Kamrul starts his day very early in the morning. He leaves his bed just after sunrise and washes his face from the nearest pond. After having a little cold rice from the previous night, he leaves for work.

These days, Kamrul feels very relaxed. He doesn’t have to pay rent to the cycle van owner daily. He has his own van now. It is the most useful gift for his family.

Kamrul has been blessed by your generosity. His new cycle van ensures a decent life for his family. Kamrul considers himself a fortunate father of a Compassion-assisted child. His 8-year-old daughter, Mukta, is the channel of blessings in his family.

Every morning, Kamrul drives to the nearest village market for passengers or a load to carry. If he is fortunate enough, he can get more than two passengers at a time and heavy stuff to carry. He earns 100-120 taka (U.S.$1.45-$1.74) per day by driving his cycle van.

“One hundred taka ($1.45) per day for me is the same as 100,000 taka ($1,450) for the rich people living in the big cities. This 100 taka allows me to buy food for my children and keep my family.”

In the rainy and cold season he earns less than that, but the money is still adequate to buy food for his children. It wouldn’t be possible if he didn’t have his own cycle van.

Previously, he had to pay around 100-120 taka as rent for a cycle van. He had very little left for his family. To pay the owner on a regular basis was a Herculean task for Kamrul. It took eight out of his 11 hours of working to earn the money for the owner.

Now Kamrul believes that his bad days are over and he can do something more for his children and family.

Kamrul’s working hours are now more flexible. To work eight hours throughout the day is enough for him to take care of his family.

Whenever he is on the road driving his cycle van, he keeps the faces of his children in his mind rather than the worry of paying the owner of the cycle van. You made this possible for him. (more…)

Over on another blog post – Where Do You Sponsor a Child? – several sponsors have been exchanging maps of the countries where we work; maps that list the child development center numbers and give a rough approximation of where the centers are located in relation to one another.

You can now find all of those maps in our Flickr account.

Are your children pretty web savvy? Do they spend a LOT of time online? I mean are they typical kids?

How about you? Are you a kid at heart?

If you said yes to any of these questions, we have some exciting news just for you.

We just launched our new kid’s Web site, Quest for Compassion, and we think that it is not only engaging but entertaining too! We love it, and are confident that your kids will as well. Not only is the site fun, but it’ll educate your youngsters all about the ministry of Compassion.

The site is designed for children between the ages of 6 and 10, and it provides a virtual opportunity for them to travel around the world — to four different countries where we work:  Ghana, Bangladesh, El Salvador and Brazil.

It helps your kiddos experience a Compassion child development center and the surrounding community, and will give them perspective on what a child’s life in the developing world is like.

Each child will “build his or her own buddy” to travel with — by choosing gender and skin color – and will be able to give the buddy a name. Then they can pick a region of the world to travel to.

Each town and country is filled with objects to click on and games to play. And with the help of their “buddies,” your world travelers can also learn key words and phrases in each country’s native language. Through these various games and fun facts, your children will get to see and hear about the life and culture of our Compassion kids around the globe.

We created the Web site through the use of real-life still shots taken in the countries where we work, which we brought to life through the use of animated children, teachers and animals that your children will meet along the way.

This is a new, fun and safe way for children, and even for you, to learn more about our ministry.

Visit the site today with your children to discover who and what awaits you! And be sure to tell us what you think.

Little Acmeshall opened her eyes. It was still dark outside, but she got down from her bed and washed her face using the bucket of water in the washroom. It wasn’t like any other regular day. It was Easter.

Acmeshall washed her face and mouth with water. The 6-year-old girl woke her mother up. Her mother, Lodis, enjoyed seeing her daughter’s hurry for Easter.

Acmeshall was very happy as she wore a brand-new white skirt specially made by her mother. She said her prayers and waited for her parents to take her to church.

At the same time half a kilometer away, an 8-year-old boy, Razu, was also getting ready for the morning devotion of Easter Sunday. Things were a little different here. (more…)

Have you ever wondered how Compassion, an openly evangelical organization, is able to work in Muslim or Hindu countries where evangelism is illegal? I have.

The other day I had an opportunity to spend an hour with a couple of our field staff, Mathew from India and Kevin from Bangladesh, and I asked them this question: How can Compassion work in India or Bangladesh or Indonesia?

Here is what they said …

We redefine the meaning of “evangelism.” The true way to evangelize someone is simply to act in a way that causes them to ask, “Why do you care?” This is what we do. We don’t “evangelize” the children in the sense most Westerners do. We simply care for them and then the parents ask why.

I’ve been processing that conversation ever since it occurred. Perhaps many of us have our focus in the wrong place. If Christians would make relationships our top priority, we wouldn’t have to put so much time or effort into evangelism. It would be the natural result.

What do you think?

The church was packed with 200 children and their parents, celebrating the pre-Christmas program with the Compassion child cevelopment center. When the host announced the opening of the program, the room burst with clapping.

Laboni was there with her sister Sraboni. Everything around Laboni was entirely new for her. She belongs to a Christian family, but in their lives Christmas is just like every other regular day. There has been nothing very special about Christmas except going to church in the morning.

But after Laboni and her sister got registered at the child development center, everything around her has been changing in a positive way. The meaning of Christmas has also changed.

(more…)

Today’s blog post is actually a double – two stories written by Leura Jones, a contributing writer for Compassion who describes herself as “a 30-something mom of four kids who suddenly finds herself unemployed and wondering what’s next.”

I Have Hope Now

Erina, a 32-year-old mother of five, used to ask God to kill her family all at once so that she would not die and leave her children to suffer alone. Three months after her youngest child, Ibrahim, was born, her husband left, taking two of their older children and most everything they owned.

“I would wash other people’s clothes or dig for food,” says the young Ugandan woman. “Sometimes our own clothes were not washed for a week because we had no soap. I couldn’t afford to buy firewood to cook our food. I had to walk 25 kilometers to look for firewood in the forest.”

But Erina has an aunt who encouraged her that God is good and will provide. When Erina looks at her baby boy, born healthy and with rarely even a cold, she believes this is true.

She had even more reason to believe when Ibrahim was chosen to be part of our Child Survival Program (CSP).

Through the program, Erina and her children received food, bedding, toys, and Christmas presents. Erina learned how to keep her home clean and healthy, feed her children nutritious meals, and to read and write. She is also able to earn reliable income by cooking for the church. And in April 2007, Erina gave her life to Christ.

“I have hope now. I am happy. I am alive and healthy. CSP has helped me with education, living with people peacefully, and starting up my own business so I am no longer helpless.”

She has also learned compassion for the suffering people around her.

“CSP fights for us. They check on us even though we are not home—they come back again. They don’t give up on us. This has helped me because now whatever I get, even though it is little, I can be compassionate to [others] who have nothing. I can help others as I have been helped.”

Ibrahim, now three, is thriving as well. Erina describes him as more intelligent and receptive than her other children because of the attention and help he has received.

When asked what he wants to do someday, the boy says he wants to be a doctor. His mother has confidence that because of his involvement with CSP, he will be able to attend school and achieve his goals.

(more…)

Every month we receive prayer requests from our country staff; prayer requests that we publish in our monthly prayer calendar, on compassion.com and as tweets.

Would you mind joining us in healing prayer for these sponsored children:

• Komol in Bangladesh, who is suffering from heart disease
• Soledad in Bolivia, who is waiting for a kidney transplant
• Jacob and Asish in East India, as they are suffering from malaria
• Miguel in Nicaragua, who has rheumatic fever
• Mukankusi in Rwanda, living with diabetes

If you leave your prayers as comments to this post, our country staff will be much encouraged. We’ll make sure they’re aware of the post.

And in cases where a child development center has a computer, the children and church partners will also know you are speaking to the Lord on their behalf.