Mark Hanlon, Senior Vice President of Compassion USA, talks about the currency of humility within the economy of unity, specifically showing humility toward one another.

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The eight-minute segment aired on Moody Radio on July 31.

Prime Time America

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

“For nothing is impossible with God.” – Luke 1:37 (NIV)

Most Holy King,

We stand before You right now in complete awe. In awe of who You are, of what You have done, and what You are doing.

Thank you for being so visibly present in the circumstances of today. We are so humbled by Your greatness and by Your presence in our lives. You are the Creator of the heavens, the orchestrator of the orbits, and the breath of life.

Thank you for being so present in our individual lives. You are so faithful to us and to this ministry. You are faithful to FELLOW, as You are to each of us.

Lord, as You have brought Compassion to this incredible point of growth, we turn it back over to You. This is not our ministry, we do not want to run it our way. Rather we desire Your direction and guidance.

You have brought this ministry so far and have used it to touch so many lives. I ask that You would continue to use it in such a manner.

Jesus, I pray for all of the workers of Compassion as we continue to grow. I ask that You would meet each of us where we are, regardless of country, language, and circumstances.

I ask that You would allow each person to be so individually centered on You that You would inevitably be the core of the ministry.

I lift up to You the children enrolled in the Compassion program. Allow the faith and heart of the employees to influence and teach these children — that every child would inherit a passion for Christ that is continually growing. Give them faith of great warriors that they might penetrate the dark world they live in and be a light for You to everyone around them.

God, You have told us that we do not have because we do not ask, and we do not receive because we don’t have right motives. We come boldly before You today and ask this: Please purify our motives that we might honor You in our request.

And we ask that You would bless Compassion International in ways that we have never dreamed of.

Lord, I ask that You would bring us to a point where there are 2 MILLION precious children receiving spiritual and physical healing and growth. Use Compassion to spread Your truth to countless hearts.

You are a Lord of impossibilities. Jesus, You came to Earth fully man and fully God, you have caused miracles to happen on every level, you cause our lungs to draw breath, and you hear the whispered prayer of every tiny child on the face of this planet.

Please make the impossible possible and give Compassion exponential growth, not for our own sake Lord, but rather that your truth and your love would reach every corner and every person on this earth.

You, God, are what makes life worth living. You are the reason for our joy. You are the reason for Compassion’s success. Thank you. Thank you for FELLOW, for his new mother and for every sponsor-child relationship.

Lord, this ministry is Yours. I ask that You would remain the core purpose and inspiration of every person here. All glory is Yours for this incredible moment. May You receive all the honor for Compassion International and for its wide-reaching impact.

Thank you for allowing us to be a part of Your story.

In Your Holy and Precious Name, Amen.

*Wess talks about our “ambassadors to the future” — Ali Anderson and Amman Beeftu — in our What the Future Holds video.

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Releasing children from poverty in Jesus’ name

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

What does it mean to live with integrity?

Listen to Mark Hanlon, Senior Vice President of Compassion USA, talk about the importance of living with integrity.

Integrity is not common.

“But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” – Matthew 7:14, NIV

To live with integrity:

• means we don’t compromise our faith in Christ.
• means the small things matter.
• means life can feel lonely.
• reflects the character of God who dwells within us.
• requires intention.

At Compassion, integrity means that we say what we mean and we do what we say. We value accurate information and full transparency. We hold ourselves accountable and share the full truth, even when it is difficult.

Officially, we describe it as:

“… aligning our thoughts, motivations, attitudes and actions with the ethical principles found in God’s Word. In both our personal lives and our ministry, what we believe, what we say and what we do should be consistent, congruent, reliable and transparent.”

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We have that word in our vocabulary. And somewhere, at some point in history someone said, “What name will we have for the deliberate mass killing of people?” We needed a word for it because such a thing was taking place.

It completely unravels my nerves, but not as much as my ignorance does. In a lot of ways evil, for me, is something I have heard of. Something I have learned about. But for so many it is a memory, an experience. Some of those people live in Rwanda and have come intimately close to witnessing pure hatred.

My lack of knowledge took a back seat in college when I truly began to discover so many horrific events that I had heard of at one time, maybe on the news or seen as a headline, but was never thoroughly introduced to what had taken place.

I watched documentary after documentary, movies based on true events, read history books … I was like a sponge soaking it all in, attempting to wash away my ignorance, trying to grasp how such things had even taken place.

How can we be so capable of such evil?

The lump in my throat, the knot in my stomach, they are still there. The most pure and clear memory of my own disgust with evil was when I learned, fully, about the genocide in Rwanda. Hollywood horror films have nothing on the reality of what took place in this country in Africa.

Questions of doubt fiercely raged war within me. Learning more about the details made me feel like my own purity was being washed away.

Spiraling down in the midst of trying to find answers to my own questions, I was losing grip. How do I categorize this? What bin of understanding does this belong in? In 1994 somewhere around 1 million people in three months had their lives ended, mercilessly.

The Lord’s answer to my heart in agony, as I raised question after question about evil, has been transformed. The more I learn about our capacity to carry out evil I am continuously being introduced to our capability to do good.

We can do good. We are doing good and good will always trump evil. Always!

My introduction to The Lord’s awareness is deepened every day I come to work. Shout out to Compassion! OK, so I know I work here, but honestly I need to say it. Working here has been like a crash course in “How Much God Cares 101.”

Would you like to know two instances of God’s goodness going forth in the lives of two people who live in Rwanda? Welcome to your crash course:

A young lady named Kirabo lives in Rwanda and graduated from the Compassion Child Sponsorship Program in 2004. She is now studying computer engineering at university, and working in the Program Communication Department at Compassion in Rwanda.

She was enrolled in Compassion at an early age. When she was asked how the child development center helped her she stated,

“To begin with, at Compassion I met so many children. There was fellowship. I could see children that loved God. That was a big turning point in my life.

“When I would work at the pulpit, and see these children look so innocent like they hadn’t seen any bad things, and I wanted to be like that. I wanted to be able to look at the world without seeing the bad side of it, and just enjoy it.

“That’s what I got in Compassion. They were loving, and caring, and not too weird. They used to come and pray, they used to give us meals inside the child development center, we used to do arts and crafts and sing. I think that helped me a lot.”

Then there is Antoinette, who went into prison because of her involvement in the genocide. Her daughter, 10 months old, stayed with her in jail until almost four years of age. Then Antoinette asked a friend to register her daughter, Alexie, into our program.

Alexie was registered and under the care of her aunt. Ten years later Antoinette was released from jail because she was found innocent of the chargers that had been brought against her.

Her daughter, Alexie now leads the choir at her church, studies hard in school, and hopes to become a teacher.

Antoinette is now a believer and is immensely grateful to Alexie’s sponsor.

Beauty from ashes. We serve a Lord who restores in the midst of so much evil.

Are we really capable of such good?

To offer hope in the midst of a pitch-black reality known by too many? I know this truth well!

How great His trust in us, that we are ministers of His light and hope to those surrounded by ruthless lies and incomprehensible evil.

Where do you find your mind’s contemplations? What steeps within your heart: our ability to do good? Or evil?

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We cannot do global child development and neglect our own families. God would not be honored if we poured ourselves into the world’s children and neglected our own.

“If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?” – 1 Timothy 3:5, NIV

Listen to Mark Hanlon, Senior Vice President of Compassion USA, talk about the importance of cherishing our families.

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QMU stands for “quarterly ministry update,” and, as you may have guessed, it happens once a quarter. Crazy. At least one representative, from each team within each department goes to listen and report the latest on Compassion stats for the fiscal year. 

I took it upon myself to attend last week’s meeting on your behalf. So I would like to take this time to report that . . . God is crazy good. 

You may have heard that our economy is, well, shrinking? Crumbling? Deteriorating? I would say that it is out of control, but as a believer, I know better than to go that far. 

The only truth in such a statement would be if it were specified in this way: “The economy is out of our control.” If I may so bold I would say that, considering the God we serve, that’s a good thing.

What I am alluding to is a report that so many of our executives elaborated on: in the midst of so much turmoil in the United States and abroad, Compassion is continuing to grow. 

It doesn’t make any earthly sense. The ride of the economic roller-coaster in recent months is making people financially queasy, and we’re probably all holding on to our wallets more tightly than before. I definitely am. 

And it seems as though secular businesses and ministries alike are feeling it. Layoffs. Hiring freezes.  Budget cuts. Then there is Compassion.

And we are growing. 

Outside of supernatural forces and divine intervention, there is little explanation as to how or why Compassion is defying probability and odds.

I would venture to say that at this particular time God has chosen to bless Compassion to do His work. That then begs the question, “What about other ministries that are doing His work too?” 

I asked myself the same question. I don’t know. 

Mark Hanlon, the senior vice president of sponsor donor development, reminded long-time staff and enlightened us newbies that Compassion has seen similar days; nationwide stress and global epidemics are nothing new to this fallen earth. 

And so in the same way that we have dealt with comparable seasons in years past, our leaders have assured us that we will continue to do everything in our power to be the best possible stewards of our resources. 

We will continue in our same rigorous practices of audits and checks and balances so as to be obedient and faithful with that which the Lord has blessed us. 

“We will not bury our talents,” Mr. Hanlon declared with proper authority and inspiration.

I got goose-bumps when I heard that. And I had peace. 

“We will not be frenetic,” he said.

Fra—what? I looked at the girls sitting next to me. “Frenetic?” I mouthed with a quizzical look. 

They stared blankly back at me. I wrote it down to Google later.

There are only a handful of academic lessons that I learned when I was college that really stuck with me. Sorry Mom and Dad. One of them was this: “You have to spend money to make money.” 

You may think that this doesn’t sound very spiritual. It’s not. But Malachi 3:10 is.

“Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.” (NIV)

Everything that we have here at Compassion is not ours. Time. Talent. Education. Experience. Money. 

Everything that we have and all that we are has been bestowed upon us to be used up for the kingdom and glory of God.

What good does it do us or the children if we do not use what we have been given? How can saved souls be multiplied unless their bellies are filled, their wounds are bandaged, their minds are taught, and their cries are heard?

Case in point: As we continue to grow and the Lord continues to provide for the financial needs of sponsored children around the world, we will continue to act as the mediator between the giver and receiver. What we are entrusted to pass on, we will pass on.

Fun fact of the day: Frenetic is an adjective meaning “wildly excited or active; frenzied or frantic.” 

Good to know that is what we are not. 

“For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.” 2 Timothy 1:7 (NIV)

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

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

Then join us for our free one-hour webcast on World Malaria Day, Friday, April 25. The webcast will begin at 10 a.m. MT (noon ET), and you must register to participate.

To register:

• Visit compassion.webex.com to register
• Or call (800) 336-7539 ext. 6673 to register for phone-only participation

Once you’re registered you will receive e-mail instructions to log on and participate in the webcast.

• Hear Compassion’s Dr. Scott Todd, Special Operations Director, and Emily Kagiri, Child Survival Ministry Director, discuss our malaria prevention and treatment strategies.
• Ask our executive team questions, including Mark Hanlon, Senior Vice President of Sponsor and Donor Development.
• Listen as Compassion artist Rebecca St. James talks about her passion for stopping malaria in Africa.

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