How Do You Determine Need Versus Want?
How do you find the balance between what you want and what you need? Especially when it comes to your kids, whom you and the grandparents and aunts and uncles want to shower with good things?
On our Compassion tours, parents often bring their teenagers but rarely their younger children. Which raises the question: When should we start teaching our kids about poverty and exposing them to the needs in the world around them?
Developed-World Tantrums
In the grand scheme of the universe, how much of my time is wasted groaning about my “problems?” I’ve decided to call these problems my “developed-world temper tantrums.”
Kaitlin’s Legacy
Kaitlin was just a normal 16-year-old girl living in Alberta, Canada, when she was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor. So when the Children’s Wish Foundation approached her to make a wish — a wish that would bring just a little relief and light into a girl’s days that were marked by trial — her…
Would you join me in praying for all the mothers in the Child Survival Program, that they would give birth to healthy babies and accept the support and help they need?
One Year Later: Haiti Will Not Die
The work is still large. It won’t happen overnight or even in a year. It will take years for Haiti to come back from this earthquake. But Elissaint isn’t leaving. Compassion Haiti isn’t leaving. And the local churches who implement our programs aren’t leaving. They are raising a generation of children to believe that their…
The Children’s Mite
Children are the most ignored and vulnerable group in Bangladesh, and the children we serve there are some of the poorest in the world.
But these children, who live in circumstances we can’t imagine, are learning to see hope in their lives and how to help others.
When they heard about the Jan. 12 earthquake in…
Extreme Makeover: Heart Edition
I am a sucker for reality TV. Seriously, if someone is weighing himself or trying to win a quick-fire cooking challenge or ripping down a house on TV, I’m there.
But I’ve got to tell you, working at Compassion spoils you for pop culture. Suddenly everything is in perspective.
Before starting my job here, I used…
A Time Such as This
I hit a point several weeks ago where I didn’t think I could handle seeing one more thing or reading one more article about Haiti. I needed some distance and recuperating time, which is a good thing. But despite the time of stress and trauma, there is one thing we must keep doing:
“And pray…
Clean Water for Haiti
The critical need the poor always have for water has been heightened in Haiti after the earthquake. We’ve used various ways to distribute water to our church partners, and we’re looking to our strategic partnerships to continue to meet the short- and long-term needs.
We have a long-standing relationship with Healing Waters International, providing water…
Recipe to Help Haiti
I know so many of us are riveted to the news, to our emails, to Facebook, or wherever else we can scrap together some information about the Haiti earthquake. Many of us are wishing there was something more we could do to help, some way to respond to the unimaginable things we are seeing.
There…
Catalyst 2009: It Could Have Been Me
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…
A Chance to Be Family
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…
A Different Perspective
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…
Foster Development, Not Dependence
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.
My Best Day in Ministry: Blessed are the Poor
Hope Lives author, Amber Van Schooneveld, talks about her best day of ministry with Compassion International.
How Important is Prayer?
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…
Remembering Roselyn
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…
People often ask me what my favorite part of my job is. For me, the answer is easy: the people I get to meet and know around the world. There are people working for Compassion with such heart and passion and such incredible stories of their own. Henry Guarin is one of those people.
Henry’s…
Do Not Show Partiality to the Poor
If you hang around here a lot, you’re probably familiar with verses like these:
“He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.” – Proverbs 14:31 (NIV)
Or one of my personal favorites:
“‘He defended the cause of the poor and needy… Is not that what it means…
Rwandan Genocide: Where Were God’s People?
At the time of the Rwandan genocide in 1994, Gary Haugen, a senior trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, was given an assignment to serve as the Officer in Charge of the U.N.’s genocide investigation in Rwanda.
He had seen a lot of injustice in the past, working to combat human rights abuses around the…
10 Questions With Sathy
Wow, you all had a lot of great questions for Sathy! It was hard to pick just 10, so I picked those that hadn’t come up before on this blog and that I know Sathy could offer special insight on.
1. Having lived in India and the U.S. and having seen poverty and abundance firsthand, how do you and…
Meeting Sarath
When I was in India last month, I met the boy I sponsor, Sarath. I had been hoping and praying to meet him, and I just happened to be taking a work trip to India.
I was a bit nervous. Don’t tell, but I’m not great with kids. I know I work at Compassion, but I’m a writer–more…
A Picture of Poverty
I recently got back from India where I was with a team of people interviewing children and their families so we can share their stories and photos with you – Compassion sponsors.
At almost every home we visited, the families were so excited to receive us that they put together mini-feasts. At most homes we…
Ask Sathy
Here at Compassion, I get to sit by a really cool guy named Sathy. Sathyaseelan Pannirselvam, that is. (One of my proudest moments was when I found out my last name is longer than his.)
Sathy is a native of Chennai, India, and has worked for Compassion for 10 years. He worked for Compassion India…
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