Poverty is hard to grasp. Living amongst plenty, those seven letters (p-o-v-e-r-t-y) can be like abstract little bubbles floating in the air, not tethered down to anything real or concrete.

Have you ever experienced something here in the States that really made you get it?

Several months ago here at Compassion, we had a speaker at our weekly chapel. He had a pitcher full of 30,000 bbs. He told us about how 30,000 children under 5 die each day of preventable causes. Now, I’m no stranger to numbers. I could rattle off the numbers of poverty till your eyes cross.

But this speaker slowly poured 30,000 bbs into a metal basin as we sat and listened. Each ping that represented a life was like getting stuck by a pin. And they kept coming and coming and coming. Just as you thought there surely couldn’t be any more, that he must be nearing the end of the bbs, they just kept pouring. Ping. Ping. Ping. Ping.

And for all my knowledge of numbers, this left me undone. God used the experience to break through my heart’s armor of cold, sterile numbers to soften it to the reality of human suffering.

I wrote Hope Lives with a prayer that God would use it to soften others’ hearts toward what he cares about so deeply. Now I’m writing a follow-up to this book that will help small groups experience and pray for the needs in this world.

So I need your help! Have you experienced something at your church or with your youth group or with your family that really helped you empathize with those in need or understand what poverty means? For example, I know of some families who have tried to eat for one day spending just $1, the amount millions of families around the world live on each day. I know another Compassion employee who used this photo as the artwork over his dining room table.

What great ideas do you have that you would like to share? How did your experience effect you?

Fine print: OK, my publisher said I need to include this here: By sharing your idea, you’re giving me permission to use this idea in publication without any form of compensation, other than my deepest gratitude and eternal friendship.

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It’s Saturday. Here are two halves for you to wrestle with. It’s a tag team thing. Take on one or try to pin ‘em both down.

To follow Jesus is to …

My response to God’s mandate is …

Thanks to Melissa Coast and Jill Foley for sharing their best half with us.

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Last Saturday’s half sentence post went well, but there’s only half a brain on this team, and its synapses are fried.

Fried synapses are gross. They smell bad, like a fizzled out smoke bomb (Happy Fourth of July y’all!) and they elevate cholesterol to unhealthy levels.

Anyway, back to task.

Give us your best half … not your spouse, your best half sentence, so we can use the brain we do have for more pleasant things, like not thinking.

We’ll post your best halves in the weeks ahead.

Apparently, our half brain works okely dokely. We knew we couldn’t post ‘em in the weeks behind.

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Isn’t it amazing how quickly time flies? Life moves past us with lightning speed. One big event after another appears on our calendars. We watch them approach, and when they arrive we mark them off. Then we’re on to the next big thing.

Within our families, it’s stuff like weddings and birthdays and soccer tournaments. At church, it’s retreats, sermon series, small group studies, and, if you’re liturgical like my church, feast days and liturgical seasons measured in colors — we move from white to red to green.

It’s already been a week since we fasted and prayed for the millions of children and families affected by the global food crisis. I missed my chance to immediately write and thank you. I meant to — you were on my heart.

The day came and was powerful and passed. Almost instantly I was off to the next “important” thing.

Yet, the kids are still hungry. They still need our prayers and our actions. They are not on to the next thing. They are still dealing with and living this one big thing. Hunger.

Over 6500 of you committed to pray and fast with us last week. And I do want to say thank you for that! Even though my thanks are a bit late, they are heartfelt nonetheless.

I hope your day of prayer and fasting was a day in which you encountered the Lord and His tender heart for those who are suffering. I hope it was a day when you felt a bit more deeply the Lord’s love for these children.

Let’s keep doing that — feeling His love for them. Sharing His compassion with them. Not just on one day. Let’s pray regularly for them. Perhaps when we sit down to dinner to say grace. When we lie down in bed at night. When we rise to another beautiful summer day. Let’s thank the Lord for His astounding provision to us and lift up those who so desperately need a touch of His hand.

A few of Compassion’s international partners are holding days of fasting and prayer just like we did on June 25.

If you enjoy the feeling of joining together with believers across the globe to fast and pray, then you might consider praying with:

• Netherlands on July 6
• United Kingdom on July 13
• South Korea on July 24

Please continue to tell others about the global food crisis. Continue to help raise awareness. Let’s take our focus off gas prices in the U.S. and put the spotlight on the deep and growing needs the children have worldwide.

Don’t assume everyone around you already knows about this and is doing something to make a difference. Most people don’t know, and those who do know, don’t know how to help in a way that will make a tangible difference. Tell them what we’re doing.

In the month of July alone we’re sending $1.5 million to nine of our field countries to help feed children and provide emergency supplemental food for their families. We hope to do the same for the next several months, if the funds come in.

We are also working on a longer term plan that will help the children’s families and our church partners address this problem, into the future, in ways that are sustainable and developmental.

Let’s not let this moment pass in our everyday busyness. In the rush to move along to the next thing in our lives …let’s pause here. Let’s join together and make a difference.

This is important. Really important! Who is going to do it if you and I don’t?

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It takes two to tango, and during June, these two non-employee blogs sent us the most dance partners.

They got sweet moves.

1. Rocks in My Dryer - 206 visits
2. musings of foreign hearts - 75 visits

Anyone up for the cha cha in July?

Get 50 friends together and meet us at here on August 1. It’s gonna be a Dance Dance Revolution.

Popularity: 40% [?]

Thank you to everyone who has made the commitment to fast and pray with us today. We’re nearly 6,000 strong.

Thank you to everyone who has helped spread the word about the day of fasting and prayer and about the global food crisis.

Thank you to everyone who has donated money to the Global Food Crisis fund.

Thank you to everyone who has shed a tear. We know your sorrow. We share it. For it is Christ’s sorrow.

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June 25 is a day of fasting and prayer at Compassion. We’re fasting and praying for the children we sponsor, for their families and for our local staff and church partners in the developing world. We’re fasting and praying because the global food crisis is devastating many of their lives.

The price for rice, beans, corn and other food staples throughout the world has risen exponentially in recent months, creating extreme hardship and suffering for families living on $1 or $2 a day.

Imagine if you had to spend 80 percent of what you earned on groceries. Can you imagine that?

I can’t. And even though I’ve traveled to Rwanda, Kenya and China and seen extreme poverty, I still have a hard time picturing a life where I would live on $2 a day.

80 percent of my income on groceries? If I was in that boat, I’d be selling it. And if I’m in that situation, I can’t afford … I can’t afford anything.

The global food crisis is affecting everyone in some way. But how it affects me is totally different than how it affects my sponsored child, Lerionga. It’s much more intimate for him.

I’m sure you’re well aware of the record high price of gas in the U.S. and the ridiculous price tag for a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread. I’m usually oblivious to grocery prices, but $4.50 for a loaf of bread that used to be $2.50 got my attention.

My loaf of bread is more than two days salary for many families.

Have you noticed this?

I’m feeling the pinch of the global food crisis, but for the billions of people in extreme poverty my pinch is a bear hug crushing the life out of them. There is no margin.

So in addition to what you’ve already done and the caring and generosity you’ve displayed already, we’re asking for more.

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You decided. The Global Food Crisis Fund ’tis.

Thank you for voting. Thank you for caring. And an extra special thanks to:

• Lisa Miles
• Amy
• Kate
• Juli Jarvis
• Vicki Small
• Andrew
• Grant

for making additional contributions to the Malaria Intervention Fund ($350) and the Global Food Crisis Fund ($50).

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Shaun Groves wrote this post. It’s been approved by the powers-that-be.

About Shaun Groves

About a year ago, I think it was, I started talking to the folks at Compassion about a crazy new idea. I wondered if they could spread the word about their ministry to children through bloggers the way the Compassion message has been spread through artists and speakers for decades. I proposed Compassion take bloggers on a trip to see the ministry for themselves and, of course, ask them to blog about what they see.

When the powers-that-be decided the idea was worth trying out, a small team went to work finding the right bloggers to travel to Uganda. Then we took a very long flight to Africa together back in February, deplaned and played with children, and learned about the needs of Ugandans and how Compassion and sponsors are partnering to meet them. And we blogged. With very slow connection speeds, we blogged.

We posted pictures, stories, videos and lots of links to compassion.com. Thousands read along daily. Hundreds of children were released from poverty and hundreds of Americans were released from wealth as a result. And the Web lit up with applause.

My favorite online compliment came from a fund-raising expert who wrote:

“Looked at with old economy eyes, Compassion is taking a huge risk, letting go of its marketing to 15 different near-strangers who might do anything. Looked at with modern eyes, Compassion is smart: willing to give up control in favor of being talked about by real people.”

In other words, some institutions would call this kind of idea crazy but it worked: People are talking about children, about loving them, about perspective and grace and kindness and Jesus.

Now, when I’m not singing or speaking (or blogging), I’m working part time these days for Compassion – developing more and better relationships with bloggers.

We just launched CompassionBloggers.com where anyone can read the best posts from our blogging trips, and where bloggers can go to grab widgets and banners, apply to go on a blogging trip with us, or sign up to receive a monthly blogging assignment from Compassion.

Our ranks are growing. There are now a few hundred bloggers scattered around the world blogging on behalf of Compassion every month.

What’s next? We’re taking a bunch of bloggers to the Dominican Republic Nov. 2-7, so read along that week and pray that we assemble the right gifted team for the trip, that we’re safe and healthy while overseas, that readers are inspired and mobilized to act, and that the blogosphere is filled with talk of children and Jesus once again.

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You helped us earn it. Now, help us spend it.

Where should the $817.40 donation from Search Kindly be applied?

• Global Food Crisis Fund
• Malaria Intervention Fund

Global Food Crisis Fund
The global food crisis is being called a “silent tsunami” that could plunge several hundred million people deeper into poverty and hunger.

Families living in extreme poverty often spend more than 50 percent of their income on food. And often, the daily income is less than $2 a day. When food prices climb, children in poverty do not eat. Food prices have risen as much as 100 percent in some countries since 2006. Many of the countries we serve are among those that have been hit hard by rising food prices.

Money donated to the Global Food Crisis Fund will help provide life saving food supplies to the children you sponsor.

Malaria Intervention Fund
Each year, more than 1 million people die from malaria. More than 750,000 of those deaths are children in Africa. That’s one child every 30 seconds. And for every child who dies, hundreds more become sick and incapacitated. Though not talked about as much as AIDS, malaria is a silent, fast killer that puts all children and families we serve in Africa at serious risk. And thousands more people in countries where we work around the world live in fear of the disease.

Money donated to the Malaria Intervention Fund allows us to provide mosquito nets and malaria prevention education to entire families of Compassion-assisted children. It also provides medical treatment for children struggling with the disease.

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