Names are important. They have power. They define us.

They’re more than a bunch of letters grouped together to sound pleasant to the ear. Names are more than a convenience allowing us to talk to each other. Names are a gift from God. They contain His power. They define things. They define us.

“A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold.” – Proverbs 22:1 (NIV)

God said, “Let there be light.” And there was. He named it into existence.

God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.” And there was. He called it sky. And He called the dry ground land.

From that land, God made man. He made Adam (Earth). Then God gave the power to name to Adam.

Adam named the animals. And he named Eve (Mother of All). And that power has been given to us.

Consider the freedom that comes in naming a fear you have, or the cause of shame you hide, or the root of anger strangling you. When I own my fears, say them out loud, identify them, then I loosen the controlling grip they have over me. That’s power. That’s the power of a name.

When I was born, my mother gave me a name — Christopher. It means Christ-bearer. My Father gave me a name too. It’s a bit different. It came later in my life. It’s my “true name,” the name He calls me. And it’s a name I’m still trying to grow into — Love Giver and Teacher.

When God gave me a name, like He did with Abraham, Sarah and Jacob, He said to me,

“For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light.” — Ephesians 5:8 (NIV)

When God gave me my name, He said I am a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come. God’s Word is helping me to understand my name. It tells me to surrender self, to imitate God, and to live a life of love.

“Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” — Ephesians 5:1-2 (NIV)”

I recently saw a story from eastern Indonesia about a mother in our Child Survival Program (CSP) that highlights the significance of a name. This mother, Yudea, is 21 years old and has been part of the CSP for three years. She has two children.

Before enrolling in the CSP, Yudea “didn’t know the importance of having a healthy environment. She didn’t know the benefit of boiling water before drinking it, or washing hands before touching meals. She never asked her children to take a bath or wash their hands and feet after they play. She didn’t know that if someone doesn’t clean up his or her body, he or she can get sick easily.”

When Yudea gave birth to her first child, “she couldn’t buy milk or vitamins to boost her daughters health, so her daughter got sick easily.” After enrolling in the CSP, this changed.

“She received nutritious food, vitamins, milk and a lot of information that supported her as a pregnant mother. She also was able to go to regular pregnancy checkups at the doctor without having to think twice about what she and her husband would have to pay.

“After giving birth to a healthy child, Yudea showed her thankfulness to God by naming her son Cisipi . . . Cisipi regularly receives additional food, vitamins, milk and other programs that are essential to healthy growth. Cisipi doesn’t get sick easily, like other children in his neighborhood.

“As Cisipi plays with friends his same age, Cisipi looks different. He is more active than the other children. When other children don’t have extra energy to run around, Cisipi can run everywhere without feeling tired at all. Cisipi is a fast learner and he loves to ask his mother questions.”

Cisipi is the acronym of our Child Survival Program (CSP), with an “i” added between each letter. The name means “grateful to God.”

“It is a form of my gratitude because the CSP has made my son grow as a healthy and smart child.”

Names are important. They contain meaning. They define who we are. And usually we’re not who we think we are.

What does Compassion’s name mean to you? Is it a good name

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

When we seek to relieve the wants and misery of others we are blessed. Giving out of a generous heart enables us to escape the hold material things and money have over us. Joyful giving frees us from our disappointment and lifts us up out of our emptiness when financial success eludes us or fails to satisfy our souls.

“A generous man will himself be blessed, for he shares his food with the poor.” – Proverbs 22:9 (NIV)

How has this Scripture been true in your life? Does it have any relevance?

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

The problem is that it was a convenient excuse for some to do exactly the opposite. Delaying funding or putting issues affecting children on the back burner was, consciously or otherwise, an opportunity to focus on ‘more pressing’ needs – justified because children are our future, ‘the leaders of tomorrow’.

Perhaps it is such thinking that has caused children to be the greatest victims of poverty throughout the history of humankind. The gross and most debased forms of abuse happen, more often than not, to our littlest citizens – our world’s largest population group.

Of the 2.2 billion children in our world today, nearly half live in desperate conditions, and yet it is the children who hold the potential to break the cycle of deprivation for future generations.

The Bible says that children are ‘a gift from God’ and He is their greatest defender. Time and again, the Bible describes God as a defender and protector of the poor, the oppressed, abused, impoverished and the fatherless.

All children are precious in God’s sight. His heart is most definitely endeared towards them and His ear inclines to their worship (Psalm 8:2). We are told that the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these (Matthew 19:14).

But what of the 1.1 billion children who are homeless because of armed conflict, or who have been orphaned because of the scourge of AIDS, or malnourished and can’t remember when they last had a bite of food, or the ones that are continually ill because they can’t afford malaria medication? They don’t shout the loudest; indeed, many seem to have no voice at all, but it doesn’t mean that their cry should not be heard and this is where we step in.

Compassion exists for the one. The one child who is left on the side of the dusty road to beg each day because their family can’t feed them; the one child who has to walk many miles every day for water and cares for siblings because her parents have died from AIDS; the one child who dreams of being a doctor but has no access to an education.

Compassion is unashamedly and singularly focused on the child. We place value on children simply because God does. Proverbs 22:6 (NIV) says, “Train a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not turn from it.”

Investing into children’s lives at an early age enables them to grow up with a sense of value, worth and confidence – essential if they are to grow up knowing that they can fulfill the dreams that God has placed in their hearts.

The intervention of a local church-based Compassion child development center and your invaluable support can literally shape a child’s future, causing him or her to be a change-maker in the family, community, perhaps even the nation.

That’s why we believe that one-to-one child sponsorship is so important and imperative to releasing children from poverty.

It all begins with valuing the one.

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

In August 2007, Proverbs 31 had joined on as a Compassion representative to speak on behalf of poor children all over the world. And so, Compassion had invited me and other Proverbs 31 ministry staff and speakers to experience firsthand the work Compassion is doing in Ecuador.

To say that this trip was a life-changing experience is an understatement. The people I met deeply touched my heart and I will never be the same.

In the Otavalo mountains of Ecuador I was surrounded by beautiful little girls, dressed in their finest handmade dresses, but out of the corner of my eye I couldn’t help but notice a young man on crutches.

He was all alone. I felt God telling me to go over to him. I left the brightly dressed little girls and walked over.

We had an immediate connection. I discovered through my broken Spanish that his name was Hydro. He grabbed my hand and led me into his mountaintop church.

We laughed and smiled a lot. He gently nudged when it was time to stand and when it was time to sit. He knew the ropes and he was my guide in his church, and I was thankful for it.

He asked to use my camera; I watched as he carefully and joyfully took pictures of those he knew in his church.

I later had lunch with Mercedes, Hydro’s mother (Mercedes means mercy in Spanish). Through a translator and many tears, I discovered this very small woman frequently carried her son for miles into town on her back year after year, only to have doctors turn them away because they were unable to afford the doctors’ fees.

Mercedes told me that some people in her village didn’t understand why she bothered taking Hydro so far to the doctor so many times, only to be turned away. They didn’t think it would help.

But I knew why. As a mother I would have done the same.

I would have walked as far, and I would have lovingly endured the weight on my back. I have two boys, and they mean the world to me – a child’s weight is never too heavy for a mother to carry if she thinks there is the tiniest bit of hope for her child.

Compassion heard of Hydro’s medical difficulties and paid for his operation and bought him his first set of crutches. Now he can get around on his own.

Mercedes was so thankful to Compassion that she would go and clean the local child development center. This was her small way of saying thank you for all that Compassion had done.

Because of her hard work and her understanding of how Compassion works in her area, Mercedes was made the director of the center.

I love Mercedes’ story of persistence, and I love what Compassion showed me that day – there is hope, and help and love in the most out-of-reach places. If you keep trying, and keep believing, and you keep praying, your weight will be lifted, and help will come in the form of Compassion.

“She opens her arms to the poor and extends her hands to the needy.” Proverbs 31:20 (NIV)

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

“He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.” – Proverbs 14:31 (NIV)

Or one of my personal favorites: 

“‘He defended the cause of the poor and needy… Is not that what it means to know me?’ declares the Lord.” – Jeremiah 22:16 (NIV)

There are so many verses that demand we deal kindly with those in need around us. But here’s another little nugget from the Bible: 

“Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly.” – Leviticus 19:15, NIV (emphasis added)

Do not show partiality to the poor? The first thing that my mind jumps to is, “God, is this really a big problem? People being too nice to the poor?” This verse is from the chapter that also instructs the people of Israel not to wear clothing woven of two kinds of materials, so is this one of those verses we kind of shrug our shoulders at and move on with our day? Well, if it’s in there, it’s in there for a reason. 

If I were to hazard a guess, I would think that showing favoritism to the great is the bigger issue in the world. But if there were people out there who leaned too far in showing partiality to the poor, who might those people be? Hmm?… Perhaps those engaged in speaking out for the poor, who read lots of blogs on helping the poor, maybe? (Said in my best Dana Carvey Church Lady impression.)

Truth is, it would probably be me … and maybe you (but I’ll let you be the judge of that). If it is true of you, in what ways do you think you might be showing partiality in your own life? For my own life, what I’m immediately convicted of is my sometimes judgment of the rich. I see a person with a big house and fancy car and think, “The nerve of some Christians!” (Without knowing their heart or their checkbook or their history of giving.) That’s yucky. 

What God wants from me (and you) isn’t to become judgmental of the rich and syrupy sappy with the poor. What he wants is JUSTICE, as this verse and so many others make clear. He doesn’t love Sally in Ecuador more than Sally in Virginia simply because of their incomes. What the Lord does love is justice. What a great God we serve. 

So, what little conviction is God worming out of your heart?

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

“Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.” —  Proverbs 31:9 (NIV)

In the movie Pearl Harbor, Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle surveys a group of pilots who have stepped forward to go on a dangerous mission. In response to another officer’s concern about the mission, Doolittle determinedly says, “There’s nothing stronger than the heart of a volunteer.”

Later, one of the volunteers addresses the crux of the matter: “We’re the tip of the sword.”

It’s true. We —  both sponsors and Advocates —  are on the cutting edge of the fight against poverty, and we’re not giving up this battle!

I’m writing this post to ask you to join me as a member of Compassion’s Advocate’s Network. That’s it! Plain and simple.

This is my story of Compassion. It’s long but only because I love being the “tip of the sword,” and want to share every ounce of my joy and love with you.

How to Become a Child Advocate

I have been a blessed member of the Advocate’s Network since 1994, and my involvement began with my first sponsorship in 1988, one year after the network started.

I had been praying about sponsoring a child for months but didn’t know which company I could trust. My answer came as I was eating lunch with a missionary doctor from Haiti. She was telling me about a recent hurricane that hit the country.

I asked, “How do those people live? What do they eat?” and she replied that the children in Compassion had been well cared for.

I asked if she was talking about Compassion International, and she was. She proceeded to tell me all about Compassion’s excellence, integrity and effectiveness.

In fact, several of the nurses in her clinic were formerly sponsored children! With the answer to my prayers, I immediately called Compassion to request a child from Haiti.

Why Others Often Become Child Advocates

Many sponsors sign up because of the faithful service of members of the Advocates Network, members who are driven not by rules, paperwork or pressure, but by the love of God for children.

Child Advocates are not told where to work or what to do; involvement is completely self-initiated and voluntary.

As I tell my team of Advocates, God is already speaking to His people about helping the poor; we only need to be praying that He will lead us to those whose hearts are ready. It’s truly His work, not ours.

Being a member of the Advocates Network is all about Jesus. As we walk closely with Him, He brings people across our paths that want to sponsor children and want to know who they can trust, just like I did.

Although I cannot sponsor hundreds of children, I can help to connect them with their God-appointed sponsors. The plan is to help one child at a time, exactly the way Jesus did, and by following that plan I have been greatly blessed in so many ways.

Highlights From My Time as a Child Advocate

• A friend sponsored a child in memory of the child she lost in a serious accident.
• A woman said she’d been awakened in the night and told to sponsor a child (she had no idea I was coming to her church that day).
• Some friends sponsored a child for their elderly parents as a Christmas gift.
• When handed Child Packets randomly in a concert, some have said the name of the child they were given was the same as that of a child they lost, or that the child had the same birth date.
• Many families have chosen to sponsor a child for each child in their family.
• I once spoke in a one-room church with seven in attendance, and five children were sponsored.
• A young man came to me at a funeral and said, “You’re the Compassion lady, right? I want to help prevent a young girl from being forced into prostitution.” He sponsored a child and later became an Advocate on my own team.
• I worked an event that registered 190 new sponsors, and several current sponsors asked how to become Child Advocates.
• Children have dragged their parents to the table, literally, and asked them to sponsor a child.
• I met a physically challenged girl in a child development center in need of a sponsor. When I returned home from that trip, the first friend I saw was someone who works with physically challenged children; she happily sponsored the child.
• Many have come to tables to say how much sponsorship means to them.
• To my delight, our grown children followed suit on their own —  sponsored kids, helped at my table and shared with friends about sponsorship.
• I have brought many Child Packets home from sponsor tours and found friends to sponsor each one of them — kids I met personally!
• I discovered I was the only Advocate in the state of Wyoming, but now lead a team of 20 Advocates in three states (Wyoming, Montana and South Dakota).
• I’ve been blessed to see a group of friends hug their sponsored children for the first time.
• I recently signed up my 500th sponsorship from my own sphere of influence (not counting hundreds more sponsored at concerts, events and festivals where I’ve assisted).

Become a Child Advocate. Attend the Annual Advocates Conference

One of the joys of advocacy is the opportunity to attend an annual Advocates Conference.

In addition to relaxing with family and friends, attending advocates are inspired to draw nearer to God and are instructed about the unique aspects of Compassion’s ministry —  our ministry.

• The fact that it is Christ Centered, Child Focused, Church Based and Committed to Integrity.
• We learn not to put pressure on anyone to sponsor a child and to always remember the dignity of the poor.
• Rather than using emotional pleas for help, we focus on the positive changes and opportunities that take place in the child’s life through sponsorship (I love this!).
• We serve the church —  providing a bridge between those who don’t have enough and those who have more than enough. Sponsorship fulfills the Great Commission; it is the “total package” in every way.

I really believe we need the poor as much as they need us. As Dr. Wess Stafford has said many times,

“Without us they die in need and without them we die in greed.”

I believe there is a wall that separates the church here and the church abroad, in many ways, and that it is an Advocate’s job to bring down this wall through prayer, education, enlightenment and loving encouragement. We need each other.

We need their prayers, contentment and deep spirituality, and they need our support, confidence and friendship. In some ways, this is the only answer to our materialism and selfishness.

I’m delighted to help tear down the wall of separation and bring children and sponsors together, never to be the same again.

The conference is also a good place to form lasting friendships and partnerships in ministry. It is a great opportunity to meet pastors who support the needs of children in poverty, and to meet country directors, Global Ministry Center staff and formerly sponsored children of the Leadership Development Program (LDP). The testimonies are powerful! As you can see.

When I meet members of the LDP, I have a million questions for them, because the girl I’ve sponsored in Thailand, since she was tiny, is currently in the LDP! I hope to attend her graduation in 2010.

I was recently able to attend the Global Advocates Conference in the Dominican Republic, and was inspired to meet Advocates from eight of the 11 partner countries.

There are currently mor than 5,000 Advocates around the world. Collectively, we have brought in hundreds of thousands of sponsorships. The friendships have continued online and will last a lifetime.

Some Advocates have traveled together to visit their sponsored children. I think we all agree that the more we experience such visits to the centers —  meeting children face to face —  the more convinced we are that this ministry is really doing what we say it is.

We become more passionate in our goals to register new sponsors because it really works. We can personally ask country office staff and church workers and pastors about the inner workings and integrity of their centers. We are reminded why we volunteered for this very worthy cause in the first place. Our hearts are enlarged.

Become a Child Advocate

As I said at the beginning of this post, I’m writing it to ask you to join me as a member of Compassion’s Advocates Network. That’s it! Plain and simple.

If you’re up for it, you just need to:

• Fill out an online registration form.
• Authorize a background check.
• Participate in a telephone interview.

If advocacy is in your future, training materials and resources will be supplied to you at no cost. Best of all, you will be welcomed into the Advocates Network with open arms, and you will begin to see lives blessed!

If you are a Child Advocate already, speak up! Tell us what experiences have impacted your life. What are your favorite stories?

“But Jesus called the children to him and said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” —  Luke 18:16 (NIV)

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

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

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

Compassion’s name . . .

What does Compassion’s name mean to you? What does it symbolize or represent? Is it a “good name”?

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

Here are a few of our highlights from 2008. In fact, they might be some of yours too; after all we could not have reached any of them without you!

• We registered our one millionth child.
• We opened the first Compassion child development center in Togo.
• Compassion Tanzania registered its 50,000 child.

Of course, a year can be marked with trials as well. But through these trials the Lord is faithful to refine us as gold.

Many children and families already struggling to buy food have been, and are still, greatly affected by the Global Food Crisis. Although, with the guidance of God and your heart much has been accomplished:

• 79,016 children have been able to receive immediate food relief because of your Global Food Crisis (GFC) donations.
• In the Dominican Republic your GFC donations provided food certificates to 775 Child Survival Program participants. The main recipients being mothers and infants.
• In Honduras your donations created productive micro projects such as poultry and fish production farms, to fight the crisis long term.
• In Ethiopia, GFC donations helped provide therapeutic supplements, staple food grains and medication to nearly 11,000 families.

Thank you so much for your commitment to children in poverty this past year. They truly are blessed by your passion and faith.

In all things we can be confident that no matter where the Lord takes us, what situations He brings us into, or what blessings He has in store we will honor Him and be filled with His love.

“Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.” – Proverbs 16:3, NIV

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

This video, featured on Washingtonpost.com, is the most effective video I have seen yet on the global food crisis, in terms of showing the awful reality of poverty.

As I learn more about this crisis, I am increasingly convinced that THIS – the global food crisis – is our opportunity to live out Proverbs 3:27-28.

Do not withhold good from those who deserve it, when it is in your power to act. Do not say to your neighbor, “Come back later; I’ll give it tomorrow” — when you now have it with you. (NIV)

Although Compassion does not currently work in Mauritania, we do work in 24 other countries where you can make a difference.

What will you do?

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