At My First Graduation, I . . .
I knew our Leadership Development Program has graduations. I knew our Child Sponsorship Program has graduations. But I had no idea that our Child Survival Program (CSP) has graduations, until I saw this precious little gem…
The kids obviously take the graduation ceremony very seriously. (Or maybe they’re simply concentrating on holding such a large diploma.)
I distinctly remember my first graduation ceremony … 6th grade. I marched across the stage to get my diploma and then gathered with my class on three tiers of bleachers and sang “Country Roads” by John Denver. Even after 21 years I still remember every word to that song. I wonder what these CSP graduates will remember about their graduation.
How about you? What do you remember about your first graduation? Anything interesting?
Continue Reading ›Life in Haiti After the Earthquake: A Changed Perspective
Received from Ken Laura, a member of our Haiti Relief Team working in Port-au-Prince.
Sunday, April 25 — I moved last week and it has changed my situation and my perspective. Instead of sleeping in a tent beside the main road of Delmas listening to trucks roar up and down the street all night, I go to sleep seeing stars, and awaken to bird calls. Some of the birds are roosters, which start crowing at about 4:30, but other than that it is amazingly quiet here.
Whenever the power is out, usually from the morning until 10 p.m. there are very few lights in the area. Although the houses are a million dollars in size, they are only about $100,000 complete.
People do have mortgages here, but many build with the cash that they save from year to year and pay as they go. They don’t owe the bank interest, but they also have to wait a really long time to move into the house.
My new home is at the top of a steep hill in a very nice subdivision with a guard and pavement, mostly maintained. Some friends I’ve met are letting me stay as a courtesy.
Continue Reading ›What Difference Does the Child Survival Program Make in the Lives of Mothers and Babies?
Marisa is a member of a the Lawa tribe, a minority group with its own distinct dialect and tradition found only in certain isolated areas in northern Thailand. She lives in Laoop, a village located in a very high, remote area.
Even though Marisa finished grade nine, the quality of education she received at the school in her village was poor compared to the education she could have received at a school in the city.
As a member of a minority tribal group, Marisa’s options after school were limited. Most villagers in Laoop are educated only until grade six or nine, and after their brief education they usually find jobs and begin working. Marisa chose to work for a brief period, and when she turned 18 she married one of her neighbors and began her role as a housewife and a mother.
“Being pregnant made no difference to my work schedule. I still worked in the fields because I believed that it would strengthen my unborn child. I also ate the exact same meals I had before I was pregnant. My meals consisted of rice and boiled vegetable with spicy sauce. I did not eat anything special.
“After I got home from the hospital, I went to a health center nearby my village to attain information on how to raise my baby to be healthy and how to increase his weight. At the health center the nurse assistant briefly informed me on some basic guidelines, but she explained the information too quickly and I only understood a little of what she said.”
Heroes Don’t Always Wear Capes
I sat in a crowded, dank space and listened to the rain water dripping.
I squinted in the dark and leaned in to hear the quiet voice of Vincent, a sponsored child, living in the heart of Kenya, in the middle of Hell, known as Mathare Valley. He was an orphan, a child thrust into adulthood too soon, leading his family of siblings, alone.
Counting Malaria Out
At the center of Riaciina village in Kenya lies a semi-permanent house, traditionally constructed. The walls of the house are made of mud and smoothly smeared with cow dung. The roof is thatched with iron sheets. There is a big gap between the mud and iron sheets. Mosquitoes penetrate freely day and night.
This is the home of Amina, a toddler enrolled in the local Child Survival Program (CSP). At the back of the homestead lies waste from the nearby kitchen. On the other side of the home are thick bushes of indigenous trees.
As the CSP specialist visited the mother, mosquito bites could be noted on the face of the child. Throughout the session, the TEEEE! TEEEE! sound of mosquitoes could be heard.
In some countries, mosquitoes are just nuisance, but in Riaciina, mosquitoes pose a deadly threat. Mosquito-borne malaria is the major killer disease in the area.
Riaciina village lies in the semi-arid part of Kenya on the extreme southern slopes of the largest mountain in Kenya, Mount Kirinyaga. The occupants are mainly the Ambeere and the Akaamba people whose primary work is farming and fishing. (more…)
What Is It Like to Meet Your Sponsored Child for the First Time?
How would you describe meeting your sponsored child for the first time? Can you sum it up with one word?
If you can, please do. If you can’t, please use all the words you need.
How Do Our Sponsored Children Survive in a “Ghetto Zone”?
Chilibulo is a parish located in the southern zone of Quito, the capital city of Ecuador. This area doesn’t have much economically because jobs are scarce. A walk along Chilibulo’s dusty and poorly paved streets highlights the lack of progress.
On the sides of the streets there are little houses made of bricks and cement. Some of the homes are not fully constructed and others are old; the colors of their walls have long faded. Many families live here because they have unsteady jobs with low salaries. Most of them are informal merchants or bricklayers.
Chilibulo is also considered a “ghetto zone” due to area gangs and the high rates of delinquency.
This is the place where Mario and his wife, Martha, brought two children into the world.
Life in Haiti After the Earthquake: Weary but Resilient
This was written earlier in the week by Ken Laura, a member of our Haiti Relief Team. He has been in Port-au-Prince working with our Haitian staff since shortly after the earthquake.
Five-thirty comes early most days, but especially on a Sunday morning when you hope to get some extra sleep before church. Not this week, however. I was wide awake at 5. I forced myself to stay in the sack for another 30 minutes despite the rooster’s consistent crowing.
The high-pitched chirp of some baby doves asking for food and the soft cooing of their parents as they brought another tasty morsel to them brought back memories of 30 years ago when I was living in Limbe’ at the hospital where I worked. One of the other missionaries at that time was raising a pair of turtle doves for the eggs.
Calling my tent a sack is an exaggeration of for what I’ve been sleeping in the last three months. My tent living is nothing like what the vast majority of Port-au-Prince residents are living in at the moment.
As you’ve no doubt seen on the news, tent cities are all over town. More than 300 camps are registered in the city and more than 19 of them have 5,000-plus people living in them. The families are crammed together in muddy lots with only a sheet between them and the next family. Privacy is not a word in their vocabulary right now.
My First Compassion Sunday: Crying for Compassion
My tears embarrassed me. I didn’t want my friends to think I was trying to guilt them into sponsoring. I didn’t want to detract from our purpose in showing the exciting work Compassion is doing. But God used my tears.
As I pulled myself together, I realized I wasn’t the only one in the church crying.
How Do We Introduce Children in Poverty to a Christian Education?
Many children enrolled at the child development center got their first contact with the Word of God at the center. They had never heard about God, Christ or stories such as the Garden of Eden, Noah’s Ark or Joseph in Egypt.
Transformation is the best word to define what happens with the children during the class. Parents recognize the difference in the way their children behave.
Tell Me How to Do My Job
This blog is meant to be an authentic and sincere communication tool with you and for you. It’s not supposed to be about us talking at you.
I strive to make this blog relevant to your sponsorship experience, and most of the time with what I publish, I’m just guessing. Your interests, situations, questions, familiarity with Compassion, etc. offer up quite a challenge when it comes to finding the proper balance between our desires for advocacy and getting more children sponsored and what I imagine your desire to be:
“Help me feel closer to my sponsored child!”
It’s important to everyone on our Web team that you get what you want, that you feel more connected with your sponsored child because of what you read here. If you perceive this blog to be a one-dimensional commercial about how great Compassion is, then we are failing you.
Please use this blog post to let me know what content you want more of and what you want less of. Let me know what information you aren’t getting that you wish you were getting.
I’m asking for your help in determining what gets published here. The comments you leave will allow me to make specific requests for blog posts from our field communications specialists and from the staff serving in Colorado Springs.
Thanks.
Compassion Sunday Is Child Sponsorship Taken to the Next Level
As soon as I completed my Advocate training, my first thought was to host a Compassion Sunday at my church. I was on fire, passionate, and thought that was the obvious next step. I was wrong.