Hi. I’m your Compassion internet communications specialist. I specialize in being especially excited about web stuff.

Do I have fun on occasion? You bet. Is most of it work? Always, and did I mention that saving kids from poverty is my commitment? No? Well, there you go.

Recently I was sent by Compassion to the Forrester’s Consumer Forum which is a think-tank of an organization in the marketing industry.

Forrester speaks precisely about ways companies can target trends and future ideas for getting a product or organization into the eyes of the public through social media.

Some serious marketing research takes place. Seriously.

I was there to learn from the experts about social networking techniques for the internet.

Now I see those wheels turning. Compassion’s trying to be trendy? Compassion looks at the future of the marketing industry? Compassion sees a child as a product?

Well, sort of.

What I discovered in the forum is that huge corporations are dishing out millions if not billions to give their products a pleasing experience that you can relate to.

A pleasing experience with toothpaste? A pleasing experience with credit cards?

How about the experience of sponsoring a child?

I am proud to say that Compassion is doing exactly what it should, from a social media perspective, to help children in poverty.

We are giving the world a true experience of a child sponsorship.

Through churches, through word of mouth, through the internet, through this blog and through our social networks such as Facebook, Myspace and Twitter,

Compassion is changing lives.

Yes, the world is changing and we at Compassion are changing with it, and that’s a good move, right? That’s a healthy choice you can agree with, right?

Today probably seems like a normal mid-week day. A lot like the other workdays, school days . . . everything happening too quickly kind of days. But today is also World Food Day as recognized by UNICEF. And today more than 300 million children will go to bed hungry.

Under the burden of the global food crisis, the hungry are more hungry, poverty is more overwhelming. The need for food is more desperate, and the word falling from every hungry mouth, I imagine, is, “Please.”

This is no small please; this is a worldwide please for over $16 million, submitted by our country offices asking for support to feed the children.

Are you overwhelmed? Can you feel defeat slipping in ready to steal your passion to do something? It’s okay, I do too. I feel it too, so much so that I have labored over this issue for quite sometime now, thinking “I am 24 years old, paying my own bills, trying to figure out what this adult stuff is all about. Let me see, *calculating*. . . What? This is what I have leftover to give? That simply will not do. Not in the light of $16 million dollars.”

But I’m not alone. We’re not alone. I can hear a mighty army commanded by the Lord and appointed to bring forth justice, passionate about feeding the hungry, comforting the oppressed. And so there is Please. Compassion’s site dedicated solely to the Global Food Initiative. Members of the army include Rebecca St. James, Bebo Norman, KJ-52….me, you.

Can you hear it now? The marching of the faithful being driven by the heartbeat of the Lord.

Remember when we gathered in prayer and fasting concerning the global food crisis? I remember. I was still pretty new to Compassion, not yet a fulltime employee and I recall feeling so empowered by this organization to do something. Even if I didn’t have money, I had prayer. I have a voice that surpasses all this world claims as important and goes directly into the high courts of the all-powerful God.

Well here is another opportunity:

1. Watch the videos on our site.
2. Get your markers, the watercolors, the crayons, even the finger-paint.
3. Write the word “please” on your hand.
4. Take a picture
5. Upload it to our Flickr site

Also, in case you were wondering, I am a social network fanatic! Facebook, Myspace, Blogspot, Flickr . . . love it! (But don’t judge me). And I love that I can use these channels to let my friends know what I care about. Grab a widget from our site concerning the global food initiative and add it to your social network. Let your friends and family see what you are passionate about.

Let’s join together and watch what the Lord has in store. Let’s become part of an army that can’t lose.

We won’t quit. We’re committed. Strengthened by the love of the Lord and motivated by something hunger and the lies of poverty can’t surpass. And maybe, just maybe, we will start to hear a lot less “pleases.” Maybe we will begin to hear a choir compiled of His little ones exclaiming “Thank you.”

That’s what I want to hear.