My biggest fear in life is not reaching my God-given potential. And for the first 20 years of my life, I found myself being increasingly shaped by worldly values. That is, until I came face to face with Jesus!

Since then my Creator and Saviour has been helping me to weed out values that are contrary to those of the Kingdom and walking with me towards the dreams He’s planted in my heart. It’s been a step-by-step process of learning to be faithful with what He entrusts me with.

Of course, going against the patterns of this world isn’t easy, but the fruit of obedience is liberating! I wouldn’t want to live any other way. Life’s exhilarating when you’re dancing with a God of the supernatural.

Thanks to modern technology, I met a former sponsored child Paul Omondi through Facebook! Paul shared his testimony with me … It’s more than encouraged me to be all that I can be; it’s given me hope.

Paul completed the Leadership Development Program in Kenya years ago (a program that educates, trains and disciples servant leaders), was recently married (congratulations Paul!), and now works to help his fellow Kenyans escape the cycle of poverty in his role as a Community Development Manager.

But every achievement starts with a heart that dares to dream.

Twenty nine years ago in Kibera, 15 minutes outside of Nairobi, Kenya, a baby boy was born. Kibera is the biggest slum in Kenya. I can’t imagine what would’ve become of me if I was born there.

I’m reminded of the words of Nathanael when Philip told him that he had found ‘the one’ that Moses and the prophets wrote about. He said,

“Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” — John 1:46a (NIV)

Can anything good come out of a slum?

Tune in all next week as Paul tells his story.

- Irene

Editor’s note: The audio begins after 10 seconds

Talk to someone who has been on a Compassion sponsor tour and you’ll hear all about stuff like this,

But you won’t hear about this – the Customs Declaration form.

Not once did I read a blog post from Uganda about this thing. And boy howdy is this form painful.

Name, country of birth, nationality. Easy.

Main Destination in Mexico? Uh … do I put the hotel address or just the city? Which hotel the one I’m staying at for two days or the one I’m staying at for three days?

City? No problem, if it’s seven letters or less. So Colorado Springs becomes C-o-l-o-r-a-d. Nice.

Passport number. I have nine digits but 10 spaces. Is that normal? Did I do something wrong?

Do I need to fill out the stuff below the perforation? It’s the same as the stuff above the perforation. Why is the form perforated? What happens if I accidentally detach the two perforated parts from one another? Does one part then have to pay perforation support to the other?

And how do I answer this question?

“Are you carrying: live animals, food products of animal or vegetable origin, plants, flowers, fruits; chemical, pharmaceutical or biological products of agricultural use?”

Yes or no.

What’s the intent behind that question? Do they want to know about my airline peanuts? Is a nut just a nut or is it also a fruit? A vegetable maybe?

What about my energy bar? It’s technically food, and it’s definitely a food product, but do they want to know all about my packaged food products or just if I’m bringing in fresh stuff.

I know this isn’t stuff you really expected to hear about. It doesn’t bring you any closer to your sponsored child, but it’s all the stuff that we’ve done so far.

Other than eating at Pappadeux in the Houston airport, taking a few pictures while we waited for our delayed flight and getting poked in the nipple by a flight attendant because I didn’t turn my cell phone off quickly enough.

I told you I’d bring you along. Hope you like the “traveling face” of a sponsor tour.