I have been feeling challenged lately to get closer to the heart of Compassion, where we interact with sponsors, churches and children. I recently read a quote from a top executive of a large retail chain (I can’t remember which one — maybe Best Buy). He said, “I have never wasted a day visiting a store.”

Now, of course we don’t have stores but, I believe that sentiment is true for me — especially with visiting the field. I always learn something when I spend some unhurried and unplanned time in the field where I can really observe and learn and listen.

Heroes

It is especially valuable when our church partners are not aware of my position, and we can avoid a lot of the protocol and formalities. But those opportunities are rare and difficult to come by.

So, I planned a trip to do just that. I arranged a trip to Honduras where I spent six days at two different child development centers in the central zone of the country. I wasn’t sure how successful I could be as an “Undercover Boss,” but I’m very grateful to the Honduras Country Office who did a marvelous job of setting this trip up so that I could be a regular guy without any fanfare or protocol.

I slept on the floor of the center facilities and ate at the centers with food lovingly prepared by church staff. The purpose of my trip was to spend time “up close and personal” with our primary customers — the beneficiaries of our programs and our Implementing Church Partners (ICPs). I wanted to learn how they experience Compassion.

I also wanted to shadow a Partnership Facilitator (PF) for several days and gain a more intuitive and experiential understanding of how they fulfill their responsibilities and what their day to day life is like. And I wanted to be open to what God wanted me to see and hear and feel.

So, without trying to give you six days’ worth of journaling, I’ll highlight a few impressions, observations, realizations, affirmations and God-messages for you.

Lots Going On

There is so much going right with Compassion’s ministry.

OK, that may sound simplistic, but it is not. It was actually quite profound to see the number of things that are working as they are designed to work, and to observe numerous changes enacted over the last five years to create improvements that are now implemented and working!

Our ICP pastors and center staff are heroes.

We know this, but it is so inspiring to see time and again. These are passionately dedicated men and women who live day in and day out to help Compassion-supported children and their families and to reach out with God’s love to their communities. I met some incredible people of faith, people we can be proud to have wear the name “Christian” and the name “Compassion.”

I was able to spend a couple of hours walking through a very poor community with Pastor Guillermo late one afternoon. We saw the “underbelly” of the community as we visited homes of Compassion-assisted children and talked about the overwhelming social problems in the neighborhood, but I never once heard discouragement in his voice. Our ICPs are relying on God to provide for their immense needs and to sustain them with hope. And we play a part in that hope.

They are so thankful for our partnership (and here I don’t just mean money). Yes they need the money, but they really appreciate the support and guidance that our PFs and the local office provide. They appreciate the prayers of the sponsors and know that they are part of a global movement of God’s people.

Field-based Facilitation Works

Field-based facilitation is the best move we have made since going direct to the local church (instead of working through missions or denominations). This is work that is carried out by facilitators who live in the area of the centers instead of working out of the Field Offices.

OK, I probably can’t prove that statement, but that is how I feel. Honduras has gone 100 percent to field-based facilitation and they love it! The PF whom I shadowed was remarkable. Her name is Lastenia and she is the Compassion brand for the 13 centers/ICPs in her cluster, as well as for the other churches in the area and the local government.

Lastenia lives our brand fully and represents us wonderfully. We would be highly fortunate to have more PFs like her. She lives a few blocks from one of her churches, and her farthest centers are two hours away. Most are within one hour’s drive. She visits her best-functioning centers once every three months, her “needs improvement” centers every month, and her “needs significant improvement” centers every 15 days. (She took me to centers of all types, not just to her stellar centers.)

She is in constant contact by phone, text and e-mail with her centers (I saw this instantly for five days!), and is very much a part of their lives and community. She is seen as a friend, a mentor, an expert and yes, at times, a supervisor. Her focus is definitely on her ICPs. She connects with the Compassion Honduras office and is very much part of Compassion, but she is definitely a field person.

Lastenia’s closest contacts and friends are at the centers, not at the office. This is huge! She is closer to the center staff than to the office staff. Those are her colleagues and friends. This is an enormous paradigm shift and I can see that it bears amazing fruit.

Rapidly Becoming Outcome-driven

We are rapidly becoming an outcome-driven organization.

In Honduras, the center directors talk about outcomes. The PF talks about outcomes. Other field staff talk about outcomes. The Project Planning and Budgeting Form / Annual Opportunity Plan process focuses on outcomes.

One of the center directors we visited has started tracking his own milestones and indicators on an individual child basis because he wants and “needs” that information! In terms of the primary value of outcomes (clarifying intent), we have made enormous progress.

Using Local Resources Is a Must

Centers are leveraging local resources.

This PF has mobilized her centers to garner other resources outside of Compassion, and they are doing that quite successfully. The ones we visited had relationships with other international funders and were gaining significant advantage from partnerships with local governments. All of this strengthens the church and the center and provides additional opportunities for the children.

Leaping Into Technology

Honduras has taken leaps into technology at the center level.<

Part of the effectiveness of the Honduras model is the use of technology. Nearly all of their child development centers have Internet access. They do their planning and much of their work on computers. Honduras has contracted one cell phone plan for all the centers, staff and Leadership Development Program (LDP) students, so there is no extra cost for calls between those parties. This allows for free and direct communication. Center workers who had no previous experience with computers now take pride in their technological savvy.

Creatively Using CIVLatin America can make good use of Complementary Interventions (CIVs).

Our experience has showed a lower use of CIVs in Latin America. If this PF is the wave of the future, that will turn around quickly. The PF I shadowed is a CIV queen! She knows how to spot complementary needs and she knows how to make the system work. And she is relentless! I saw an HIV/AIDS peer activation project, income-generating projects, water projects, sanitation projects, computer labs, vocational training and more. All seemed very appropriately targeted to child development outcomes and were greatly appreciated by the center staff and pastors.

Desperately Poor Situations

We are working with children in desperately poor situations.

It had been seven years since I had been in Honduras. Development has clearly taken place in those years. Globalization of retail is everywhere. Infrastructure is improving. The use of technology is ubiquitous. (Everyone has a cell phone!)

At first glance, it may appear that we don’t need to be working in Honduras anymore. But just beyond the main paved roads lies the real Honduras where most people still live very difficult lives and many, many children are denied the basics that they need to develop healthily. We visited desperately poor homes and heard many a story of hopelessness and despair.

We met a 10-year-old boy forced to act as the head of household because his mother had died and his dad was an alcoholic who had taken in a 13-year-old girl as his new mistress. We met a family of 13 who live in one room, and visited three families that are sharing the same house. We heard of the immense pressure on teenagers to quit school and go to work, of young girls being given away at 13 or 14 years old to any men who are willing to feed them.

One of our hero child development center directors, Yanira, just registered 20 new children, and she is scared. These are the most “at-risk” kids they have registered yet (compared even to the ones I just spoke about!).

These are the children of gang members, murderers and prostitutes. These are the children of people who break in and steal from the center, who steal tilapia from their CIV-funded fish pond.

But Yanira is trusting God to guide them and protect them, and to transform not only the children but their entire families. We are meeting very real needs.

Children Need to be Known, Loved and Protected

Children need to be known, loved and protected.

Child abuse is a huge issue in this area of Honduras. Children fall victim to physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse and neglect. The centers serve as safe havens. The center workers are lovers and protectors.

Scott Todd wrote in the introduction to our new Compassion publication, Shared Strength, that “Compassion is committed to the local church and maintains long-term partnerships with more than 5,000 indigenous churches in more than 25 countries for the shared mission of protecting and developing children.”

I like the way that is said, and it very aptly describes what I observed in the centers I visited. They are “protecting and developing children.” Pastor Guillermo (whom I mentioned above) has visited the homes of every sponsored child in his center. He knows them. He knows their families. He knows their struggles. This allows him and his team to be relevant to the needs of the children.

Highly Vulnerable Children (HVC) Coming Just in Time

One ICP recently took a huge “step of faith” and started a “cottage” for abused and abandoned sponsored children. They were suddenly confronted with seven children who had no place to live for a variety of horrible reasons.

The church had access to a home, so they set up what we have called a “cottage” with a child development center tutor serving as the live-in house mother, but they had no idea how they were going to sustain it. They didn’t have the needed money, but they felt compelled to take the step of faith anyway, praying that God would provide for their needs along the way. They stepped into the Jordan and the waters had not yet parted.

It was a God moment for us to be able to share that as of the new fiscal year they would have access to financial support from the Highly Vulnerable Children’s fund to help support these desperately needy children! They were overjoyed! And I was overjoyed that God let me see this little glimpse of how the hard work of staff at the GMC and throughout Compassion is meeting real needs in a timely fashion. This was a God message to me: “Your labors are not in vain!”

Well, if you got all the way to the end of this “undercover report,” you get a gold star! I share these highlights with the hope of encouraging you that your labors are not in vain. Our work is bearing good fruit and much fruit.

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

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.

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

E-mails about how to submit a proposal for a complementary interventions (CIV), e-mails from marketing departments about the particulars of a CIV, e-mails about a disaster that has just occurred.

So her e-mail inbox pretty much dictates her day. After attacking the onslaught of messages each morning, she has a cup of tea at 10 o’clock. 

Then she spends a lot of time running around, especially during a week where there has been a crisis, like with the recent hurricanes, getting approvals for funds to be distributed.

But she slowed down enough to give us a peek into CIV and her world.

So what is CIV?

Complementary interventions completes our three core programs of child survival program, child sponsorship program, and the leadership development program.

CIVs include things like all our partner development training (training the church partner staff), implementing our curriculum, the AIDS initiative, vocational skills training, malaria intervention, disaster response, and health activities like vaccinations and health awareness campaigns. 

Tell us about the life and times of a CIV. Where does it start?

Generally, the need for a CIV is identified by the church partners, and our partnership facilitators collect those needs from them. The country office then combines them to find what the like needs are. 

That way, they can design a strategy within their country to decide what CIVs and needs they can address this year, and what needs are priorities within that country.

Then they write a proposal for the CIV, which goes through an approval process in their area office. When the approved CIV is submitted to us here, it goes into our database of proposals so the global partners can find donors to fund them. 

What happens if a CIV doesn’t get funded?

Each area has some funds of their own that they can decide how to be used for the things that are vitally important to get done. 

People like to build solid things, like a playground, because they’re something they can see, but it’s harder to see the value in a partner development activity, so these are harder to get funded. 

If you ask field staff, they say that is the most important activity they do. They need the activities like child advocacy training, because developing the church partners is vitally important. 

If you could share one thing with the sponsors and donors, what would it be?

We have highly qualified and very intelligent field staff who have created country strategies that really help address the country’s need. 

Through CIV, donors have a unique opportunity to come alongside that and provide for the needs that go beyond sponsorship. 

The field staff is awesome. They work so hard, and they give so much, both professionally and personally. 

They’re very invested in the work they do, and they do a lot of work. So have patience with them. They will bend over backwards to help people, but things take time in order to do them well.  

What’s the best part of your job?

I like that what I do impacts a lot of people. Like when I help an office get funding for a proposal, as in the Haiti hurricane crises. I don’t work directly with the children, but I can use the gifts I’ve been given to impact children administratively .

What’s the hardest part of your job?

Recently, the hardest part is seeing a need that can’t be addressed because of lack of funding. In the Haiti disaster, there’s a large need, but we have raised only a small part of it, and there are children out there that don’t have a home anymore. 

I remember when we got our proposals for the global food crisis, and I read through all of them. Honestly, I went home depressed — the need of our countries was overwhelming.

Not too long after that, we had our prayer and fasting day, and the fasting really meant so much more to me. I’d read the proposals the day before, and I realized how blessed I am.

What’s a story that’s impacted you the most about a CIV? 

There was a little girl in Kenya who from birth had a growth on her face. It got bigger as she grew, a large mass right beside her nose, and it eventually pushed her eye out of shape.

The kids in her area shunned her because they thought there must be something wrong with the girl, like she was possessed. So she didn’t go to school but worked all day instead.

The Kenya staff worked to get her medical treatment through a medical CIV. They arranged surgery to have it removed, and then she had reconstructive surgery.

It’s really encouraging to see that connection. This was a proposal I read, and now I just got the update that she’s back in school and is getting back into the community. Those kinds of things make you realize, wow, this is huge.

If you had a bunch of money you were going to donate, what CIV would you give to?

That’s tough! I appreciate how diverse they are. It’s too hard to decide: They’re all good! When you’re in the field and see the need, you want to fund everything. I just wish I had a million dollars so I could!

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