So … in part because of your post, and in part because we’ve wanted to do this for a long time anyway … we just let our oldest (age 7) choose a child to sponsor. She picked a girl who has almost the same birthday and has similar interests (and whose name starts with “E” like hers).

We were passing through Colorado Springs the following week and stopped at Compassion to take a tour. It made a big impression on our daughter and was a great way to start the sponsorship journey!

Thanks for challenging us to get involved, Ian!

You’ve captured such a powerful picture of hope over hopelessness, and then modeled with your own children how we all can act on behalf of those that don’t have a voice.

Our traditions have been simple, at dinnertime we go around the table sharing our “thankfuls”, some large and some small. We’ll remember your example when we gather in the future.

God bless!

There is a bowl on our kitchen table that we put money into to feed the hungry in other countries. My kids, especially the 11 yo, are good about adding money a little at a time (or tithing from their allowance).

We sponsor two children and one missionary. Every night after Bible reading time we pray for them. One of the children we just began to sponsor last week. Yonas is 12 years old and we look forward to meeting him this year when we travel to Ethiopia to adopt two older siblings of the three we have.

I share world events with the kids. We talk about how we can serve the poor who beg in the streets of Addis Ababa.

My desire is to take each of my kids on a short term missions trip while they are preteen. Visit a missionary and help him for a month. Not only can the kids see other cultures, how other people live, but they can be used by God to help those in need and bond with us before the teen years set in.

Learning history(or re-learning in my case) and viewing current events from a Christian perspective are invaluable. We homeschool our 10 year old son and found a literature based history program from Veritas Press on-line. For current events, check out these article titles from God’s World News magazine for kids: Rising Prices of Food, Svalbard Global See Vault, Taxi Jam in France, and Horton Hears A Who movie review. Enjoy!

It’s hard for him to grasp anything much bigger…maybe in a year.

Our children are 6, 4 and 4 months right now, so we’re just starting down this path. The main thing we have done, so far, is sponsor two children that are the exact age as our older kids. (In the case of our son, our sponsored child even has the same birthday!) We also let them help us pick the child to sponsor by looking through pictures online, etc.

Of course, they are now involved by writing letters, praying and more. It connects with my daughter a lot more when we talk about Karla and the realities of her life (versus how blessed we are in America) instead of saying, “Lots of kids elsewhere don’t have all this.”

But we’re really on Phase 1 of this. You gave some great tips. I’m definitely printing out that picture. Is there a spot to do so? Or should we just right-click, download and then print on our own printer?