When I was 16, I was primarily preoccupied with…boys. With clothes coming in at a close second. I hate to perpetuate stereotypes, but what can I say, I was a shallow kid and am still a recovering shallow kid. So when I learned about Kaitlin, I was amazed.

Kaitlin is an example of how God uses children and youth to be His hands in this world and to teach and convict the rest of us with what faith and sacrifice look like.

Kaitlin was just a normal 16-year-old girl living in Alberta, Canada, when she was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor.

She spent a year and a half in and out of the hospital, in surgery, and in chemo. She tried to live as normal a life as possible, but her day-to-day life was punctuated by bouts of sickness and fatigue.

So when the Children’s Wish Foundation approached her to make a wish — a wish that would bring just a little relief and light into a girl’s days that were marked by trial — her wish was shocking.

Kaitlin initially thought about getting a camera or going on a family vacation, but she just didn’t feel right about any of those ideas. Ultimately, Kaitlin decided she didn’t want anything for herself, but wanted to give her wish away to help children in poverty.

Kaitlin donated the entirety of her wish to build a well in Uganda so that children there could have access to clean water.

And the faith and generosity of this young girl woke up a lot of adults.

When people heard about Kaitlin’s wish, they were inspired to follow in her footsteps. Her community held fundraisers to build more wells. People in Korea, Australia, and around the world heard about Kaitlin and donated to give even more children clean water.

Last I heard, more than $285,000 had been raised to bring clean water to children all across Africa.

It reminds me of this verse:

“Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity.”  — 1 Timothy 4:12, NIV

Kaitlin’s mom, Brenda, says it well.

“Everyone always thinks in order to change the world you have to be someone who stands out in a crowd, be the best in school or the one who wins all the races, but Kaitlin has changed the world for more than 40,000 lives just by being obedient to God.”

Certainly, Kaitlin was an example for all of us in her life, love and faith.

Kaitlin went to be with our Lord in May of this year. She clung tightly to her faith in God throughout her life. Not long before she passed away, Kaitlin said,

“Even though I don’t want to be sick, if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t have received this wish and others wouldn’t have wanted to help and all of these children wouldn’t have benefited. It is a humbling experience.

“We are only on earth for so long, and we need to make an effort for other people. It’s like we take a picture while we are here on earth – at the end of the day, what do you want the picture to look like?”

I’m thankful for the picture that Kaitlin created with her life, and I hope she will be an encouragement and a challenge to you as well!

If you are a Canadian supporter and would like to donate to Kaitlin’s legacy, you can do so at www.compassion.ca/KaitlinsLegacy.

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

Today, I would like to introduce you to my fellow contact center employee, Becky. I spoke with her recently and our conversation was such a source of encouragement to me, I wanted to share it with you.

Becky is going through a difficult time right now. Her husband has survived cancer twice, but the doctors have found another spot on his lung. Scared that the cancer has returned, she described her feelings to me.

“I remember walking around the office and thinking ‘Does anyone know that my world has collapsed today? Does anyone even care?’”

As always, God gave her hope in the midst of her sorrow. As our conversation continued, she explained how this experience has helped her show grace to the sponsors she speaks with each day.

“I never know what the person on the other side of the phone is going through. I try to remember how I felt during that time and be sensitive to the person’s struggles that I am speaking with — even if I don’t know what they are.”

I was so inspired by Becky’s strength and hope leaving work that day.

Later that week, I brought up this topic in a meeting and everyone present agreed — when we speak with an upset caller, it is rarely due to the reason the person called about, but usually because of a struggle in that person’s life.
Because of this, one of the representatives on my team prays before taking every call. Many go above and beyond; I know one co-worker who even looked up the right bus route for a sponsor who was lost.

How many times do I speak or act without thinking of the other person I’m interacting with? How many rash and hurtful decisions have I made? Not only do I, working in the contact center, need to be sensitive to the struggles you are going through, but also as a sponsor I must be sensitive to my sponsored children’s struggles.

I don’t want to walk on eggshells all the time, but I also want to be considerate and compassionate to those in my life.

Do you have suggestions for being intentionally considerate of your sponsored child or for those you do life with?

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

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:

“I went to the hospital yesterday, and due to infections and extremely low blood pressure and blood count, I was unable to receive my treatment. My doctors have said that I am unable to receive any more chemo as my body is not responding to it … I still do not know what is going to happen, the cancer is still there in my kidneys and liver … I am scared, scared that the cancer will get worse between now and then, scared that the doctors could say there is no more they can do for me. Please, can you all keep praying for me?”

Colleen’s honesty overwhelms me. She’s vulnerable in the midst of something scarier than I know. She’s willing to share her struggles and ask for support. And oh my! The outpouring of love from the global OurCompassion community … it brings me to tears.

I realize that when I log in to OurCompassion, I’m doing more than just visiting some Web site; I become part of a compassionate community that prays for members like Colleen as she goes through treatments. A community to share stories of love for our sponsored kids, love for the Lord, and love for each other — even if we have never met.

Colleen reminds me that we are all entering uncharted waters — whether new jobs or no jobs, debilitating illnesses, moves, or personal tragedy or triumph. We need to lean into those God has placed around us — whether they be across the aisle or across the ocean!

I’m forging new paths at Compassion. I look forward to new friendships and working with the incredible people involved with OurCompassion.

Are you in yet?

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

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).

According to statistics, nearly 750,000 children in Peru have chronic malnutrition, a serious problem that is hidden from the eyes of society which links the short size and the glum temper of the poor indigenous and Creole people to their idiosyncrasies and not to malnutrition.

One out of four children younger than 5 years old is malnourished and does not reach the minimum required size and weight. This causes irreversible damage to their physical, intellectual and emotional development, and this situation continues because of the poverty and illiteracy of mothers in Peru, who don’t know how to combat malnutrition.

Investigations show that the lower the educational level of a woman, the earlier she becomes pregnant, and the more likely she is to raise larger families, heightening the probability of chronic malnutrition of her children.

Miss Pino tells me,

“A good number of families prepare their meals using only chicken innards to add some flavor to their meals. Even the fruit has increased its price, and now some very poor families prepare as a supper for their children a cornstarch pudding and a cup of tea, either yams and tea, or simple bread with tea to have something in their stomach to be able to sleep at night.

“Therefore, if not for Compassion, many of the registered children would not have a chance to eat any decent meal at all.”

Because of this serious situation, Compassion is responding in two ways:

1. Educating the mothers who are registered in our Child Survival Program (CSP) to reach the children when they are most vulnerable, as infants.
2. Covering the immediate nutritional needs of the children with CIV funds.

Many of the CSP mothers are illiterate and have only basic education. Education will teach them a trade to help them improve their income, teach them about proper child care, and also how to prepare nutritious meals, with help from a nutritionist. This response began in February 2009 and will last one year.

The dining room at Semillero de Campeones bursts with children at lunchtime eager to receive what they would not receive at home. These meals will ensure the children can receive the nutrition so important to their growth, including proteins (chicken and beans), carbs (rice), vitamins (vegetables and fruits).

Miss Pino and I visit the family of a sponsored child for whom child sponsorship has made a difference. A young man who also works at the center comes with us, as the place is not safe at all.

Although there are no gangs in this community, there are many thieves who commit robbery inside the many poor homes. There is also a problem of alcoholism and many broken homes and single mothers.

It is also quite common for men to abandon their family, and so there are many young mothers who have to work to support their home, and many children who have to stay at home all day alone, a danger for their well-being.

As we enter a small squatter house located on a hill, I see a middle-aged woman in bed. She is Nydia, 42, the mother of Sayuri.

I notice that they live in only one room with a roof of matting and plastic. The house walls are bare bricks, and the only furniture is two beds, a chest drawer with a TV set on it, and the TV cardboard box used as a night table by the mother’s bed.

There are many flies around Nydia and on her bed. She moves her head toward me, indicating to come, and at the same moment, she tries to kill a fly with a swatter.

As I enter the room, I sense immediately a strange odor that takes me back 18 months to the day when we, a group of Compassion workers, entered into one of the towns south of Lima City where a strong earthquake killed many people. Most of the bodies were still trapped in the debris and the strong odor of death made it difficult to breathe.

In fact, Nydia, a single mother of five, is dying day by day with uterine cancer. She was diagnosed in May 2008, and the doctors could do nothing but put her on radiotherapy. Now she is taking morphine to alleviate the pain in her swollen legs that have made it impossible to walk.

Nydia has five children: Jhon, 20, Martin, 17, Luis, 15, Rosa, 12, and Sayuri, 4. The two older ones live on their own and seldom see their mother. Luis works whenever he has a chance and brings home the money to cover the most urgent needs, and Rosa, although she is only 12, had to quit school because they couldn’t afford the school expenses. Instead, Rosa looks after her mother and younger sister.

We begin talking to Luis, and after some minutes Nydia tries to join our conversation. I look at the dirty mattress and blanket where a good number of flies keep landing, but choose to ignore it and sit down on the bed by Nydia’s side with a microphone in my hand and a camera in the other.

“My daughter Sayuri is very picky to eat so I am surprised she likes the meals that are served at the center. I thank Compassion for it because our budget at home is quite low to cope with our needs.”

Before she was ill, Nydia supported her family cooking at a restaurant in downtown Lima, and used to come home late completely exhausted. At the time she learned she had terminal cancer, she also learned about the Compassion program that was beginning at an evangelical mission located about 10 blocks from her home. So she registered her daughter, Sayuri.

Now Sayuri is attending the Compassion program and also attends school through a scholarship at the small grade school the mission runs to benefit the community children.

“If not for Compassion, Sayuri would have been at home just as her older sister. But now besides having a meal, she has a place to enjoy gathering with other children and learning many new things, instead of watching the TV all day as before.

“You see, I am dying with cancer and what worries me most is that I don’t know where my two daughters are going to end up. The boys are already grown up, and they can look after themselves.”

As our visit comes to an end, it is time for Nydia to take the prescribed morphine. After saying a prayer, we leave this home and walk toward the mission, having been a witness that without the loving care of Compassion that Sayuri is receiving now, this family would have no hope.

Nydia lost track of her relatives when she was quite young, and now her only family are the mission church members who volunteer at the center. Miss Pino, who is quite aware of the situation, tells me that the center helps this family by giving them spiritual counseling and some food supplies.

By giving them some food supplies, the family is able to eat at least something simple as a supper and to have a breakfast to help them get started for the day in better shape.

The center also pays for the medical fees and the prescribed medication sold at a special cheap price to Nydia at the hospital, after the hospital’s social workers declared her as a destitute person.

Nydia’s neighbors have also found a way to ensure the family receives a free lunch at a soup kitchen run by the government, where meals of rice and beans with tea are sold to the community for U.S.60 cents a dish.

Miss Pino has hope for this family, as she does for the center in general.

“Pastor Fonseca, who already has 15 years of experience working with Compassion at another center in the city, has been appointed to this church since January.

“He is quite acquainted with many foreign missions and foreign businessmen and professionals who are willing to help him in the development of the mission and will begin soon helping our mission work.

“In fact, in April we began a breakfast program on Sunday mornings for all the children who want to come to listen to the Bible stories after a good breakfast. And there is the possibility to extend this benefit for at least three more days during the week, so that all the community children may be able to attend school after having a nutritious breakfast.

“The beneficiaries will be the Compassion-sponsored children, the mission school children as well as all other children who live nearby.

“Besides, there are two foreign agronomy engineers who are Christian who teach at the Agronomy University in Lima City, they have the desire to help the mission install a small farm with a special method of watering. Since the mission has a big space of land, they want to use it to grow some vegetables to be used for preparing the program’s meals.”

Pastor Fonseca also has a long-term project in mind – to build an orphanage and day-care center to help many children that stay home alone all day and are in imminent risk, just like Sayuri and her sister Rosa.

Though this family still daily faces such serious burdens, the Compassion program has been able to help with their basic needs and provide vital emotional and spiritual support.

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates