Be forewarned. What follows is pure rah-rah. It showed up in employee inboxes … from MARKETING. It’s just a small glimpse into the response Compassion Sunday 2008 has received so far.

We’re at over 9,700 children sponsored. Our goal is 22,000. It’s not too late to host your own event.

“Austin Bluffs Evangelical Free Church had a successful Compassion Sunday response. We had seven sponsorship commitments! That is a huge number for our church, which traditionally has two to three sponsorships on Compassion Sunday …. We had at least one current sponsor/family that wanted to sponsor another child. Others took brochures and information as they consider the opportunity to sponsor a child.”

- Pepe Alicea, Compassion Advocate and Lay Elder at Austin Bluffs Evangelical Free Church

“Richard Douglas of Christ Community Church in South Carolina called and requested 50 more child packets. He had 50, and people were running up to the table to sponsor the kids. He said the packets were gone in three minutes, and he had a list of people waiting for more! Once the extra packets arrived, another 29 children were sponsored”
- Valeen Tschamler,Advocates Network & Marketing Assistant

“Hilltop Assembly of God has 147 members, and I guessed the audience size was about 180-190 including children. They began the worship with the children bringing flags of all the 17 countries where their congregation has sponsored children (they sponsor 60 of them) and setting them in front of the church on displays they had made. Then the children sang their own worship chorus in Spanish

One girl, Emery (11 years old) was brought forward to tell how God had laid it on her heart to make jewelry and sell it at a consignment shop to give to Compassion, and then I was presented with a $20,000 check by the 11 new Advocates in their church to fund a Child Survival Program (CSP) in Ethiopia.

At the end of the service the children came in with balloons that had the names of all the sponsored children on them and the whole congregation went outside and had a “releasing children from poverty” ceremony! (Yes, they were biodegradable balloons).

After the service all of the chairs were moved from the sanctuary and we enjoyed an international buffet!

Oh yeah … another 24 children were sponsored, and they now have 12 advocates! The little church now sponsors over 80 children and a CSP paid in full!

They’re already planning fund-raising events for next year and have over $13,000 raised so far. Did I mention that they began all of this last December 2007? With God all things are possible!”

- Mark Pellingra, Relationships Manager Northeast Region

“Get this — I just got off the phone with brand-new advocate Beth Hathcock in the Dallas area. I guess during her interview she mentioned wanting to do Compassion Sunday at her church (small — about 70 people) and Mark Pellingra said that she would get a box of materials. He intended for her to fill out the materials order form, but she got her initial training kit with the one child packet and thought that is what we sent for a church of 70. So she used her one child packet, showed a couple video clips off the DVD she had gotten, got her one child sponsored and used a sign up sheet for the 10 other people who wanted to sponsor. Not bad for someone brand new, self-proclaimed as “not a public speaker” and no materials.”
- Doug West, Southeast Regional Advocates Manager

“Thanks for sending 10 more packets. I had one lady who kept looking at them for a long time, then scooped up five to sponsor. I was flabbergasted….”
- Mike Jennings, sponsor

Popularity: 46% [?]

Today is the National Day of Prayer.

We encourage you to pray.

Talk to God about our country.
Talk to God about your sponsored child.
Talk to God about poverty.

Just talk to God.

In fact, if you want to share your prayer with the rest of the blog readers, hit us up in the comment section. Then we can join you in that prayer. Let’s move some mountains, people!

Join our Prayer Partner Network.
Read prayer requests from the countries where we work.

Popularity: 27% [?]

My husband just celebrated his birthday. He’s 41.

Or maybe 39.

Or did he just turn the big 4-0?

I’m not being coy. We really don’t know his age. Like millions of children around the world, my husband was born into a life of poverty.

There are no records of his birth. He never knew his parents, although he understood from an early age that he was a G.I. baby. His size marked him a hapa, a Euro-Asian mixed-race child, a particularly negative thing in Asian countries where purity of race is a matter of pride and worth.

From his earliest memories, he was an orphan. He lived primarily on the streets, except for times he was taken in by “foster families,” where he was little more than an outcast mongrel and slave.

He was often hungry, usually cold, sometimes abused, always alone.

Sounds pretty hopeless, doesn’t it?

But something happened to change the story. A small thing, really.

Someone noticed him.

That someone was a Korean woman. Shunned by her Buddhist family because she had become a Christian, she noticed Corey one day outside her parent’s home. Recognizing him as a child of an American soldier, she alerted an orphanage in the area that was run by an American organization. He was taken to the orphanage — more correctly, two men lured him with a bag of candy and threw him into the back seat of a car, which might explain his lifelong abhorrence of sweets — where he was given clothes and food and eventually adopted by an American family.

At the age of 8. Or maybe 7. It’s not really important, as long as he’s older than I am.

Today, my husband is an executive at a company that works with nonprofits. He teaches Bible study classes, studies Greek and has a wicked sense of humor. He is both one of the smartest people I’ve ever met as well as one of the most talented.

Most important to me, he is the father of our three children and my lifelong companion and love.

And, as you might imagine, he has quite the passion for orphans and the poor.

I sometimes wonder about that Korean woman. I doubt she knows the impact she’s had on me, my children and the hundreds of other people Corey has touched.

If she hadn’t reported his existence to that American orphanage, Corey would most likely have died of disease or malnutrition before he was a teenager. Even if he had lived, there was no future for him in Korea. As a half-breed without paternal bloodlines, he was considered a gutter rat, without worth or identity.

But because she saw him, the story turned. Such a simple act, but it changed everything.

Sometimes, when we look at the ocean of poverty and need, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed.

“What can I do in the face of such hugeness?” we wonder. “What good would my pebble do in such a vast sea of suffering?”

But here’s the amazing thing about pebbles dropped in the water — they create ripples.
All you have to do is notice. See one child. Just one. Then act. Sponsor that child. Throw your pebble into the ocean.

God will take care of the ripples. You never know how far they might reach.

Kelly @ Love Well is a writer, mother, wife and pebble thrower. She’s passionate about the ripples created by child sponsorship and delights to introduce people to Compassion. She also loves her coffee. Her life ambition is to laugh often, live purposefully and love well. When she has a few free seconds, she blogs at www.lovewell.blogspot.com.

Popularity: 60% [?]

You might have read about it in the news.

Companies are now offering poverty tours. Basically, wealthy people can pay money — sometimes a lot of money — to go see what life is like for those living in poverty. One article I read recently calls it “poorism” — a catchy phrase for this idea of visiting a developing country and viewing those living in poverty as a tourist attraction. Poverty tourists go as a group, following a tour guide as though they are seeing a museum exhibit or an attraction at an amusement park. One of the companies, the other article mentions, after a day of viewing poverty even treats the wealthy guests to a gourmet dinner as a culmination of the evening.

Sickening, right?

Yeah, that’s what I thought too. But I very quickly was struck with my seeming hypocrisy.

In thinking about the articles, and what it is about this trend that bothers me so much, I couldn’t help but think about Compassion’s “vision trips” and sponsor tours, both core components of our marketing strategy. How are these any different than what these articles talk about?

Are we, through our exposure trips, simply promoting another form of poverty tourism? We take groups of wealthy people overseas to see the poverty firsthand. Many times on these trips we walk as a group of foreigners through a slum, observing how the poor live. We look at the dilapidated shacks and dusty, rutted roads. We take photos and video of those living in poverty. Yes, we spend time at projects or homes, loving on whatever children might be around. We stop and pray with single moms and overworked fathers. But we are still taking a group of people through the slums for the purpose of exposure. And then at the end of the day, or the end of the trip, we return to our lives of wealth.

So tell me…is what we are doing on our trips different than what I was so quick to condemn in these articles? Is there a difference?

I think there is. That difference is in the answers to two questions:

What is our motivation for going in the first place?
and
What is our response when we get back?

How we answer these two questions makes all the difference between our trips and those mentioned in the articles above. Are our hearts broken into small enough pieces that we come back changed? Do we go back to our lives as they were before, or will we make a profound change because of what we saw? Will we be become a voice for those we saw who are suffering in silence?

If we don’t - if, after exposing ourselves to the poverty and suffering of others, our lives remain the same - that is when it beomes poverty tourism.

Popularity: 65% [?]

It’s Earth Day, so the message that we can care for the poor BY caring for the Earth is particularly relevant today.

Here’s some of what we’re doing at Compassion to care for the poor Earth and the dirt poor.

And here’s how we in the U.S. are caring.

• Americans constitute 5% of the world’s population but consume 24% of the world’s energy.
• Americans eat 815 billion calories of food each day — that’s roughly 200 billion more than needed — enough to feed 80 million people.
• Americans throw out 200,000 tons of edible food daily.
• The average individual daily consumption of water is 159 gallons, while more than half the world’s population lives on 25 gallons.

Stats from www.mindfully.org — They’re meant for perspective only. Emotion is optional.

Popularity: 49% [?]

I ran across this quote on another blog. It’s definitely deeper than your average beach reading, but it’s worth your time. What do you think?

… Jesus in his solidarity with the marginal ones is moved to compassion. Compassion constitutes a radical form of criticism, for it announces that the hurt is to be taken seriously, that the hurt is not to be accepted as normal and natural but is an abnormal and unacceptable condition for humaness. In the arrangement of “lawfulness” in Jesus’ time, as in the ancient empire of Pharaoh, the one unpermitted quality of relation was compassion. Empires are never built or maintained on the basis of compassion. The norms of law (social control) are never accommodated to persons, but persons are accommodated to the norms. Otherwise the norms will collapse and with them the whole power arrangement. Thus the compassion of Jesus is to be understood not simply as a personal emotional reaction but as a public criticism in which he dares to act upon the concern against the entire numbness of his social context.

(From The Prophetic Imagination by Walter Brueggemann)

Popularity: 26% [?]

“The Lord used Compassion in our church when we began to look beyond ourselves and to see how we could be less of a ‘holy huddle’ and more of a Jesus impact on the world around us. We challenged ourselves to see if we could become more involved internationally with being just a small part of the solution to world poverty. Compassion came to our aid and showed us the way to be Jesus to the developing world. As a result of this service, we were able to reach beyond ourselves and build actual relationships with children living in poverty through Compassion. Forty-six families in our church have become involved sponsoring children and have been so blessed because of the interactive nature of this ministry — they love to hear from the children and love investing money and time in a relationship.”

- Don Taylor, Pastor - Ni River Community Church, Spotsylvania, Virginia

Popularity: 25% [?]

And He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury, and He saw also a certain poor widow putting in two mites.
- Luke 21:1-2 (NKJV)

The Perfect Gift — Generally Speaking

The perfect gift comes from the heart. Love drives us to it, and despite the fact it might mean sacrifice, love compels us to give it anyway. We know it’s perfect when in love it is accepted — love always fits and need never be exchanged.

The perfect gift is also one that keeps-on giving; it has ‘staying power’ and continues to give long after it is received. Furthermore, the perfect gift provides the one thing that the receiver is unable to obtain for him or herself. Frankly, if they were able, they would have already gotten it.

Finally, the perfect gift is a blessing to both giver and receiver.

The Perfect Gift — Specifically

The perfect gift is sponsoring a Compassion child. How can this be?

Love is the driving force behind such a noble thing. For the giver, it’s the kind of love that says, “What would I sacrifice in order to save a child’s life.” For the recipient it says, “This gift is better than any material thing I could have ever received.”

Child sponsorship is the gift that keeps on giving. Decide to sponsor a child and you provide educational opportunities, regular healthcare, food and clothing if needed, and an opportunity to hear the Gospel message and to be discipled in the faith.

The perfect gift provides the one thing a person cannot obtain themselves, and in the case of a child living in poverty, that one thing is HOPE. Until someone steps up to help, these children wallow in despair.

Finally, the perfect gift is a blessing to both the giver and the receiver. As you can imagine, a child who is given the opportunity to escape spiritual, economic, social and physical poverty is forever grateful, but so often it is the giver who comes away feeling ‘more blessed’ then the recipient. How so? I’m not sure — except to say I am confident it is a God thing.

Compassion Dave is a member of the Advocates Network. He writes a personal blog, Jesus and Compassion, solely dedicated to getting more children sponsored. The blog is an outgrowth of his highly successful MySpace group of the same name, through which he has connected 40 children with loving sponsors.

Dave has been an advocate for six years, and in that time, has found more than 600 children new sponsors.

This year, Dave has scheduled three Compassion Sunday events:

• April 13: Calvary Baptist Church, Little Egg Harbor, NJ
• April 20: Chesapeake Christian Fellowship, Davidsonville, MD
• May 18: St. Luke’s Lutheran Church, Washington, NJ

If you’re interested in knowing a little more about Compassion Dave, you can read about him at The Round Table.

Popularity: 31% [?]

It’s almost April 13 — the official date for Compassion Sunday (CS) — the largest sponsorship effort of the Advocates Network during the entire year. Our on-call workers are still feverishly working through stacks of material orders that are inches thick, and we’re fielding calls from sponsors wanting to place a last minute order or asking when their materials will arrive. There is a buzz around here. One of excitement and anticipation of what God plans to do through our sponsors, advocates and church partners on April 13.

This is my first Compassion Sunday. I mean, it’s my first Compassion Sunday to coordinate. I’ve heard about Compassion Sunday since I first started working for Compassion over four years ago. But this year, it’s my job to help make it happen.

What I wasn’t expecting when I started this job last June was that my first project was Compassion Sunday (CS). I’m thinking to myself, “but that’s not until next year!” I had a lot to learn.

86 work orders, which are work requests that needed to be submitted to get the CS materials designed, dozens of meetings, and hours of analyzing and preparing later, it was finally go-time. The letter asking people to host an event at their church was sent in early January. Our physical inventory of CS supplies had arrived, our tracking database was updated and we had more resources available for download on the web than ever before. I thought we had reached the time to sit back, relax, and…wait…wait for the flood gates to open and the orders to come, along with the inevitable craziness that comes with them.

But a few weeks ago, we were all buzzing along with business as usual. It was time to submit over 1,000 pending material orders in our order system for the fulfillment team to begin processing, and this is when I realized we would soon run out of buttons calling others to “Join Me” in the fight against poverty.

I contacted procurement to ask for an early reorder on the buttons. They placed the order for 7,500 more buttons, and we sat back to wait (and pray) that they arrived before we ran out.

I’m expecting the buttons to arrive in just a few days, and then I learn that we have under 300 buttons in inventory and will run out that day — three days before the buttons are supposed to arrive. I pick up the phone again and call procurement.

“Is there anything we can do to rush the order to arrive sooner than Monday?” I ask.

“It’s doubtful, but I will call and ask,” comes the reply.

While I am waiting, I get an email from an on-call worker that we have over 7,500 buttons in inventory. WHAT?!

It turns out the buttons had shipped early and had arrived while I was planning for an outage and strategizing for Plan B. What an amazing God we serve! He knew our need before we even uttered it, went before us and took care of our needs. God loves us and he loves what we do here at Compassion — and He always takes care of us in our time of need.

Popularity: 24% [?]

Want to know how our unique malaria intervention programs save children’s lives?

Then join us for our free one-hour webcast on World Malaria Day, Friday, April 25. The webcast will begin at 10 a.m. MT (noon ET), and you must register to participate.

To register:

• Visit compassion.webex.com to register
• Or call (800) 336-7539 ext. 6673 to register for phone-only participation

Once you’re registered you will receive e-mail instructions to log on and participate in the webcast.

• Hear Compassion’s Dr. Scott Todd, Special Operations Director, and Emily Kagiri, Child Survival Ministry Director, discuss our malaria prevention and treatment strategies.
• Ask our executive team questions, including Mark Hanlon, Senior Vice President of Sponsor and Donor Development.
• Listen as Compassion artist Rebecca St. James talks about her passion for stopping malaria in Africa.

Popularity: 49% [?]