Comments on: Are You For Real?

By: Dana

Dana — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 20:51:29 +0000

Sadly, this little girl now reflects many of the youth of today. I work in a middle school and constantly hear kids whining about not having the latest cell phone or gaming system or whatever. One teacher asked her class the basic rights people should have. They came up with gun, Nintendo, etc. One one group game up with the right to an education. Their perspectives changed a little when a story about a little girl living in Nepal was read out.

One girl is on our school lunch program (provided free for those who can’t afford a lunch) but has a $500-600 cell phone. Yes it may have been a gift form someone outside her family, but if finances were really so tight, why not by a less expensive model and help support he family with food. If it WAS her parents, shame on them for scamming the school by claiming they didn’t have enough money for food. One kid’s cell phone wasn’t working, and his friends were hassling him, telling him to get his parents to buy a new one because it had been two days already.

Many of the children in the school are great kids, most of them in fact, and I don’t blame the children, really, as they are a product of their environment. I would love to organize a trip to a third world country with these children so they can experience how lucky most of them have it here. I’d love for them to see that most of the world doesn’t live as we do. Not that we should deny ourselves everything, but there should be an appreciation for what we do have and a recognition that not everyone is as lucky. I know that was something my parents taught my brother and I.

How humbling is it to have a SIX year old child thank you for her school fees. My little angel in Tanzania wrote that in a recent letter, thanking me for my sponsorship because it helped pay for her school fees.

By: Mike Stephens

Mike Stephens — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 11:34:56 +0000

I thought maybe you could have made a depsosit in her spirtitual bank with a verse

Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: while we were still sinners Christ died for us!!!!!!!”

By: Jenn

Jenn — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 19:10:30 +0000

That leaves me speechless.

By: Isabella

Isabella — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 20:01:04 +0000

While I do understand the perspective here, I do not think there was anything for the child to ask for that $4. I would not blame her so much, she was just doing what she thought was right in the circumstances and according to the environment she was brought up in.

If I had money, I would have given her and befriended her. Denying her and leaving her to guess why, was no answer to her perceived depravity and she is just a child.

Even if we sponsor compassion children, the fact is we have not abandoned our way of life, we still drive our giant SUVs, eat out, go to amusement parks, spend a little more than we should and have loads of clothes in our closets that we will not wear for the next three years before we think of giving them away. We all have more lessons to learn and I just feel that we should be kind to that poor child, whosever child it is. I believe if it was our own child, we would have sacrificed, is that not love? It is wanting good things for everyone.

By: Sara

Sara — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 19:36:53 +0000

I just got back from a two week missions trip to Kenya. After seeing how simply and happily the people live, i am shocked daily by how much we think we need to be happy. I feel so sorry for this little girl. She does not realize how blessed she is.

By: Beth Ingersoll

Beth Ingersoll — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 19:22:37 +0000

We are simply spoiled rotten.

By: Vicki Small

Vicki Small — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 17:34:07 +0000

This is why Christians in developing countries pray for America–because of our spiritual poverty.

I can’t imagine what I would have said to that girl, but the end result would have been the same: She’d have had to wait for the DVD.

By: Kees Boer

Kees Boer — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 03:45:45 +0000

You know it reminds me of the six spokes in the wheel of poverty. That little girl was really very poor and in some ways poorer than some of our Compassion children, because she was poor in the spiritual manner. Satan has used abundance in her life in much the same way as he uses poverty in other people’s lives. It’s sad, isn’t it?

Kees

By: Tina

Tina — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 03:27:15 +0000

Me too, Gavin. Wow.

By: Gavin Terukina

Gavin Terukina — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 22:58:13 +0000

I’m simply stunned.