Our ministry has the opportunity to grow, to reach more souls — to shape our world. To do this, we need a strategy, which is where Chuck Boudreau comes in.

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

You started sponsoring little Jessica three years ago. You picked her because of her mischievous grin and her pigtails. You’ve been writing letters back and forth and are slowly starting to feel like you’re getting a glimpse into her world and what her daily life is like. You’re praying for her, and you find you’ve grown quite attached.

Then you find out that her child development center has closed, and suddenly this relationship you’ve begun to build comes to an abrupt end.

Naturally, you want more information, but are left with the little that you got through the last communication.

We partner with more than 5,000 churches worldwide to implement our sponsorship program. And last year, 95 centers closed, about 1.7 percent of the centers open at the time.

The number of child development centers that close each year varies. They close for a variety of reasons, and each case is different.

• A center might close because of unresolved financial integrity issues.
• A center might close because the church partner is having difficulty maintaining the staff and volunteers needed to successfully implement the program and no longer wants to continue the program.
• A center might close because the church leadership and the center’s staff have relationship conflicts.
• Or, on the positive side, a center may close because the church partner no longer needs assistance from Compassion.

If in the future the church would like to engage in another partnership with us, they can, but they would need to follow the process of opening a new center at their church.

The Partnership Facilitator (PF), the direct link between our Country Office and our centers, is the person who visits the centers to ensure they are running properly.

If the PF encounters problems at a particular center, he works with the center staff and the Country Office to resolve the issues. He will visit the center to work on development plans to help resolve the issues. He will meet with the pastor and the leadership of the church.

If necessary, the Country Director will meet with the pastor or even with the president of the church’s denomination.

Sometimes, however, the issues may persist, in which case the center will be put on suspension. In some cases, if the problems remain unresolved, the situation may end with the closure of the center.

However, not all closures follow this process. Sometimes a church partner will decide to end our partnership without going through the suspension process, or vice versa, depending on what the circumstances are in that particular case.

If a center is closed, the Country Office fills out the appropriate forms and sends them to the Global Ministry Center in Colorado as soon as possible. The closure is processed within seven days and is communicated to the appropriate Global Partners so they can share the news with you.

The Country Office also tries to transfer as many sponsored children as they can to another nearby center. However, if this is not possible, the children are “departed” from the program.

It is never easy to hear that a little one you have been praying and caring for is no longer part of our program. But know that we do all that we can to ensure that not only are our programs implemented with the utmost integrity, but also to resolve issues within our centers whenever possible, and ultimately, to transfer children to nearby centers when necessary.

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

Have you ever wondered how your sponsored child’s letter gets to you? The long journey it takes from Tanzania or Thailand to Connecticut or California? There’s a lot more to it than you might think!

Samuel Llanes, Guatemala’s Field Communication Specialist, gives us a peek at the journey of one letter from Guatemala to a sponsor in Australia. (Did you know that Compassion International has sponsors all over the world from Australia to France to South Korea?)

Pamela, a little girl sponsored by a married couple in Australia, says, “I love writing letters to them! When I write my letter, I wish I was right there with my sponsors.”

She has received two letters in the two years she has been sponsored, and she keeps them safely at home. She knows who they are and what they do, and she prays for them before bedtime each night.

When Pamela receives a letter, it has gone through a long journey. First the letter is sent from Australia to the Compassion International field office in Guatemala. Each country Compassion works in has its own field office. The letter must then be translated into Spanish for Pamela to understand.

“Translating is such a blessing to me,” says Julia Zepeda, a pastor’s wife and translator who has been working for Compassion International Guatemala for eight years. “I have taken this as a ministry that helps children, and I know is worth it.”

The translators are given one week to complete all the translations once they’re given a group of letters. The average number of letters that must be translated a week in Guatemala is usually around 180 to 200! After translating, the letters are brought to the student centers where they are distributed to the children. Receiving a letter is a special moment for children — they know that someone out there cares about them and is praying about them.

Letter Day
“Letter day” happens every four months. Pamela, along with all the other children at her Guatemala City student center, writes a letter every four months, though her sponsors may not write her that often.

When Pamela writes her letters, she uses a notebook to write a first draft. She does not want to miss anything that her sponsors asked her in their letter. Pamela’s tutor reads her sponsors’ letter to her, and as it is read, Pamela answers all the questions they asked. If they have sent something special, like stickers, she makes sure to thank them. Then once she has decided what her letter will say, she writes out her final draft.

Letter Day is an exciting day. The student center celebrates all the children for their efforts in writing letters on Letter Day. They give prizes to celebrate every child — and sometimes they even have a clown and piñatas!

Once Pamela’s letter is written, she gets to take her letter from her sponsors home, which she gets very excited for.

On Its Way
Once Pamela’s letter and all the other letters are written, they are brought to the Guatemala field office and translated into English. The packages of translated letters are then labeled and sent to be processed at Compassion International’s Global Ministry Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The children’s letters are sent from Guatemala to Colorado once a week.

Each week, child letters arrive in large boxes in Colorado Springs from all over the world to be tracked and sent on their way.

First, the letters are sorted by where the sponsors are from. All the letters going to U.S. sponsors are grouped together, all the letters going to the United Kingdom are grouped together, and so on.

Each letter is then scanned into a database, using the barcode at the top of each child’s letter, so Compassion can track all of the letters that are sent.

Once all the letters have been recorded in the database, they are bound together according to the letter’s destination country, and shipped out every Tuesday.

So the letters that our sponsored children write to us have been through a long process, passing from one hand to another until they arrive in your mailbox in that envelope saying, “A Message From Your Sponsored Child.”

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

Howwwever, I work on a computer. And I tend to work on that computer all day long, with nary a break. I don’t often make it to the café to enjoy my self-serve special for $4.99, and it really is special because I have a hand that serves and serves and serves.

I also frequently forget to take a breath and enjoy the view or even say cheerio to my co-workers. I glue my rear to my seat and my eyes to my monitor and there I stay for the day. Ugh!

And when I’m in this all-work mode, I often lose sight of why I’m working. I only see trees, no forest.

But all throughout the Global Ministry Center hangs artwork created by children in our sponsorship program. It’s amazing artwork, not only because of the talent it illustrates but because it exists.

What if Compassion wasn’t in this child’s life? Would this talent have had an opportunity to develop? Would the art be given the chance to enrich other people lives, like it does mine when I scrape my eyes from my computer screen?

Here’s what I’m talking about.

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

This is Big Jesus.

He greets everyone that visits the Global Ministry Center. But he’s not snooty. He also greets employees when they come to work, provided they enter through the main doors and don’t slink to their desks via another entrance. Big Jesus isn’t like Real Jesus though; Big Jesus doesn’t know everything and he’s not always with us. Sometimes he doesn’t even see people walk by … or sneaking up on him.

Big Jesus is big. He could play center for the Houston Rockets. He could play center for any NBA team. But he doesn’t. He sits in our foyer, with his big metallic lap, inviting people to sit with him and inviting the children of the world to come to him.

Big Jesus isn’t like Real Jesus. Real Jesus is much bigger than Big Jesus. Real Jesus is bigger than the universe.

Whenever I walk by Big Jesus I think of Real Jesus and the immensity of Jesus’ love for lil’ ol’ me, for children in need and for everyone.

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