What’s a Little Chaos on a Compassion Sunday?
Beverly was not letting a few inconveniences get in the way of children being sponsored. After all, her toilet may have been temporarily out of order, but most of the children she was hoping to get sponsors for don’t even have a toilet.
A New Generation of Sponsors in Colombia
Staff and formerly sponsored children around the world are sponsoring children themselves. And now we have our very own Advocate in Colombia, María Ximena Marín!
Poverty Changed My Life
Compassion UK Advocate Martyn Legg was in a highly pressurized work environment, living with big demands and no room to back off. He and his wife Heather visited Kenya on an Advocate’s trip for ten days – ten days that changed their lives.
Sponsors at my church have been experiencing financial hardships with gas prices, unemployment, and the overall cost of living. I’m not sure if you’re experiencing this same tension, but I suspect that with finances being tighter, many of us are investing less time in this ministry.
What Power Do Actions Give Our Words?
What matters — what really matters — is how I live each and every day. If my everyday life is not a shining example of the care and nurture and love and respect due a child, all my words will fall on deaf ears.
Discovering Child Advocacy
Several years ago when I started sponsoring a child through Compassion, I thought I was doing a good thing. I made a small but noticeable donation to a nonprofit doing great work. Some little kid in India had a better life, I felt good for caring for the poor, the kid probably felt better because…
My tears embarrassed me. I didn’t want my friends to think I was trying to guilt them into sponsoring. I didn’t want to detract from our purpose in showing the exciting work Compassion is doing. But God used my tears.
As I pulled myself together, I realized I wasn’t the only one in the church…
As soon as I completed my Advocate training, my first thought was to host a Compassion Sunday at my church. I was on fire, passionate, and thought that was the obvious next step. I was wrong.
When you put a Mentos mint into a bottle of soda it explodes like a volcano, just like an explosive phenomenon taking place all over the country on behalf of children in poverty. In both cases this explosive phenomenon is about multiplication.
Who Can You Sponsor a Leadership Student With?
In 2006 my wife and I went on a sponsor tour to the Dominican Republic. Before our trip, we thought we knew what Compassion did, but our understanding of the ministry fell far short of what we saw.
When I came home from that trip, I signed up to be a volunteer child advocate. I…
Always Picked Last (Extreme Poverty Style)
Imagine a world where you grow up with a mommy and a daddy and live in a nice warm house with your family.
You have your own bed, and sleep each night with a full belly. You go to school, and in the afternoon you go to sports practice on a green grassy lawn that…
Restoring Social Outcasts to Community
Dr. Matt Rindge, assistant professor of Religious Studies at Gonzaga University and a Compassion Child Advocate, spoke at our National Advocates Conference in October. In his message, he shared two observations about Jesus’ ministry.
The primary effect of Jesus’ healings was to include social outcasts into community.
Jesus’ healings restored outcasts to community by removing the obstacle that…
Sowing Seeds With Faith
About a year ago, I wrote a post about the clear call I received from God into Compassion’s ministry as a Child Advocate. There was then and is now no room for confusion or doubt.
But at some level, I apparently thought a clear call to ministry meant that God would go before me, opening…
Finding Compassion: Blame It on Creation
I credit God with using Compassion as an instrument in His hand to grow me up in the faith. Honestly, I cannot imagine where I would be spiritually if not for my involvement with Compassion and child advocacy. I suspect I would be wallowing away somewhere in pew wondering what God’s plan was and how…
Feed My Lambs
We all know that on the night Jesus was arrested, Peter denied knowing Him, three times. But thankfully, Peter’s story does not end there.
In John 21, following His resurrection, Jesus asked Peter, three times, “Do you love me?” And each time Peter responded, Jesus called him to ministry: “Feed my sheep.”
Like Peter, I…
Become a Child Advocate
“Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.” — Proverbs 31:9 (NIV)
In the movie Pearl Harbor, Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle surveys a group of pilots who have stepped forward to go on a dangerous mission. In response to another officer’s concern about the mission, Doolittle determinedly says, “There’s nothing stronger…
Compassion Sunday Changes Lives
You can also view this video as Compassion Sunday on YouTube.
Fellowship of the Unashamed
I’m a part of the fellowship of the unashamed. The die has been cast. I have stepped over the line. The decision has been made. I’m a disciple of His and I won’t look back, let up, slow down, back away, or be still.
To God Be the Glory
I’ve been so focused on the preparations for the 2009 Compassion Sunday campaign that I had NEXT YEAR’S goal in my head when I was reading a recent child sponsorship progress report. It dawned on me just this week that we actually SURPASSED the 2008 Goal of impacting the lives of 22,000 children through Compassion…
The Perfect Gift
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…
It’s Almost Compassion Sunday!
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…
I Love Our Advocates!
The Compassion Advocates Network is made up of an amazing group of sponsors that want to do more than sponsor a child. They want to help get children sponsored.
Advocates give of their time, their talents and their money (e.g. like driving to work at a Compassion booth during a Jeremy Camp concert). They…
Why Me, God?
For about 35 years, once I first heard of such a possibility, I wanted to sponsor a child. But for most of that time, I simply could not afford even $10 per month.
About mid-2001, watching a commercial on TV for another organization, I realized I could finally afford to do something. But through…
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