Social media is my job. I manage this blog. I send out the tweets for @compassion. I create the photo sets in Flickr, upload videos to YouTube, update our Facebook status, etc.
I have a good job. I like it a lot. I don’t want to do anything else. My fellow webbies are great peeps. Lots of fun. And I love seeing and being a part of the conversations you have with one another. But amid all that I can still be a bit jaded at times.
Since this blog is a place of honesty and transparency, I have to admit that I have been known to say “Who cares?” to a tweet or two. Not any I send, of course. 
I also admit to not putting much effort into managing “my personal brand” in those spaces, and that includes our newly launched OurCompassion.
However, on Wednesday, I learned what OurCompassion is really about.
I tend to feel emotionally disconnected a lot. It’s one of the themes in my writing. I’m not entirely devoid of emotion, but I do have to make an effort to connect. Jesus is constantly guiding me from my head to my heart.
So on Wednesday, as I’m enjoying the coincidental coolness of meeting Irene, via a story on our intranet, I received an e-mail notification from OurCompassion. Someone had written on my wall. I ignored it. I was “meeting” Irene.
The coolness I’m talking about is that Irene is part of the Shankoe Methodist Child Development Center. That’s where my boy, Lerionga, is. And that simple coincidence excited me.
I actually got a bit choked up. Only temporarily though because I’ve gots lots of importance stuff to do. Can’t afford the luxury of joy. 
“The first thing Irene does before getting ready to go to the center is pray for the day’s activities: Compassion, her teachers, mother, the child development workers and her sponsor.”
The first thing I do in the morning is fight negativity. My neighbor wakes me up most weekdays at 5 a.m. with his idling Harley. I have to endure five minutes of mechanical hog grunting and snorting before he drives off.
“Just a few years ago, Irene’s family of six used to share a shelter with their livestock. Her mother watched helplessly as her children suffered from the cold. As poverty becomes unbearable, many parents consider marrying off their daughters to get some livestock for dowry.”
I gave a $300 family gift to Lerionga and he told me his family bought two cows and a goat.
“Irene’s new house is large enough for her entire family of three brothers, two sisters and their mother. The family gift Irene received from her sponsor helped them construct a new and spacious house roofed with iron sheets and filled with good chairs, tables and cushions inside.”
Yeah! Lerionga told me that his family built a new house with another family gift I gave. He lives with his mother, father, younger brother and younger sister.
Then, when I finally logged into OurCompassion I saw this, courtesy of my new friend, Jake Malloy:
“My family visited the Shankoe site in Dec. to visit Liaram. Here’s a video, maybe you’ll see Lerionga.
http://www.viddler.com/explore/jakemalloy/videos/10/“
This is the connection, the joined together thinking, we’re talking about. OurCompassion isn’t just a social network. It’s not about re-creating Facebook. Our Compassion is personal. It’s about bringing us closer to the children we sponsor.
I met Lerionga 2 1/2 years ago in Nairobi. He was one month shy of his 8th birthday. Since then he has asked me when I will come back. I don’t have an answer for him. But I do have lots of questions.
I want to know what his house looks like. I want to see the countryside where he lives. I want to know more about his center.
But like you, not all the questions I write in my letters get answered. Letters cross in the mail, take a long time to arrive, seem overly simplistic at times, suffer from poor translation, etc. I really only have my imagination, and some memories, to bridge the distance.
But not anymore!
Thanks to Irene, Jake and OurCompassion, my four-year sponsorship of Lerionga got a little more personal.
Even though I’ve seen many videos like the one Jake shared with me, and Lerionga wasn’t actually in this one, the fact that this video showed me places where Lerionga has been flooded me with emotion.
This time I got a bunch choked up, and my important stuff couldn’t do anything about it.
Chris, I LOVE this blog!! Thank you!!!
Thanks for posting this! I love starting my morning with some coffee and some inspiration.
Thanks for this Chris! I really love OurCompassion. I’ve met some sponsors who have children in the same projects as I do, and it’s nice to build friendships with them.
I met someone on OurCompassion who sponsors in the same project in Honduras as I do, and she is actually down there now, and planning on meeting my boy!
Great story Chris. Thank you for sharing and for doing a great job in maintaining all of this for us.
Thanks for sharing!!!!!!! I am hoping to go to Tanzania next year so by sharing the video it helps remind me and give a little better reality of what it may be like.
Ourcompassion is a wonderful site (but it’d be even more wonderful if there was a way to send private messages to people through it as posting our email to people so we can converse privately leaves it up there for the world to see…) — let me share my story.
I have a little girl in Uganda, and EVERY LETTER she begs me to come visit her. I’ve explained that I would LOVE to come see her but just have not been able to make it work out, and she insists God will make it happen.
Well, He didn’t. But you know what He did do? He made OurCompassion, and through it, he enabled me to meet another sponsor of a child at my little girl’s project who just so happened to be going the next week to visit the project.
And I was able to send my little girl a more personal message through her, and my little girl got to spend the day with this other sponsor, send me a video message, etc.
If I can’t go see her myself, we just did the next best thing. Thanks for creating OurCompassion!
Chris, I love this ver personal post. Admittedly, I am highly sensitized, right now, and my eyes are filled with tears. I think I would give my right arm and all of my teeth, if I could see a video of Tausi’s project, preferably with her in it. I want to see that she’s reasonably okay, that she’s going to weather the grief of having lost her mom to cancer. I want someone to tell me that, between God’s love and mine, she will hang in there and not give up.
Okay, I know God’s love alone is maybe supposed to be enough, but then again, he gave us arms for hugging and holding, right? Except that mine don’t reach quite far enough.
My eyes are leaking, big time.
That feature is definitely at the top of the list for new features we want to provide.
I like the post. I also really enjoyed the video. I just loved the last song they sang after the tree planting, especially the kids giggling in the background, it just reminds me, even though they’re well rehearsed, and dressed in their fancy duds, they’re still just giggling, fun loving kids, like I was at some point…and that makes me happy.
@Prairie Rose – @Vicki Small –
A double reply!!!!!!! I thought what you both shared was great. And in my own life what I am realizing is that God alone is sufficient and He always has been and always will be. To Prairie Rose I thought that was almost more amazing than you visiting doing all that stuff through OurCompassion and even getting a video message from your sponsored child!!!!!!! Prairie Rose what I am realizing is God can snap His fingers and I could be in Tanzania. But based on my limited human abilities I know I need really only two things to go. A passport and some cash. If the plane crashes I cannot really control that. What I can control is getting the CASH and making sure my passport hasn’t expired. Before I went to Nicaragua and the Philippines with Compassion I would have thought visiting was impossible but now that I have visited it seems so easy. The faith in God your sponsored child has that you will visit is what is so AMAZING to me!!!!!!! B/c she has no idea your situation etc. I have a similar story about my Philippines Sponsor Tour extravaganza. I started writing 2 of the 3 boys I sponsor that I was going to visit and I added a third one I think later so I hadn’t mentioned it to him that I was on my way like a rocket towards the Philippines. I am fairly certain I didn’t mention to him I was going to visit, but what is so amazing just like your story is that after I had the trip completely paid for I believe (through the help of many drunk people that gave me large tips as I drove them in the Taxi) I got a letter he had written saying that one day he hopes we can meet in person. I do greatly appreciate his prayers but what is so AMAZING to me is I had made it up in my mind that I was going to visit no matter what. What I do is I just start throwing money towards the sponsor tour and once I have thrown a few hundred dollars I realize “Oh man, I better really finish what I’ve started otherwise I am going to be really mad!!!!!!!” So I put myself sort of in a trap by paying what is a little chunk of money to me which forces me to pay the rest or find all sorts of ridiculous ways to earn the rest like hanging car dealership flyers on people’s doors etc. I don’t doubt you will visit I would be happy to send you $5 to help you get started, I know that is almost nothing but if 1,000 people gave you $5 the trip would be paid for! My advice is keep praying hang in there it’ll happen…it happened to me
Vicki I don’t doubt that you’ll be there hugging Tausi very soon the only reason it seems so easy to me is because I have done it…however when I was working towards some of the trips I often would think “I better not make my boss mad and get fired before I pay for my trip!!!!!!!” I think Compassion trips are similar to the Pringles Jingle except I would change it to say “Once you go…then you’ll know!” but the truth is I don’t really “know” I just think I do. So I guess I must go again so maybe I’ll really know
A girl on our Philippines trip sold her motorcycle so she could attend the trip. I wish I had a house to sell then I would buy a small live-in boat and visit even more!!!!!!! But as for now I get to try to find creative ways to pay for the trips.
Chris
Totally agree with everyone that OurCompassion is amazing and is helping us connect and making things more personal. I am going on the Honduras trip in September and have already found 2 people that are also going on the trip. Planning on taking lots of photos and posting them so others can get a glimpse of their child. It is a great place to meet, pray, share ideas and encourage each other. Thanks for the post!
@Cheri – We’re working with our tour department to get “official” tour groups set up in advance of the trips going out in September so that there is a focal point for sharing before the trips, during the trips and after.
They’ll be contacting you about it when everything is ready.
@Chris Giovagnoni –
That would be great! I love OurCompassion and have a much better idea of my children’s lives, thanks to it.
Geri
Chris,
Lindy is my mother and she always reads the Compassion blog before I do and leaves a comment which is always exactly what I’m thinking. : ) Thanks, Mom, for your heart for children. I love you! And thank you, Chris!
Dana
This is awesome!!!
OurCompassion has been an encouragement to our family. I’ve become connected with someone who sponsors one of our child’s sisters. This other sponsor even visited the girls and the rest of their family this past spring and has been sharing with us about the family and the project there. She’s soon going to send us some pictures, which we’re looking forward to!
@Liz – That is fantastic! I love it.
Love this Chris. I am in the UK and I too feel closer to my child in Burkina Faso after contact with a fellow sponsor in the US who sent me some fab photos of his visit to the village where my child lives. Great site and hopefully I will get better at using it as time goes on.
Thank you for the message in this post, Chris… thank you for being open and honest about your feelings and your struggles with those feelings.
I am really excited about OurCompassion. I just joined, starting adding friends who sponsor children in the same two centers that our sponsored girls go to, and I hope we can connect, share, and learn from each other.
Dear Sir,
prayerfully please thing about the Southern Orissa, though few project are running by compassion India, but the adjoining area of Andhra Pradesh is in need of such project to save the children from migration and dangerious diseases affected in Andhra Pradesh after they go for the seasonaljob.the area are inaccessible and hilly, difficult in communication and education facilities are in need.through this we can share the Gospel alo to save the people from the eternal death.
thanking your,
prakash