Passions of the Soul

How many ways can I say it?

I sit here, eating my breakfast as I type, while people are starving to death.  I've been on the attack--at times, only half-heartedly--against my creeping weight gain and winning only very slowly, so I have a hard time understanding what that must be like.  I can't even put myself in the place of a parent who is unable to feed his (or her) children, because I have no children of my own.  None for whom I've ever been responsible to feed and clothe.

I keep asking anyone who happens along and reads my blog to contribute to Compassion's Global Food Crisis Fund.  But what, you may ask, is Compassion doing with the money?  Please go to Compassion's blog for some information that may help to make dollar-sense of the need.

Then, if you haven't, yet, and are at all able to do so, please click on the link to the Fund to contribute whatever you can.  No matter how little it seems to you, it will mean food for a child and her or his family.  See how much you can do and how relatively little it would take from you.  Can you give $13 to feed a child for a month?  Or $78 to feed a family of six for the same period? Please give whatever you can.

Letter from a former sponsored child

The following excerpt is taken from a letter written by Ruzamba Niyomwungeli, a 24-year-old graduate of Compassion's Child-Sponsorship Program.  Written in Kinyarwanda, it was tranlated in English at the Compassion Rwanda country office.

I cried in my neighborhood, but no one listened to me.  I called to my neighbors because of hunger, but there was no boon coming to me.  I was sick in my bed, but no one could render a service.  But not far from God's hands, a sponsor, a parent, came to me from the far country that is beyond the sea where my eyes could not imagine a thought  What a blessing and love.  God I am too special in your eyes.  Thank you God.

You can read the entire letter here.  Then, if you would like to sponsor a child, you may click on the widget, in the left sidebar, or go here.

The problem isn't going away; it's getting worse.

Compassion continues to appeal for more funds for the Global Food Crisis Fund, for very good reasons.  From a letter just received from Wess Stafford, President and CEO of Compassion.  While the global staff continues to try to get a handle on what, exactly, is needed, the reports they get from the field look bleaker and bleaker.  Some examples:

- Thousands of children registered in Compassion-assisted projects "in at least six countries are in immediate need of relief.
- Every Compassion-assisted child in Haiti is affected.
- "Rice, a staple at every meal, has doubled in price.  For many of the 11,000 children we help [in Bangladesh], the only meal they receive each day comes from the Compassion-assisted church."
- Compassion predicts "this crisis will spread to each country where we work and has the potential to affect millions of children and families."  This is not sensationalism.  After all, every country where Compassion works is a developing nation; that means many of the people live in abject poverty.
-"In Haiti, a gift of $13 can feed a child for about one month."  Multiply that out to however much money you can contribute to the Global Food Crisis Fund.

Please remember:  The opposite of poverty is not wealth; it is enough.  Most of us have more than enough, even if we don't think we do--and I lived in a "notch group" for a few years.  The issue is what we spend our money on.  Can we do without a couple of Starbucks double lattes a month?  Buy one DVD fewer?  Rent fewer movies?

I know we're all feeling the pinch, and I know most of us are tightening our own belts.  Every division, every department at Compassion's Global Ministry Center in Colorado Springs is tightening budgets even further in order to free up as much money as possible for this gigantic need.  Compassion International is a ministry you can trust.  (Check 'em out with Charity Navigator or other charity watchdog organizations.)  In fact, you can't make a better investment, anywhere, than to sponsor a child or to contribute financially to Compassion.

Global Food Crisis - Revisited

Compassion International has set aside this Wednesday, June 25, as a day of prayer and fasting on behalf of our Compassion-assisted children, as well as all others whose poverty level leaves no margin for the dramatic rise in prices of basics like rice, beans and wheat.  Anyone who (a) shares a concern for the "least of these" of our world and a concern about this global crisis, and (b) believes in prayer is welcome to join.  Just click here to join the several thousand who have already signed up to participate.  And if you are moved to do so, why not also contribute to the Global Food Crisis Fund?  Both prayer and financial help are badly needed!

More on the Global Food Crisis

This is a link to the Compassion Blog.  It's written by Dr. Wess Stafford, the president and CEO of Compassion, about the Global Food Crisis.

Then, if you and your family have enough, please urgently consider contributing to Compassion's Global Food Crisis Fund.  You can never find another organization that will handle your gifts with more integrity; Compassion's integrity is absolute:  Your money will always be used for the purpose you designate, and Compassion is a 501(c)(3) organization meaning your gift is tax-deductible.

Please.  People are dying for want of food or money with which to buy it.  We feel the pinch of the rising prices; they feel it in the extreme, in their stomachs.  Some of Compassion's children feel something that must be akin to "survival guilt," as they eat one meal each time they are at their Compassion-assisted student center, or project.  They know everyone else in their family is not even getting that much.  Please help!

It's never enough!

I've been conversing, by e-mail, with a new Compassion friend, Kees (pron. "case") about helping to find sponsors for more children.  We've agreed that, no matter how many sponsorships we help to bring about, it's never enough.

While millions of children are still hungry, foraging in garbage dumps for food, drinking filthy water and getting sick from largely preventable illnesses, it isn't enough.  It's never enough, when so many people are so very hungry, many of them starving to death, that some of the children served by Compassion feel guilty for eating the meal they receive at the project, because they know their families are hungry.  It's never enough, when many Haitians eat cookies made of dirt, vegetable oil and salt, in order to "fool" their stomachs into thinking they're not hungry.  It's never enough, when that is so common that those who can afford to buy the bags of soil, make the cookies not only to eat and to feed their own children, but to sell to others!  And it certainly isn't enough, when the cost of the bag of soil rises so much that fewer and fewer people can afford to buy . . . DIRT!

If I were to find (pick a number) 75 sponsors every year, by my own efforts, that wouldn't be enough--and I'm not even close to that.  There is no number that would be enough!!

Maybe you can't afford to make a $32/month commitment to sponsor a child.  Could you contribute to the Global Food Crisis Fund?  I won't ask if you did, because it's none of my business.  Increasing the awareness of the needs, however, is my business.

 

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.

A challenge for you!

On Compassion's blog is a post about listening.  Read it, and then consider this challenge:

For one week (not less than one day!), listen to yourself, your spouse/significant other/family, listen to people around you wherever you are, wherever you go.  Listen for conversations, questions, statements, comments--anything that you would not hear among people who live in real poverty.

I read the post on Compassion's blog and immediately thought about some of the conversations at our house having to do with vacations.  Vacations give us a break from work and, depending on how we plan them, a chance to catch up on some rest, time to just sit and reflect, time to go deeper into God's Word, to watch in leisure as boats and sea planes go in and out of a bay...as we plan to do in June.  Vacations give us a chance to have some fun, whatever that means to an individual:  rock-climbing, surfing, deep-sea diving, kayaking, fishing, skiing...fill in the blanks for yourself.

But the poor never get a break from their poverty.  Even the children who are registered in a Compassion-assisted student center continue to live in their poverty. Yes, they receive a good meal, every day that they are at the center, as well as education assistance; health care, and nutrition assistance, as needed; a safe place to play and develop social skills; a life skill, which will enable them to provide for themselves and their families; many opportunities to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ and to learn the Word of God; and so much more.  Most of those who are sponsored will exchange letters, periodically, with their sponsors and receive small (to us) birthday and Christmas gifts.  But they go home to a very small structure, often very shaky, which typically houses far more people than can reasonably be accommodated.

The opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is enough.  Anything more than that is more than we need, and we have a responsibility to share.  So take the challenge, thank God for all that you have and remember that, as we say at my church, "We are blessed to be a blessing."