spread the word about sponsorship, child advocacy (in or out of the Network), about God's mandate to all of His people to care for the widows and children, the poor, the oppressed...the least of these.  More than 2,000 verses in the Bible have to do with children and the poor.  I have come to believe that we dare not ignore them! 

Doing good

"If you can't do the good you would, do the good you can" (Charles Swindoll, in "Insight for Today," Feb. 25, 2008).

The devotional for today is part of Dr. Swindoll's series in Exodus (OT).  He has written about Moses, how he learned of his true identity and how subsequent incidents drove him into the desert.  He ended up assisting a group of seven Midian women who tended a flock of sheep--a far cry from the visions he had had of himself as a great deliverer.  He married one of the women and settled down.

If you have ever had big dreams, only to see them remain unfulfilled, will you please raise your hand?  Sadly, I can't see any but my own hands.  You bet, I have had big dreams.  The first place I ever wanted to travel to see was Switzerland.  That was when I was first reading Heidi.  Haven't been there, yet.  More recently--roughly 20 years ago--I returned to college in order to prepare for teaching high-school English.  That didn't work out, well, although I did teach part-time at our community college, for a few years.  And while I did not earn fame as a great teacher, I did do some things very well.  (Dealing with student apathy was not one of them!)

I have known people, and you probably have, too, who just drifted along, taking whatever job they could get, because they were unable to do the one thing that they claimed was their dream.  A physical impediment kept one man from becoming a policeman, so he sat on his duff.  If he couldn't do what he wanted, he would let his wife work to support him and their children.  He would not hear of preparing himself to do anything else.

Having wanted for more than 30 years to sponsor a child, I finally was able to do that when I encountered a table with child packets from Compassion International.  At the same time, I was given a passion for helping to find sponsors for other children.  Almost immediately, I had great visions of what we could do to promote sponsorship at my own church, the grandest of which did not pan out--or haven't, yet.  And two years ago, I envisioned a great plan for opening the doors to great numbers of churches for Compassion across southern Arizona.  That hasn't happened, either, although I don't think that dream is dead.  Too much needs to be done, I think, before it can be implemented and brought to pass.  Meanwhile, I am able to talk to the occasional church leader within the community, and while that hasn't yet borne a lot of fruit, in terms of sponsorships, I think I can see greater potential than before.  The lesson to me was that, while I could not force the dream into being, I could do the day-to-day task of contacting churches and asking to meet with one or more of the leaders to talk about Compassion.

The irony for Moses, of course, is that his own great plans for delivering his people from bondage seemed to have died with the man he murdered in anger.  But years later, when Moses had been humbled and developed a servant's heart, God sent him back to Egypt to deliver His people from under Pharoah's oppressive hand.

What big dream do you have that you have not been able to fulfill?  Is it your own, or is it a God-inspired vision?  If it's your own dream, is it worthy of your time and attention to take steps toward its fulfillment?  What are the first three steps you can take?  What is holding you back?  What would you do if you weren't afraid?

If you know or believe your dream is from God, remember that His timing is never wrong, even when it seems hopelessly slow, to us.  What steps are available to you as you remain open to further leading, insights and/or development?  What is holding you back?  For me, it's often the 50-lb. telephone on my desk, when I know I need to call a church.  What is it for you?  What one step can you take today, or this week?

"If you can't do the good you would, do the good you can."

Leadership Conference

I cannot believe it's been a week (well, tomorrow) since I came home from the Leadership [Advocates] Conference in Colorado Springs.  It was my first leadership conference, and I really had no idea what to expect.  Now I know:  great times of laughter, tears, learning, inspiration, recharging, information overload and more.  I'm always sorry when our conferences come to a close.  They are full, but they are short.  Too short, although many of our spouses and families might disagree.

I arrived in Colorado Springs on Friday, about mid-morning.  I have wanted for so long to get up there and see the U.S. offices (aka Global Ministry Center) of Compassion, and this was a welcome opportunity.  The Advocates Network has been growing so quickly, since August, that on our own Southwest Region's team, we had many new people.  In fact, the growth is unprecedented and cannot be attributed to merely human effort.

I took a lot of pictures, this time, and unlike my experience in August, I took pictures of a lot of people.  This is good.  The pictures are good.  The people are good...although maybe I shouldn't say that, since I'm in several of 'em!

I wish I could adequately tell you what the Compassion conference experience is like, but it's like what I heard an old gentleman say about knowing the Lord:  "It's better felt than telt!"

If you have ever thought about sponsoring a child and want to do that through a Christ-centered, child-focused, church-based organization that you can absolutely trust, please go here.  The lives you change will include your own!

More old friends

I held a Compassion Sunday, today, at the Vineyard Christian Community, in town.  Aside from the opportunity to talk about Compassion and about child sponsorship, I also reconnected with some old friends from the mid- to late-70's.  That's always neat, and I really enjoyed visiting a bit with Sandy, and with Phil (they are not a couple).  But even more special to me was to reconnect with Aaron, whom I first knew when he was 18 months and for a few years afterward.  He was such a neat kid, a truly precious little boy, and I've often wondered about him and his younger brother, Kevin.  Aaron isn't a little kid, anymore, and he has a little girl about the same age that he was, when my first husband and I became friends with his parents.

I did get to see two child packets picked up, the children sponsored.  And I had ended my presentation with a brief invitation to join the Advocates Network, with four people coming to inquire about that.  The last one introduced himself as a friend of Wess [Stafford, our president and CEO]; he must have thought I was barmy, or something, because on hearing he was a friend of a man I hold in such high regard and with such affection, all I could do, at first, was stand there and smile at him.  Then I realized I really ought to say something.  Anyway, Jerry is going to join the Network, and I'll be delighted to have him on the team.

So...I hope your day was as good as mine! :o)

A little compassion, please!

For me, that is.  What else can you say for someone who truly would lose her head, if it weren't well attached?

This is a very busy and active week for my work with Compassion.  On Tuesday, I met with a pastor of a church that has never partnered with Compassion, and left with a willingness on the pastor's part to pursue a couple of options for partnering with us.  I don't expect the board to take both options, but I hope they will take one of them.  Either one.  The praise is that the pastor has an open heart and mind, and a definite belief that children are the foundation of a growing church.  He's right, and thank you, Lonnie.

Today, I attended a luncheon of the Tucson Association of Evangelicals.  It was my first time, but it won't be my last.  I had been told I wouldn't be able to speak to the group, but that it was a good place for networking.  That's true.  I talked with two or three pastors and got agreement that I could call each of them about a time when I can tell them how Compassion wants to come along side a church in a partnership.  I also talked with another church leader who is eager to hear how his church can partner with Compassion.  And there was a man from Family Life Radio who knows about Compassion and wants to talk about how the radio station can partner with us!  Much to be thankful for, and I am!  I exchanged cards or contact information with each of these people.  I put each card inside the plastic sleeve covering a pocket calendar that I carry in my purse.

God handed me each of these contacts on a silver platter, and what did I do?  I lost the platter.  I have no idea where my pocket calendar is.

It isn't in my purse.  It isn't in the black Compassion bag in which I carried some literature, Wess Stafford's book, and a DVD or two.  I had nothing else with me.  It isn't in my car.  It isn't in the fellowship hall of the church where we met and ate (the wonderful secretary went over to check; it wasn't there.  I called the vet's office, where I met Bruce and Bailey (an emergency visit), and it isn't there.  The only other stop I made on the way home was at a postal contract station, where I dropped off three FedEx packages, and I left my purse in the car, when I did that.

That calendar has utterly disappeared.

How to drop from a real "high" to being totally bummed.  Drop with a thud, as it were.