Who doesn’t like a good holiday celebration? I know I do.

I often get questions in the contact center regarding different holidays.

• Does my child celebrate such and such a holiday?
• What are some holidays that are special to my child?
• To be sensitive to my child’s culture and customs, are there things I shouldn’t talk about?
• Should I only mention the tradition behind the celebration or can I also talk about the specific festivities?

The U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving is a good example. We are celebrating hospitality, God’s goodness, and how the kindness of strangers helped save a whole community.

It’s a great holiday and time with family, but how do we recognize it? Most of us over-eat, sit around watching football, and battle with strangers for parking spots and places in lines to buy stuff — which is hardly hospitable. And these customs would be difficult for a child in poverty to understand.

What about other holidays? Do you take your children trick-or-treating at Halloween? Do you hide eggs and eat Peeps at Easter?

Do you buy fireworks and light them up on Independence Day? These holidays are part of our culture and the way we celebrate is hard to avoid talking about.

So what do we tell our sponsored kids, Brett?

Be sensitive to their culture and customs.

For example, yoga is predominantly a form of exercise here in the U.S., and many Americans now practice it without any spiritual implications. However, yoga is still very much a Hindu practice in Asia, and thus it would have a negative implication to people who know about yoga’s Hindu roots.

Halloween is a time to take our kids out and get free candy from generous neighbors, but in Latin American countries the spiritual association is prominent. It’s associated with the Day of the Dead and is often celebrated with altars built to dead relatives – something the evangelical Christian community stays away from.

Then should I not tell my sponsored child about holiday celebrations?

Talk about the time you spend with your family. You can share your life with the children you sponsor. Be honest and open, but be sensitive.

You can also rely on our great staff members working in each of our country offices to be sure all communication delivered to the children is culturally acceptable and appropriate.

Finally, if you are unsure if something you are going to send or something you are going to write should be included, ask us.

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A Republic Day celebration is organized by every Compassion child development center across eastern India to teach children in our sponsorship program about national pride. The celebrations include a series of programs like a parade and patriotic dances by the children, flag hoisting, a standing salute to the Indian tricolor by children and staff, and a short speech by the guest of honor.

Through these celebrations, children at the development centers are taught about brotherhood and harmony irrespective of their caste and faith. Children learn to become responsible and loyal toward their future duty as citizens of their nation.

“We are building future patriots for our nation by instilling patriotic fervor in our children through celebrations like Republic Day and Independence Day. If children understand their responsibility towards their motherland from their childhood days, I am confident they have the potential to do great things for our nation,” says Puspita, a staff member at Marthoma Child Development Center.

Republic Day (26th January) is celebrated every year across India with great pomp and pageant. It is one of the three national holidays of the country.

The occasion is marked by a grand parade in the nation’s capital of New Delhi. It includes a march-past by India’s three armed forces, distribution of bravery awards, and folk dances by tribal people in their traditional costumes, marking the cultural unity of India.

The Indian military also showcases its latest acquisitions of artillery, missiles and radars. Streaks of jet planes from the Indian Air Force leave a trail of tricolored smoke to culminate the celebration at the nation’s capital.

Republic Day fills up every Indian heart with patriotic fervor because it was on this day in 1950 that the Indian Republic and its constitution came into force. On January 26, 1950, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar framed the written constitution of India with seven other members of the drafting committee that finally saw India become a republic nation.

Republic Day has set a milestone in India’s history by giving all Indian citizens the right to exercise freedom in every sphere of their life and also teaching them to live in unity, equality and harmony amidst their vast cultural diversity.

The celebrations at Marthoma Child Development Center begin early in the morning as children line up with their center’s banner and the Indian tricolor flag to parade through the campus to the rhythm of beating drums.

That is followed by a short prayer from a child and the unfurling of the national flag by the head teacher of the local government school.

The teacher also shares a short speech on Republic Day to encourage and inspire children:

“I have seen great change in this community through the initiative the Marthoma Child Development Center has taken in educating poor children of this community. I am hopeful that today’s children will become tomorrow’s leaders in this community; I am glad to see how they are also instilling patriotic feelings in these children through these kind of celebrations.”

After flag hoisting, the children put together a beautiful patriotic dance dressed up in the tricolored attire, followed by another short message on the theme of Republic Day. Finally the celebration culminates with a vote of thanks and closing prayer from another Compassion-assisted child.

After the program ends, children line up in rows of two to collect sweets and the national flag is distributed at the gate by volunteers.

“I remember coming to the center and eating candies on Republic Day but as I grew older I realized the importance of this day. I read about Dr. Ambedkar in our history textbooks and it inspired me a lot. We celebrate this day with honor remembering all who helped to make India a republic nation,” says Rumpa, a Compassion-assisted child.

Through Republic Day celebrations, the development center instills the spirit of brotherhood, unity and equality in all Compassion-assisted children.

“I want to do something for my nation that I can feel proud of. Besides, the freedom and equality we enjoy today was earned through the sacrifice of our freedom fighters and that is what I want our little brothers and sisters at the development center to know when they grow up like me,” tells Anamika, another Compassion-assisted child.

The Marthoma center is ministering to children coming from both Hindu and Muslim families. In the past, village standards were so rigid that Hindu and Muslims would not drink from the same hand pump without first washing it properly. Each had their separate ponds where they took baths. The development center has helped children to advocate the message of brotherhood and unity in their families through which many Hindu and Muslim families have come together in love and harmony.

Marthoma staff member, Puspita says it well,

“Our children are spreading the message of unity and love in their neighborhood. This has brought a lot of change in the community. Celebrations like Republic Day help us to make that message even more powerful.”

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It is sunrise on Friday, just a week before Christmas. The morning smells fresh and the sun shines strongly. A light breeze fills the air with that cool Christmas feeling. For a foreigner, it would almost feel like spring, but for Salvadorans, it feels like Christmas.

This is how the day starts for the team at the Lighthouse Child Development Center, run by the Central American Mission Church in a municipality of San Salvador named Soyapango.

Soyapango is north of the San Salvador metropolitan area. It is an industrial zone, with factories for brand-name beverages and a local shoe brand. Soyapango is also home to thousands of lower middle class to lower class families. According to the last census, it is the third most populated place in El Salvador, representing 4 percent of the population (nearly 250,000 people). Soyapango is also a stronghold of the Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13 gang.

Yet, all that smoke from the factories and trucks, and the danger and crime, seem to fade away because it is Christmas time.

For the children at Lighthouse, that Friday, December 17, becomes Christmas. The special event has been planned for months, and arranged for days, with love and enthusiasm from the center staff. All week they have been working on the final arrangements – the food, the decorations, the packaging of the presents.

Every Compassion center in El Salvador presents a yearly schedule of the events they will hold, to plan and budget accordingly. The Christmas celebration is one of the biggest. It does not only mean lunch and piñatas for the children, but it also reminds them that there are people who care for them, at the center and also far away.

Their sponsors think about the children, and it is because of them that this celebration is possible and that the children receive a present for Christmas. Raul and his team recognize that effort made by the sponsors to bless the lives of the children, and they put their best efforts toward that celebration.

When asked about the average situation of the children in the community, Raul answers,

“They come from three communities: San Luis, October 10th, and March 16th. These are places with scarcity, dust floors, aluminum walls. Some people must survive on $1 a day. Our children do not want to go on vacation because they know that they will lack the meal they receive at the center, and also the love and hugs.”

Knowing this reality changes the perspective, and for Raul and the team it is not a celebration on the calendar – it is the opportunity for a blessing.

To celebrate Christmas in El Salvador means to mix a variety of traditional Christian beliefs and adopted Western customs.

Christmas for El Salvadorans still carries a strong meaning that brings families together. Despite the business on the streets and the red, green and white flooding the environment, Salvadoran people try honor the true meaning of Christmas – the birth of Jesus.

Santa Claus is known for appearing in TV and print ads, but people ask children if they already wrote a letter to little baby Jesus instead.

For Brother Raul and his staff, to host the Christmas event means an opportunity to put a smile on the face of each child and teenager at the center. They hold the celebration for the teenagers two days earlier, on Wednesday.

“With the older ones we make a special dinner. They all dress up. We start at the temple and then each of the tutors accompanies their students one by one to the place we prepare with the tables.”

Today, Friday, is reserved for the little ones. There are flowers at the center of the tables, all decorated with white tablecloths. But the nice lunch is just the frosting. They have prepared a special Christmas program for the children.

“In other years we just had a piñata. This year we had a clown who performed a small play to teach the children that their heart must be just for God. We wanted to do something that will have an impact.

“Nobody gives attention to these children. They might live in the capital city, but they have no attention, no love. What our center gives is love, understanding, and attention. We want them to know that somebody thought about them.”

The program starts with songs and games in a “Father Abraham” fashion. The clown presents the play. Then it is piñata time, followed by lunch. While the children enjoy fried chicken with fries and salad, all of them homemade, the staff starts to prepare for the moment that all of them wait for: the Christmas presents.

Raul says that in past years, most of the children chose shoes over the gift options they are given, including toys and clothes, because it serves them to go to school. For many children, the shoes that they received for Christmas was the only pair they received for the year.

This year, since the new government said they will provide shoes and uniforms to all the children in the public school system, the best long-term need the center can fulfill is the school bag, something that even the parents have agreed to. The children will remember every time they see that school bag that there is a sponsor who cares for them.

“Our parents understand that there is someone on the other side of the world making an effort to help their children because they love them. It has a big impact to know that someone cares,”

“We thank God for the sponsors lives, and we ask God to pour blessings over them. They are sowing, and they will see the fruit. God will provide and multiply everything they give.

“Thanks for providing for one more Salvadoran – one that will become a doctor, a lawyer …. Thanks for being a Good Samaritan, for giving us a hand and caring for our children. For a smile that you put on their faces, or a tear that you wipe off their cheeks, God will bless you.”

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