Most of us don’t feel like we can really change the world. Sure, we know that we can make an impact on our community and family, but change the world? That sounds a little too lofty and difficult for us average Joes. Most of us don’t have the money to start a school in Africa or donate billions to AIDS relief, but that isn’t the goal is it?

I believe that changing the world starts with us and what we’re able to do within our means. I believe that God calls us to do what we can with what He has given us. For me, this message was really driven home when I traveled overseas with Compassion.

To meet my sponsor child “Phone,” I had to walk into a dark, wet, rat-infested squatters community. It was off the grid because someone else owned the land, and at any moment the police could force these families out onto the streets.

There were no mailboxes or house numbers, let alone a blade of grass. Instead, these homes were shacks on stilts made up of scrap metal, wood and even old bar signs. If a family had electricity, it was most likely “borrowed” from a neighboring home.

To reach Phone’s home, we had to know where the hidden entrance was and what restaurant it was behind. You and I would never let our children get near such a place, yet for these people this was home. It was in these miserable conditions that I saw how I am changing the world.

What God showed me is that changing the world starts with changing the life of one child. When I sponsor a child and you sponsor a child and our friends sponsor children, we make a difference throughout the community.

Children that had no hope, now have hope and an education. Families that had no hope, end up hearing about Jesus. Finding that hope in Jesus is key to change. Hope in Jesus is the lifeblood of changing our world and it has to begin with us.

Sponsoring a child is a journey of hope, change and relationships.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Melissa Moore is the host of The Melissa Moore Show, heard daily on almost 100 radio stations, including WAY-FM. She describes her radio show as a mix of great Christian music with real-life conversation. Melissa lives in Nashville with her husband, Bill, daughter, Aleksandra, and Hoover – the greatest dog ever.

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I grew up near Detroit, and when I was a kid the city was booming. My father’s business depended on millions of people buying cars made in Michigan, and for most of my childhood business was great.

It was more than great.

I never new what it meant to need anything, because I could have anything I wanted. Private jets and expensive cars were just part of life.

But when the jobs went away and everything changed for me, I got a quick lesson in what it meant to live “without.”

Life went from very easy to incredibly hard, and that is when Jesus found me in my brokenness and gave me purpose. Along the way I learned to really care for people who struggle to have their basic needs met. I know what it’s like to live with, and I know what it’s like to live without.

Part of my purpose has become to call people to “Stop watching and do something.” And it’s been amazing to see people respond.

Just after we started iwontwatch.com, we met our early goals so quickly. Compassion then asked us if we would help stop malaria in Togo.

Now, the other thing Michigan has besides cars is mosquitos, and I worked for a couple of years at a camp where the swarming mosquitos could really bug people!

But the whole time I was there, no one ever got sick from a mosquito bite. None of our campers had high fevers and horrible hallucinations from sitting by the campfire. No one died after sleeping without a bed net.

So that’s why I’m thrilled to say that our goal of raising $15,000 to help beat malaria was met in about eight weeks. I want children in Togo to be able to sit around a campfire like the kids in Michigan and not get sick.

I know that watches are temporary, just like shirts, shoes and so many other things are temporary. Just like my dad’s great job was temporary.

But it’s really amazing that I now get to connect the “temporary” to the “permanent.”

Each watch represents a meal to be given to hungry children, medical care when kids need it most, and help for children who are being exploited or abused.

When I talk to a group at an event or at a church, I get to explain how my relationship with my sponsored children is changing their lives. But watches have opened doors to that conversation in the craziest places!

I’ve gotten flight attendants and waitresses and drive-thru baristas to help Compassion make a difference. I call it all part of joining the “watch revolt.”

It just takes one person to stop watching and do something to make a difference.
Would you consider joining the Watch Revolt?

Together we can end extreme poverty in our lifetime. Make today the day you stop watching and start doing.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: E. J. Swanson is a nationally recognized speaker and founder of I Won’t Watch. E. J. and his wife, Abbey, sponsor Milvia.

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Milvia lives just outside of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. In her neighborhood, violent tropical storms drive rain through the holes in rusty tin roofs. Puddles collect on the dirt floors, and water runs right out the door.

It isn’t the best environment for a child to grow up in.

Enter EJ Swanson, a speaker at various youth events and churches throughout the US, became interested in partnering with our team of speakers and artists. He started by sponsoring Milvia.

When Milvia’s sponsorship packet and photo arrived at the Swanson home, EJ and his wife, Abbey, both felt connected to Milvia through her smile. But when EJ visited Milvia’s home in the Dominican Republic and saw the conditions she was living in, his heart jumped in all the way.

“When I stood in Milvia’s tiny, nearly un-liveable house with walls leaning sideways, spiders in the rafters, and a muddy floor, it really hit me. This is the way most of the world lives, and we stand by and don’t do anything about it.

“Sooner or later, someone has to stop watching and do something!”

EJ knew Milvia’s involvement with our ministry would help meet her basic needs, but he wanted to make a gift to the family to help fix their home quickly.

Because EJ speaks regularly at camps and conferences across the country, he saw an opportunity to meet two needs at once – in a practical and visible way. He could raise some money for Milvia’s family, and he could help disciple students at the same time.

“I speak to a lot of younger audiences, and I want them to really get it – that Jesus can change their lives and change others through them. And part of that means not just standing around and waiting. It means actively doing things to love Jesus and love people.”

EJ decided to begin selling fashionable watches to students, asking them to “stop watching and start doing,” and the response floored him.

The funds to help Milvia’s family were raised so fast that EJ found himself looking for more places to give money. The idea turned into a new business called “I Won’t Watch,” and since November 2011, iwontwatch.com has been able to send more than $25,000 to the ministry.

“It’s been really fun to see this take off because I really believe we can end extreme poverty in our lifetime. It has to with everything about how we live.

“I wear a watch for lots of reasons: I want to know what time it is, the color may match my shoes, and it’s a fashion statement.

“But I have choice in the process – I can buy my clothes and other things in a way that I know helps someone, instead of just being about a higher profit for the business owner.

“And it’s very exciting with “I Wont Watch” to know I’m able to channel money through Compassion and know it’s actually making a difference.”

EJ Swanson is just one example of a Christian speaker who is using his influence to help people understand Compassion’s ministry.

I’ll share more about EJ’s story throughout the month of July, but you can see the whole list of speakers who work with us here: compassion.com/speakers.

Photos courtesy of Abbey Swanson.

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Tomorrow is World Water Day!

Today is World Puppetry Day, and yesterday was World House Sparrow Day. Do these days mean anything?

I hope that meeting Amos Batungura will give meaning to your World Water Day (WWD).

Amos lives in a mud hut in Uganda. He and people like him have taught us a lot at Living Water International, so I hope you’ll celebrate WWD by taking four minutes to meet him in the video below.

World Water Day was named to raise awareness, but a good WWD incites action. A great WWD though, creates connection — a sense that someone like Amos is your neighbor, that we’re all in this together, and Jesus is here in it with us too. At least that’s what we at Living Water think.

You care about Compassion because you care about children, which is why you also care about water. Children are the biggest victims of unsafe drinking water and the most blessed by access to safe water.

We celebrate our mutual love for children this WWD. We also celebrate that just two weeks ago, UNICEF and WHO announced that the world has met the Millennium Development Goal for water!

The goal was to reduce by half the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water.

Done. Shall we repurpose the day?

Not so fast.

780 million people still lack access to safe water. If we at Living Water have learned anything over the past 21 years, it is that the key word in that goal is sustainable. By some estimates, there are as many as 50,000 broken-down water points just in Africa. That’s where Amos Batungrua comes in.

Amos is a schoolteacher and a community organizer. He incorporated church, school and other civic leaders into a community-based organization to address the needs of Kibeho Village.

Together, they made a plan to maintain Kibeho’s water point and sustain its hygiene and sanitation programs through local efforts. Living Water’s initial investment is heavy, but we know we’re investing in something worthwhile when even the poorest people in the world will gladly pay to sustain it.

One thing we’ve learned from Amos and people like him is that different sustainability solutions work in different places. Another is that when there is no silver bullet you never stop learning. That’s alright with us, though.

We’re not finished connecting with neighbors like Amos to learn alongside them the best ways to help people acquire safe drinking water and with it experience the Living Water.

Now go meet Amos. He’s more interesting than me:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Paul Darilek is Senior Director of Communications at Living Water International. Years ago he was a missionary and bean farmer in El Salvador. Paul was hospitalized twice with water-related health problems before Living Water International helped him train a Salvadoran team to address water needs in their communities, in Jesus’ name.

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While the Bible doesn’t use the word partnership, we see examples in the Bible of churches partnering together from the earliest history of the Church. And the principles we learn from the Bible about humility, equality and mutuality should guide how we work in partnership.

At Compassion, we highly value our relationships with local churches in the countries where we work. They minister on the front lines to the children we serve. They also minister to us.

As Compassion Latin America and Caribbean regional vice president Edouard Lassegue writes,

“Though these congregations may be under-resourced financially, often they are spiritually rich and vibrant and able to contribute in an authentic two-way relationship.”

Much of the Christian Church today has been blessed with significant resources, financial and otherwise. Other parts of the global body of believers struggle with tremendous limitations of resources yet have incredible opportunities for ministry.

Partnering between the resource-rich part of the Church and the resource-poor part of the Church is not something particularly new or noble. It is just what we should do. It is simply what Paul asked the early Church to do.

It is only right and practical for churches in various parts of the world to partner together to care for each other and to advance the gospel and the kingdom of God.

When the Body of Christ comes together in partnership, we honor and obey Jesus’ mandate that His followers act as one. But it takes time to develop a partnership — especially the relational aspects of partnership.

Relationship is central to partnership. In the countries where we work, partnerships are perceived as being primarily relational. But often in North America and many of our sponsoring countries, partnerships tend to be contractual in nature.

True partnership requires the ability to set aside tasks and agendas long enough for the partners to listen to each other, identify their common mission and understand what each partner can contribute.

Edouard Lassegue says:

“Many times we rush through the process of partnership without taking the time to recognize and put in place the necessary building blocks of partnership. We jump into action without developing the foundation of true partnership — solid relationship.

“On one hand, lack of relationship causes a church in [a developing country] to see its relationship with a parachurch organization or congregation [in a developed nation] as a funding mechanism and not as true partnership that demonstrates equality in Christ, mutual benefits, and sharing resources and lessons together.

“On the other hand, lack of relationship causes the church or parachurch organization from [the developed nation] to want to solve problems for the local church in a paternalistic way, treating that church as a child needing direction, provision and supervision. … True partnership is based on solid relationship.”

At Compassion, we seek healthy relationships in spite of these potential obstacles. We intentionally hire national staff in every country in which we serve. Our front-line relationship manager with every church partner (the partnership facilitator) is selected as one who is as close to the partner’s culture as possible to encourage relationship and communication.

We must walk together, talk together, and have tea together before we will be effective in working together. Real partnership is an ongoing journey, and it takes time.

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In the midst of post-election violence in Kenya, one entire church was burned down. We lost all of our paperwork and child documentation — nothing was left.

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

Many of us are allergic to business jargon. Nothing can make people start itching faster than sitting in a meeting and hearing words like “strategy,” “assessment,” or — horror of horrors — “best practice methodology.”

“Partnership” can be one of those abstract business-like words that make our eyes glaze over. The word has been used to mean a lot of things to a lot of people until it hardly means anything to anyone. What is partnership?

Partnership is at the center of what we do at Compassion. We not only partner with you, our sponsors and donors, but also with the local church around the world. So it’s worth understanding what we mean by partnership and how we do it.

The word “partnership” is derived from the Latin word for “portion.” In partnership, we share a portion with each other.

Partnership should achieve a vision that is mutually desired and that cannot be achieved by any one partner alone. It is not simply having tea together. It is having tea in order to work together on something that you both care about and can’t do alone.

With this in mind, this is how we define partnership:

“A Compassion partnership is a collaborative and mutually beneficial relationship between Compassion and another entity for the purpose of releasing children from poverty in Jesus’ name beyond the capacity of either partner individually.”

Our definition is based on three things:

1. A common mission to release children from poverty in Jesus’ name. This is the only purpose for which we will enter into partnerships.
2. A collaborative relationship. Both parties must actively build relationship with each other and cooperate willingly on the mission.
3. Mutual respect and mutual benefit. We recognize that we need one another to accomplish the mission.

And based on these three things, we have developed a set of principles that guide us toward healthy, God-honoring partnerships.

They apply to our relationships with you and our supporting church partners; they apply to strategic ministry relationships; and they apply to our implementing church partners.

Partnership Is Founded Upon Our Identity in Christ.

In Christ we are one body with many parts. Each part offers unique service and is equally important to the health of the body. Each partner, irrespective of size, power or resources, is valued. No partner is viewed as more important than the other. This can be achieved only if we are committed to the attitude of Christ and “having the same love … and in humility count others more significant than yourselves” (Philippians 2:2-3).

Partnership Seeks Mutually Respectful and Beneficial Relationships

No partner should use the other for its own goals, but should develop genuine, mutually respectful, and beneficial relationships. A partner does not lord over or “do mission” for the other. Rather, a partner seeks to help, empower and serve the other to enrich their shared ministry.

We give priority to relationships over tasks and projects. When relationships empower, rather than impose agendas, all partners are transformed in the process.

Partnership Accepts Mutual Responsibility and Commitment

Partnership takes the commitments made to one another with utmost seriousness and works in collaboration, without dominance, exploitation or condescension.

Increased trust is built through partners being accountable to each other, ensuring that their words and actions are consistent. Partnership requires an enduring commitment to not only the common vision but also to each other.

Partnership Produces Visible Transformation and Outcomes

Partnership does not exist as an end in itself. It exists for the purpose of advancing the kingdom of God further, better and/or faster than either party could do alone.

For us, partnership exists for the shared goal of releasing children from poverty in Jesus’ name. The essence of partnership is that one plus one equals more than two. We enter into partnerships in order to do something we cannot do alone or that we can do better together.

“A mosaic consists of thousands of little stones. Some are blue, some are green, some are yellow, and some are gold. When we bring our faces close to the mosaic, we can admire the beauty of each stone. But as we step back from it, we can see that all these little stones reveal to us a beautiful picture, telling a story none of these stones can tell by itself.

That is what our life in community is about. Each of us is like a little stone, but together we reveal the face of God to the world.” Henri J. Nouwen, The Mosaic That Shows Us the Face of God

At Compassion, we are deeply honored to be part of the thousands of little stones that God is using to build a beautiful mosaic. Together we are telling a story that none of us could tell by ourselves.

Through our commitment to and relationship with one another, we are revealing the face of God to the world and advancing His kingdom by releasing children from poverty in Jesus’ name.

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

The Wally Show recently returned from our offices in Asia where they witnessed child sponsorship in action.

We met a woman named Ko who was a sponsored child, and she now works for Compassion helping others. This is one time a vicious cycle is a good thing. She still has the picture of her sponsors from 30 years ago on her desk.

I asked her if there was anything her sponsor said or did that really made a difference in her life. She told me the fact that someone who did not know her would show her such love and tell her about Jesus inspired her to live the rest of her life serving God. That is a sentiment which is echoed throughout the lives of most of the Compassion kids.

Read the entire post at The Wally Show.

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

For the past year, I’ve been working for Compassion Canada as a marketing writer. (Did you know that Compassion International truly is international? Our sponsors come from the U.S., Canada, France, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, the U.K., Germany, Ireland, Spain, Switzerland and South Korea, and God is growing our pool of worldwide sponsors every day!)

Compassion Canada Staff

At first, I wondered what cultural differences I might encounter writing for another country. To prepare for my new role, I watched Canadian Bacon and many reruns of SCTV. So far, the biggest differences are that Canadians walk kilometres to get to their neighbours colourful homes in 0 degree Celsius weather, while Americans walk miles to get to neighbors colorful homes in 0 degree Fahrenheit weather.

But when it comes to sponsorship, I found a couple of ways in which we are different, and several ways that we are the same.

How We’re Different

1. One of the most obvious ways Compassion Canada is different from Compassion USA is size. Although by area Canada is the second largest country in the world, by population Canada is about a tenth the size of the U.S. Accordingly, Compassion Canada employs about 85 people, making it a lean, mean, sponsoring machine.
2. Despite the fact that Canada’s small, we do have some cool services. For example, did you know that as a Canadian sponsor, you can send your sponsored child a paper play set as a gift? You do now! We don’t have the same paper templates the U.S. offers, but you can write your child online and choose to send one photo, 12 different cards (and, yes, one is hockey themed), 3 paper play sets and 6 posters.
3. Because Compassion International’s headquarters are in Colorado Springs, many staff members have an amazing view of the mountains. Because Compassion Canada is based in London, Ontario, they have a lovely view of an industrial park. The marketing team is inspired to creativity each day as they watch feet walk by in the parking lot from their garden view windows.
4. Even though Canada is far more post-Christian than the U.S., we really work to emphasize how the ministry in the field is Christ centred. (Notice I didn’t say centered.) Canada even has a website dedicated to educating sponsors and donors about how Jesus is the true difference in these children’s lives, called The Difference Is Jesus.
5. Although many workers ride their bikes to our headquarters in Colorado, in Canada, they ride moose to work.

Compassion USA Staff

How We’re the Same

1. We are all guided by the same values and principles, and we are supporting the same ministry in the field.
2. We all love (to mock) Justin Bieber. When I was visiting the Canada office, I met a young woman whose family used to babysit the Biebs. Pretty exciting stuff. (And although the Canadians like to claim that they don’t love him as much as they do, in a staff meeting I was in, one of the announcements was that it was Justin Bieber’s birthday. You be the judge.)

If you want to find out more about some of Compassion International’s partners around the world, check them out here.

You can read the UK and Ireland’s blog!

Spreekt u Nederlands? Read the Dutch blog here. Or if you live down under, check out the Australia blog.

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