“So. Let me tell you about living in poverty in the Philippines.”

We’re publishing pictures of poverty on a daily basis at picturesofpoverty.com. All the photos on pictureofpoverty.com are meant to show the dignity and hope which live within the poor despite the oppression poverty inflicts upon them.

The presence of dignity doesn’t mean poverty is absent.

You are free to copy and distribute the images on picturesofpoverty.com in accordance with the Creative Commons license (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported).

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Clearly, all is not well in this bath bucket! Most of us don’t know what it’s like to bathe in such a manner, but millions of children around the world are truly blessed to have clean water washing over them.

What photo caption can you come up with to describe what this child is thinking?

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The book is a 158 page hardcover photo essay we published in 2002 to commemorate our 50th anniversary.

We’ll select the caption we like best and announce the winner on Monday, Apr. 26.

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“Along the wall outside the Compassion project, many children watched and waited while the other children played and sang. With hundreds and thousands of children needing the hope that Compassion brings, our hearts broke to see the ones that could not be helped. Hundreds more are waiting for their chance to be sponsored, to be given hope, to be shown the love of Christ.” — scfish7

Then recently, I received the following e-mail.

“I read the blog about the children who are registered who are able to sing and enjoy meals while the unregistered ones just stare at them, wishing they were one of them. I have a hard time imagining what this is like.

“Is it like there is a ‘Century Fence,’ so to speak, that separates these two groups, where the unregistered look in and feel sad as they watch the sponsored eat hot meals and be carefree?

“Does this make them feel more unloved?

“Is it appropriate to send a picture or have one on this Web site so I can see what you are talking about? I have a hard time understanding this and maybe a picture would help.”

What are your thoughts? What do the children on the outside looking in feel?

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BTW, I’m 6’5″. I stand out like a giant in Bolivia. Isaias is always amazed at that. LOL!

And please realize, I don’t really wear a pink dress!

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Got a caption for it?

“Along the wall outside the Compassion project, many children watched and waited while the other children played and sang. With hundreds and thousands of children needing the hope that Compassion brings, our hearts broke to see the ones that could not be helped. Hundreds more are waiting for their chance to be sponsored, to be given hope, to be shown the love of Christ.” – scfish7

Upload your photos of children in poverty to our Flickr group.

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We don’t know what she was praying for in the moment the photo was taken, but if she’s anything like us, it might’ve been for the photographer to hurry up and take the picture.

Will you join us and Emelia in prayer?

Leave your prayers as comments to this post. They can be prayers for the children we serve, for Compassion as a ministry, for our country staff . . . they can be prayers about anything you want.

Just open up and speak to the Lord.

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

Your caption here

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

Add these banners to your blog, if you haven’t already grabbed them from somewhere else; your readers will be instantly transported to a place where they can choose to sponsor a child from the Dominican Republic.

<a href="http://www.compassion.com/sponsor_a_child/default.htm?referer=blogdr"><img border="0" src="http://blog.compassion.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/120x270_dr.jpg" alt="120x270_dr" title="120x270_dr" width="125" height="270" class="size-full wp-image-902" /></a>

<a href="http://www.compassion.com/sponsor_a_child/default.htm?referer=blogdr"><img border="0" src="http://blog.compassion.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/150x200_dominican_republic.jpg" alt="150x200_dominican_republic" title="150x200_dominican_republic" width="150" height="200" class="size-full wp-image-904" /></a>

And here’s a slideshow of all the photos from the trip – more than 330 when this post was written.

Wanna see a bigger slideshow?

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But you can’t download them yet.

We know. We know. It shouldn’t be that hard to do something that seems so simple, but things aren’t always what they appear. Just ask the Jews who didn’t recognize the Messiah.

Anyway, download functionality will be available when the redesigned compassion.com launches.

Remember us mentioning the redesign thing … back in early June. We’re still working on it. Making great progress too.

For now, this is where you can find your photos.

1. Log in to My Account at compassion.com
2. Click on Child Information in the left hand navigation
3. Rejoice!

When you click on the Child Information link that is next to your child’s photo, you’ll get more detailed information about your child and a bigger photo.

See.

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