It’s a scary, beautiful road when we leave the comfort of the familiar to forge a new path.

For two years, I worked as an assistant for the International Program Group Communications team. I had an incredible boss who encouraged me to pursue my passions. I flourished under his leadership as I learned more about my skills and developed relationships around the ministry.

So two months ago, when offered a new position as the International Partner Development Web and Marketing Specialist, I knew what I had to do. This was an opportunity to steward my gifting and passions for writing, marketing, and cultivating relationships of impact.

But that meant leaving the people I’d grown so close to. My co-workers had become a second family to me!

Learning a new role can be lonely. Sure, I love my new bosses and the new people I’m meeting, but I miss my old team. Leaving familiar paths to venture onto new ones feels vulnerable and sometimes scary.

A new friend of mine, Colleen,* knows these feelings well.

I met Colleen through OurCompassion, which I now work to help develop. She’s a sponsor and correspondent from Australia, and she recently blogged on OurCompassion about her struggle with cancer: (more…)

After a two-hour bus trip through chaotic traffic, I arrive at a child development center located in the northwestern part of Lima City.

The center is in a quiet place far from the noisy avenues, although the homes of squatters surround the church mission. The houses are built with precarious materials that show the poverty this community has to face. The mission is on a large property with buildings built long ago.

As I walk through the church’s wide, dusty dirt-floor patio, the center director greets me. With a wide smile and wearing blue jeans and a black hat, she looks ready to film the perfect Western TV series. Her name is Miss Pino and she is a graduate psychologist who has also studied at a Bible institute and has specialized in child advocacy and child evangelism. She has been appointed by her mission authorities as center director for Semillero de Campeones Student Center, which started in June 2008.

In this position, Miss Pino has to deal with many things she never thought she would, such as trying to keep the center open. The rising costs of household items – cooking oil, chicken, milk, etc. – has led to a 20 percent increase in food costs for all student centers in Peru.

For Semillero de Campeones, this has made it difficult to manage a program with 166 young children to feed, from which 40 percent do not have a sponsor yet.

Because of the rise in prices, many student centers have had to stop some activities such as camps, retreats and extracurricular activities. The budgets for each center are simply not enough.

Development centers with less than 160 registered children, such as Semillero de Campeones, have been more affected as they have fewer resources to face the crisis. Therefore, in order to continue serving the vital meals to the children, Semillero de Campeones received a special assistance through our Complementary Interventions Program (CIV). (more…)