Several years ago when I started sponsoring a child through Compassion, I thought I was doing a good thing. I made a small but noticeable donation to a nonprofit doing great work. Some little kid in India had a better life, I felt good for caring for the poor, the kid probably felt better because he had more food to eat, I was being oh-so-Jesus-like, and all was well with the world.
 
Then, I went. I went to where “the kid” lived. And I discovered something.
 
I discovered that this child sponsorship thing isn’t a game to make rich (or middle-class) people and poor people feel better about themselves.

I walked the prostitute-filled streets of Mexico City. I walked among the sick and dying lying hopeless outside the Buddhist temples in Kolkata. I walked between the standing puddles of water left over from floods that had brought down a string of houses in the Dominican Republic like a row of dominoes.

I saw poverty and the reach of its ugly hand. The beautiful young Latina girls who would sell themselves away for almost nothing because they needed money and, let’s face it, what were they really worth anyway? No one was going to rescue them.

The orphans of lepers and cripples in India, begging for food and being smacked upside the head by a passerby for being “bothersome.” Where would they go? They are no one, nameless to the world. 

And the Dominican Republic … what is the DR if not a place for drug lords and dealers to get rich off the poor and addicted? 
 
This is the world I live in, though I often choose to block out the images and pretend they don’t exist.
 
This is the world Compassion lives in. And they refuse to close their eyes.  
 
Compassion releases children from poverty in Jesus’ name. They do not simply release children from the economic plight of poverty. They provide them with the hope that can only come from Jesus, the hope that says,

“You matter. You are precious. You are made in God’s image. You have a purpose. We refuse to let you believe that you are no one, that you don’t matter.”

Yes, they meet the physical needs. That’s imperative. But meeting physical needs in a life devoid of hope isn’t enough. Meeting physical needs by extending the hope of a life in Jesus, though — that produces transformation.
 
And so I discovered just that. Transformation. For while I saw what appeared to be endless lines of prostitutes along the colorful streets of Mexico City, I also saw young girls and boys who entered the doors of a Compassion child development center in a local church, received nutritious meals, health screenings and checkups, tutoring and life-skills classes, and were personally loved and cared for by families within the church.

In India I saw young children in school uniforms who sang songs and created beautiful works of art, who were no longer captivated by the lie that told them that just because they came off the streets, they were trash.

In the DR I saw hope and life in the eyes of young teenagers who were refusing to deal drugs or join gangs because they had another reason to live. That reason just happened to have a name. They called him Jesus.
 
I discovered that child sponsorship isn’t about making me feel better. It’s about transforming lives — in every sense of the word, releasing children from poverty in Jesus’ name. And I became, in a word, humbled. Even a little humiliated. 

For $38 a month (which has at times been pocket change and at times been a sacrifice), I get to provide the bridge needed for a child to cross over from the streets to the Compassion child development center, from the land of hopelessness to a place of love, hope and joy.

As a sponsor, I’m not a part of making someone just feel better. I’m a part of a transformation.
 
When I returned home, I quickly realized that so many of my own friends and family members were right where I had been. They didn’t know the reality of so many kids in our world today, the hopelessness that binds itself around the hearts of children because the kids are caught in the grip of poverty. 

My friends and family didn’t know because they hadn’t seen it. Or, maybe they knew about it, but they didn’t know what could be done to really make a difference.

I was a little overwhelmed — how could I communicate all that was on my heart?
 
My journey of discoveries led me to Compassion’s Advocates Network. The Advocates Network is a team of volunteers who commit to speak up in their spheres of influence on behalf of children in poverty.

These child advocates create and share resources, provide coaching and training and spiritual retreats. They pray for each other and know each other by name. They get that advocacy on behalf of children is hard – and desperately important. So they encourage each other to press on.
 
Has your heart been broken by the reality in which your sponsored child lives? Do you want to do more on behalf of your child?

Become a part of our movement to see hundreds of thousands more children released from the cycle of poverty and hopelessness. Become a child advocate. I’d love to have you join me.

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Steph in 30 seconds:

• Age: 14 and a half



• Siblings: I’m the eldest. I have a 13-year-old brother named James.
• School: Year nine (third year in junior high school)
• Pets: We have two cats: Maddison, a white tortoise-shell cross Persian, and Soots, a grey Persian cross something. Both are girls. They have completely different personalities and hate each other. We also have budgies, which we’re getting rid of.
• Hobby: Netball. This is my seventh year playing in the district competition. I also take art lessons.

Favourites:

• Quote: “A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can repeat it back to you when you’ve forgotten the words.”
• Book: The Tomorrow series by John Marsden
• Film: The Notebook
• Board game: Scrabble
• Song: “Pray for Me” by Plumb

Steph’s Compassion Traveller experience:

Describe the trip in one sentence:

An amazing experience … I need to go back!

And at the moment I’m looking for a way to do it. No luck yet, but I’m sure my Lord will provide for me and something will come up. I can’t do it by myself.

Most memorable moment:

I met my family’s sponsored child in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Her name is Kini.

Kini was born without pulmonary arteries, the arteries that go between her heart and her lungs.

My Dad sponsored her after his last visit in 2006, so we had been sponsoring her for 18 months when I met her.

The doctors thought Kini would die within months when my Dad first met her, but because of her sponsorship she receives regular treatment and still lives!

What did Kini say to you when you met her?

Because of you I’m now alive.

How was your relationship with your Dad during the trip?

Our relationship was stretched … He was very protective of me and I wanted to have my independence.

Dads with teenage daughters know that teenage girls are emotional. Add to that I was away from friends and family.

But despite everything, I was happy I got to spend that time with him and make those lasting memories.

Tell me about your most impacting day …

It was Sunday, 1 February, at the Kali Temple in Kolkata, on my fourth day in India. It was a crowded place. I think thousands of people were coming to worship their gods. They had sacrificed 130 goats that morning, and there were remnants of the sacrifice lying everywhere. It freaked me out a bit.

As we were walking in the alley after leaving the temple, I had one of the shopkeepers come and grab my arm and try to lead me away from the group. Being tense already, I freaked out.

The man then looked over my shoulder and saw one of the guys in the team standing right behind me. My friend then stepped forward and put his arm around my waist. Seeing him, the man then let go of my arm and slunk back into his shop. What scared me the most was that no one else in our group had noticed the man.

How has your trip influenced your school life?

I just started my first week at a new school. So far I’ve shared my travelling experience with friends as well as with my year nine class in my self-introduction.

My class mates were really responsive, and my friends have been positive, too -– they’ve asked questions about the trip.

How has this trip influenced your relationship with God?

I grew up in a Christian home and have believed in God since I was seven. But before the trip I was wondering “Who is God and what is He doing?”

In India, I saw a stark contrast between kids who were sponsored and kids who weren’t. Those who were sponsored weren’t as thin and were happier.

I also took lots of pictures of kids praying before their meals … These kids would’ve only known God for a short time, but they have changed.

It fascinates me what God can do in these children’s lives in such a short time. Seeing this has motivated me to walk closer with God.

Have you changed?

I look at the world differently. I’m more appreciative of … well … everything, really.

I compare things. Now I’m sitting in a nice cosy office with a shiny white board, but over in India and Bangladesh there are kids in the street picking up rubbish.

Seeing the state of these two countries broke my heart. Walking the streets, using the toilets, eating the food and most importantly, seeing the expressions and emotions on all the faces broke my heart.

I now find myself thinking of other people’s life stories, problems, daily battles and life-changing moments. I think of all the people that I pass driving to school … their stories and problems.

Then I think of all the ones that go unheard, unanswered and the new challenges they face every day just to survive.

Would you recommend a trip to others?

Yes. The country staff were very good. It’s a life-changing experience. So it’s not to be missed!

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I, Irene, grew up in a sheltered, middle-class family. Whilst I didn’t make it to India at the age of 14, I ventured to Kyrgyzstan at the age of 24 with a team of medical professionals and helpers. It was a completely humbling and mind-blowing experience.

I met church pastors who have been blessed with so much more materially than I, yet they have chosen to live in abandonment for the expansion of God’s kingdom.

I met Muslims in remote villages who suffered advanced stages of cancer, but had no means to receive medical treatment. All that my team could give them were vitamin supplements.

I met orphans who were stunted from malnutrition and sometimes from past substance abuse, but have found the love of their heavenly Father.

I can’t quite imagine how I would’ve coped on the same journey at the tender age of 14.

If you read the Reflections of a Compassion Traveller series, you may have gained some guts –- I mean, a new level of desire to meet our friends living in poverty.

It definitely takes guts to travel to less developed nations. It’s inevitably a confronting experience.

The thing is, I have always walked away deeply moved by the compassion that God has for His people and with a fresh reminder of how much I need to give. Plus, it’s quite simple to become a “Compassion traveller.”

Remember that 14-year-old I mentioned? She’s a high school student who joined our India and Bangladesh trip in February. Her name is Stephanie Harrison, the daughter of our Executive Director of Child Development, David Harrison.

Steph would make any father or mother proud. David has admitted to finding the slums of India the most challenging ones he’s visited. So imagine what Steph’s first taste of extreme poverty was like!

I recently read a blog post (A Cup of Rice) by SquiggleMum –- an Australian mum and Compassion child sponsor (her real name is Cath by the way). As a mother of two, SquiggleMum plans to introduce her precious children to their sponsored child and to develop a heart to reach out to the poor. And here’s why:

“Maybe if we show our kids what’s wrong with the world, they’ll do a better job than we have of making things right.”

I wholeheartedly respect SquiggleMum’s parenting approach and, I daresay, David’s decision to take Steph on that trip. If you’re a parent, you may have concerns about unveiling the ugly things of the world to your child(ren). But what’s really stopping you?

If you’ve been thinking about visiting your sponsored child with your child(ren), why not start planning now? The power of being there is beyond words!

I’ll share snippets of Steph’s Compassion Traveller experience with you in tomorrow’s post. But in the meanwhile, you can get started on organising your own sponsor child visits:

If you live in Australia, contact our travel team.

If you live in the USA, visit compassion.com to get more information about trips and visits.

Then you’ll be able to tell us firsthand whether children and poverty are meant to mix.

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Now that I’ve come to know the Lord, I realise how heartbreaking it must be for Him to see His creation turn to other gods. I also realise just how loving, patient and faithful He is to have pursued me in spite of my past disobedience.

I find it difficult to imagine myself living in a world where I would be publicly persecuted for believing in or proclaiming the Truth. Paul states in Romans 8:38-39 that nothing would separate us from the love of God that is in Jesus Christ our Lord. I wholeheartedly believe that.

But it does make me wonder … If I knew Christ, only to enter into circumstances which threaten my expression of faith, would I shake hands with the convenient half-truths, the counterfeits, the prince of the power of the air? Would I be a Daniel?

As Mel shared in the day two post, religious violence is very real in some parts of the world. It’s obvious enough that Satan is at work to confine the development of the innocent children – our future generations. But let that threat not stop us from reaching out. Instead, I pray that it would spark in us an urgency to intercede for these unforgettable little lives and the churches in these endangered areas.

Mel’s day three experience in Kolkata brings to mind various forms of poverty. These street kids would not only have been materially poor, they would’ve grown up with a smorgasbord of gods demanding their reverence and even worship. How on earth would and could a child sift through a mass of religious traditions, the so-called “culture” in their society, to find transparent truth, and be set free?

Still, I find comfort in knowing that shining lights like Mother Teresa’s Home for the Dying have been a refuge for those walking through the valley of the shadow of death. God promises that we would not need to fear any evil even in the darkest hour, but to walk “through” it. There is hope in receiving His comfort.

He is the Light of the world.

Take three!

Mel Carswell in India – Day Three

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After all, in the words of wise King Solomon: “Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails” (Proverbs 19:21, NIV). With this wise impartation, I can be assured that I’ll do what I can, according to His purposes. And the rest is in His hands.

In other words, I’m learning to make the most of any situation. After all, God’s plan might just be, well … much better.  So, this is what happened with MY plan. And it began like this:

Chelsea Rule, Compassion Australia’s Partner Artists Coordinator, decided to join the

Compassion field exposure tour after a mission trip in Hyderabad in Jan. 09.

How about we add some salt to that? Her cousin and videographer Caleb Irwin (who also went to Hyderabad with Chelsea) also joined the Compassion team to help record their trip.

Between Chelsea, Caleb and I, we planned to develop a stunning video blog series featuring Chelsea Rule, and it was to be called ‘Chelsea Rule Diaries’.

But that didn’t happen. God had other plans.

To throw some spice into the mix, Mel Carswell, the Supporter Communications Specialist at Compassion Australia, was also on the trip. If I were to describe her role in two words, it is to ‘tell stories’. (And you’ll see that she’s awfully good at it.)

In Feb. 09, Mel visited Compassion in India with some Compassion staff members, donors, artists and other partners. Some would call it a “high-profile” trip. I kid you not – people like Australia’s female TV Week Queen of Pop (1974–75) Debra Byrne were on it!

But it’s no secret that we didn’t end up with Chelsea Rule Diaries, is it?

So let’s fast forward to a bit of a reflection by the narrator of the video you’re about to see – Mel Carswell. (Poor Mel, she never wanted the spotlight, but she stepped up to the plate, and you really ought to congratulate her.) And here’s Mel:

“If Irene had of asked me to be her blogger before we left, I probably would have let out a little smile and carefully provided a better idea that would mean someone else was in front of the camera and I was, in my usual spot, behind it. But flight changes, schedule changes and an extra 25 hours in a bus that no-one expected (the developing world is like that!), we arrived at me attempting to be a video blog extraordinaire.”

Can you piece together what might’ve happened? (Come on, use your imagination!) Oh, and Mel had other thoughts that really back up my point, aka – unexpected outcomes are absolutely normal when we journey towards God’s purposes …

“No matter how organised you want to be. You can have meeting after meeting after meeting before you go, but in the developing world, our working ways simply don’t translate.

“What seems fine on paper over here doesn’t always work out over there. You just can’t factor in the impact of stopping every five minutes for a herd of sheep to pass or arriving to a child’s home to find that they are a teeny bit shy. They’ll talk to you, but the minute that big camera bag comes out, you can see them breaking into a sweat.

“Alas, Irene’s romantic idea of a video blog through the villages of India didn’t quite come off as it had so eloquently evolved in her head. But 100 takes later, a slight slip into what I think was feces, and too many laughs to count, here are some stories that grabbed our hearts. I hope they do the same to you.”

And here it is: Reflections of a Compassion Traveller – the video journal …

Take one! 

Mel Carswell in India – Day One

- Irene Kao

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