As I write this, there are tears splattered on my keyboard and mascara smeared on my cheeks. I’m not much of a crier, perhaps being desensitized as a result of reading painful stories every day. But this video of Jimmy Wambua meeting his sponsor has made me cry like a baby. 
 


The reason why is I know Jimmy. Jimmy stayed at our house for two weeks, so he went from being a formerly sponsored child, an African, and someone with a different culture and accent, to being a friend. To a human.

 
As much as we don’t want them to, our differences — culturally, geographically, economically — can separate us. “Others” can seem so very other. So unlike us. So “unrelatable.”

Yes, we have compassion for them. But it’s hard to really relate to them. Understand them. View them the same as we view ourselves, our neighbors, our family.
 


But Jimmy is my husband’s age. The two of them sitting on our couch talking about girls made Jimmy so utterly real to me. He’s someone who despite all our differences is so like us.
 
Someone who simply had a sponsor who loved him, who told Jimmy that Jesus loves him, and set his life on an entirely new path. 
 


So when I watch this video, I don’t just see some African who some Canadian “saved.” What I see is myself in another situation, another time, another circumstance. I see that this could have been me. And I see that this can be my sponsored child.

Africa has a branding problem.

If you close your eyes and think of Africa, what do you see?

Are you picturing dynamic leaders bustling about in business suits? Or are you picturing the “wretched of the earth”— men loafing, distended bellies and flies in the eyes?

Andrew Rugasira, founder of Uganda’s Good African Coffee, recently spoke at Willow Creek’s Leadership Summit and asserted that many us of harbor a stereotypical “basket case” image of Africa, that it’s all chaos and corruption and need.

Well, you might say, Africa seems in fact to be a basket case. There are men loafing and distended bellies and flies in the eyes. But that is not all there is to Africa.

There are also God-given rich resources and great potential. This question of our perception of not only Africa, but all of the developing world, is central to how we respond to the needs we see.

When we see the flies, we give handouts — which can promote the self-perpetuating cycle of dependence on the one hand and condescension on the other.

When we see potential, we focus on development.

According to Good African Coffee’s Web site, which promotes trade with the developing world rather than aid,

“Unless there is a radical shift in the way the world sees Africa, there is no foreseeable hope of ever reaching the Millennium Development Goals of universal primary education, poverty reduction and the elimination of avoidable infant deaths that were set for 2015.”

With this “basket case” view of the developing world, do we really believe it will develop … or do we somewhere in the back of our minds blithely check off giving as our “do good” opportunity, without reference to the end results? Checking our perceptions will revolutionize our response.

But besides this pragmatic reasoning for changing our stereotypical view of “the bottom billion,” we have a much deeper reason.

We are the Body of Christ.

Compassion partners with churches in the developing world — they aren’t our subjects or our charity cases, they are our partners. But beyond partnership, they are our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.

In the first century, Paul advocated between the Macedonian, Corinthian and Jerusalem churches (check out 2 Corinthians 8-9).

The Corinthian church struggled with moral issues, being from a very worldly city, but they also were wealthy and wise and earnest. The Macedonian churches were poor, but full of joy and generosity.

How would Paul have wanted the various churches to view one another?

That the Corinthians would look down their wise noses at the poor and helpless church in Jerusalem? (“Here come those needy Jerusalemites, needing our money again.”)

Or that the Macedonians would judge those carnal Corinthians? (“Those Corinthians may have money, but they don’t have the Spirit like we do.”)

By no means! They were to view and treat one another not through the filter of their weakness or need, but as dear and beloved brothers and sisters in the faith.

Jordan Linscombe, Compassion’s Church Engagement Manager, says

“Partnership is important because we better understand others in Christ’s Body, ourselves and the One whose love brings us together.”

As we partner with our brothers and sisters in other countries, we have the opportunity to operate as the Body of Christ — each of us playing a different role, each learning from and being edified by the other as we draw closer to Christ Himself.

This isn’t our chance to be the heroes and saviors. This is our chance to be a family.

Recently, my husband and I had the opportunity to have one of the Leadership Development Program Moody scholars stay with us. You’ve met Richmond, Michelle and Tony. Well, “Jimmy from Kenya,” as he likes to call himself, is our newest scholarship recipient.

With Jimmy from Kenya (a.k.a. Jimmy Wambua) as a house guest, we were treated to the first reactions to life in America from the perspective of someone who had grown up in poverty.

After the first couple of days, I asked him how it was going and what struck him most about life in America. It was the cheese.

“In America, you are so particular about what you want. You take me to Subway and they ask, ‘What kind of bread do you want?’ ‘What type of dressing do you want?’ ‘What type of cheese do you want?’ In my country cheese is cheese. It’s this or it’s nothing.”

The variety in general was a bit overwhelming to Jimmy.

“When I asked Mike for tea, he opened the cabinet and there was so much. Tropical tea, dessert tea, tea cocktail. Even in cars you have variety. You have a car for different kinds of weather and different activities.”

At every turn, we seemed to be asking him to make choices. And let’s not even talk about our trip to Walmart.

He was also quite struck by our home and our neighborhood. We live in a fairly typical middle-class American neighborhood and home.

Before he came, I had felt a bit self-conscious because the other hosts of the students were older with nicer homes. I secretly thought he’d be disappointed to stay with us. I know this is a silly worry considering he was coming from a one-room home without indoor plumbing, but I was thinking about the Joneses.

His perspective was different than mine.

“This is the home of a politician. These are the couches of a politician … . This is what I’ll call stinking rich. You live in posh environments, but you don’t feel they are posh.”

Jimmy stayed in our basement, which has an attached bathroom. He said,

“When you first showed me my room, I thought, ‘This must be the main part of the house, the best part of the house.’ Then I saw it was just the basement. In my country, I could work for years and still not have something as nice as your basement.”

I asked Jimmy if it frustrated him or made him angry to see people with so much. I always wonder that when visitors come — are they secretly judging us? Jimmy was gracious.

“Someone without my background who is struggling might be angry. But my feeling is biased because of Compassion. I understand why God blesses Americans — what you give. I believe that spirit of giving has gotten into American culture. You’ve been able to be content with what you have and give to others instead of keeping it for yourselves. Because of your generosity, God has blessed. God rewards you for listening to his call.”

I hope I can live up to Jimmy’s generous attitude toward us.

Recently, I’ve had the opportunity in my job to read a lot about development. After all, development is what Compassion is about. We don’t want to give a handout; we want to do the things that will truly help a child become a self-sustaining, responsible adult.

And although you might not think that theories of international development have much to do with you, they certainly do.

We are compassionate and generous people, and when we hear about a need, we want to help! We want to do something! But our first reactions of how to help may not necessarily be the best ways in which we can help. So understanding how development happens is vital as we seek to do good in this world.

Here are a few things I’ve learned … (more…)

When I visited the boy I sponsor in India, Sarath, he didn’t talk so much. We instead communicated with the toss of a Frisbee. But at the end of the visit as he walked me back to the bus, this little boy who had said little else, said over and over, “Please pray for me. Please pray for me. Please pray for me.”

Wouldn’t it be nice if I could tell you that faithfully every morning now I have kneeled to lift up Sarath and his two teenage sisters and unemployed mother? Too many mornings (and nights for that matter), I’m rushing and distracted and have forgotten the one plea Sarath made of me. Not “send more money.” Not “send more gifts.” Pray for me.

“Pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.” – Ephesians 6:18, emphasis added (NIV).

How seriously do we take prayer? I know I certainly don’t take it seriously enough. It’s the Sunday school answer to the issues we hear of plaguing the children we minister to.

How quickly and easily does the phrase, “I’ll pray for that” run off our tongues? But do we see prayer for what it is — crying out to the omnipotent God for His incomparable power to work in the lives of these children?

For we don’t just throw money at a problem. Our weapon against poverty isn’t cash. Our weapons “have divine power to demolish strongholds” (2 Corinthians 10:4, NIV).

As Eric Alexander says, “The great business of the church is prayer. And the greatest need of a needy world is a praying church.”

“In all our thinking about Christian service, prayer needs to become fundamental instead of supplemental … Prayer is the work; it is the essence of the task to which we are called, and apart from it, all other work, and I mean Christian work, is a sheer waste of time and energy divorced from the basic work of prayer. Everything else is insignificant.” – Eric Alexander

Oh my soul, when will I take prayer as seriously as I ought?

My husband and I just wrote a small group study that is all about learning about the issues in this world and responding to them in prayer. But I still fall so short in this ministry of prayer to the children we sponsor.

So tell me — what do you do to be alert and stay alert as Ephesians 6 says?

How do you keep on praying for all the saints?

What stories do you have of the power of God through prayer in your sponsored children’s lives, or your own life?

Several weeks ago, Compassion internally released a book communicating its brand, its mission and its character to employees worldwide. I eagerly flipped through the pages, as I always do, looking for photography by my co-workers.

On the second page was our mission statement, “Releasing children from poverty in Jesus’ name,” and a picture of Roselyn.

I remember the first time I read about Roselyn. It was my first month on the job. Edwin Estioko in the Philippines had written a story about her in September 2007: (more…)