Social media is my job. I manage this blog. I send out the tweets for @compassion. I create the photo sets in Flickr, upload videos to YouTube, update our Facebook status, etc.

I have a good job. I like it a lot. I don’t want to do anything else. My fellow webbies are great peeps. Lots of fun. And I love seeing and being a part of the conversations you have with one another. But amid all that I can still be a bit jaded at times.

Since this blog is a place of honesty and transparency, I have to admit that I have been known to say “Who cares?” to a tweet or two. Not any I send, of course.

I also admit to not putting much effort into managing “my personal brand” in those spaces, and that includes our newly launched OurCompassion.

However, on Wednesday, I learned what OurCompassion is really about. (more…)

The running water in my comfy apartment cannot help the hurt in my heart today. The grande nonfat latte I picked up from my favorite coffee shop didn’t help, either.

American luxuries I once looked forward to now feel empty, as nothing fills the void that Africa left.

Someone once said, “Once you get the dust of Africa on your feet, it will never leave you.”

Every day further away from Rwanda, the more I ache to be there. It’s been six weeks since my return from Africa, yet some moments, I feel as if I just stepped off the plane and into this alternate reality called America.

What does a person do after experiencing poverty firsthand? (more…)

Do you love your sponsored child? Really love your child?

We already know I’m an emotionally disconnected person, so help me out here.

Explain to me how you know that what you feel for your sponsored child is actually love.

Come on y’all. I want to know what love is. Sing it.

Remember the Tanzanian children’s choir I wrote about in my last post? Well, it turns out that their matinee performance that day was only a taste of what was to come — an actual full-fledged concert at Friday’s chapel.

And what I thought was powerful and moving at lunch barely compared to what I experienced on Friday. In fact, it didn’t compare at all.

(more…)

As you may have read recently, the Global Leadership Forum has been in progress all week and all the “big-wigs” are in town talking about . . . stuff. I don’t actually know what they are talking about because I wasn’t invited. But I’m pretty sure that my lunch on Tuesday was better than any silly forum

When I walked into the New Delhi Café (get it?), I was startled to see most of our tables occupied by little boys and girls . . . FROM AFRICA! A group of about ten kids, roughly eight to twelve years old, from Tanzania were all sitting down having lunch and drinking Cokes. They were bright-eyed, big smiled, beautiful kids.

As I filed in with many others for what we thought would be a normal lunch, I overheard someone say that they were all Compassion sponsored children.

“What an awesome reminder,” I thought to myself. “I’m working for them, their friends, and families.” Despite the fact that they were all well and healthy, I still found myself pitying them because they had to be “sponsored.”

But then, all of the sudden, they stood up, gathered together, started swaying in unison . . . and started singing.

I have never heard anything like it. Besides being on perfect key, they sang in harmony with one another. I can’t begin to tell you just how moving it was to listen to them to sing praises to the Lord. More powerful than their voices, though, were their hearts behind it.

As they sang and swayed, they all either had their eyes closed or their eyes wide open and hands raised to heaven. I never knew the power of a child’s faith until that moment.

And yet these are not just any children. (more…)

Last week, I was in Mexico. On a sponsor tour. And I saw the deepest, darkest poverty of my life.

But I didn’t have to travel to ME, the abbreviation we use when referring to Mexico, to see it. I only had to look at me.

I was in Mexico for the wrong reason. I didn’t go for the children, to become a stronger, more passionate voice for them. To serve them better. To serve you better. I went because I like to travel. I went for me.

There certainly are solid business reasons for me to have gone on the trip, but I didn’t get out of my own way long enough to realize them. I hate that.

How do I redeem the opportunity God gave me and that I squandered? (more…)

Have you noticed the “international” component of who we are? Compassion International.

Part of that internationality is that we work in 24 countries throughout the developing world … uh, 25 countries (you know about Togo, right?)

And the other part of that internationality is that there are 11 countries that form Compassion’s Global Partner Alliance. These are the countries where you, the sponsors, come from.

For the most part, the blog is written by Compassion U.S. staff with great contributions and insight coming from staff in the developing world. But there is more to us than those two perspectives.

Today’s post is written by Irene Kao, digital marketing specialist, in the Compassion Australia office.

Our plan is to have our global partners contribute as frequently as possible to help expand your perspective on who we are and how we work, as well as connecting you with sponsors and donors throughout the world.

Take it away Irene! (more…)