I think I just had my first parental moment.

You know the scene in any coming-of-age movie when a teenage girl is about to go to her first dance and she appears at the top of the stairs and her parent (usually a widowed father) stands there with tears in his eyes and a huge lump in his throat, totally entranced by his daughter’s newly uncovered beauty?

That’s how I feel – entranced by a new level of beauty.

While I was working in our child database I stumbled across a new picture of my sponsored girl – one I haven’t received in the mail yet – and I’m not exaggerating when I tell you my heart skipped a beat. Apparently sometime between three months ago and now, she grew up.

She’s so beautiful it brings tears to my eyes.

You see, I started sponsoring Karina when she was 6 years old. (more…)

Let’s find out.

Beginning today and continuing through this Friday (Sept. 25), we will send out tweets about specific children in need of sponsors.

And we’d like you to retweet them for us.

When you do, you’ll be eligible to win your choice of some free Live for Him* apparel:

• T-shirts
• caps
• rings
• wristbands

Every retweet counts as an entry, and winners will be randomly selected.

Once that child is sponsored, we’ll tweet information about another child, and we’ll follow that process for the duration of the week.

UPDATE: 9:05 a.m. – When you click on the child link in a tweet and you don’t see the specific child’s biography, it means that somone is considering the sponsorship. If the sponsorship isn’t finalized within 50 minutes, the child will be visible again.

For every 100,000 views this video gets, Dude Perfect will sponsor a child. It’s all explained at dudeperfect.com.

You can also watch this Dude Perfect video, along with Dude Perfect’s other amazing videos, on YouTube.

By now, you may have heard that we are planning to increase our child sponsorship rates in the U.S. This is true.

We are raising our child sponsorship rate to $38 per month beginning June 1, 2009 for all new sponsorships, and August 1 for existing sponsors.

A rate increase is needed because our church partners in the countries we serve are struggling to provide our children with the services they need. This is due, in part, to the increasing inflation rate around the world and the global economic crisis.

Since 2005, the purchasing power of church partners in their own countries has gone down by an average of 19.22 percent because of the weakened dollar.

For your convenience and for additional information, we have compiled a list of frequently asked questions within the My Account section of compassion.com. Please log in to learn more.

People often ask me what my favorite part of my job is. For me, the answer is easy: the people I get to meet and know around the world. There are people working for Compassion with such heart and passion and such incredible stories of their own. Henry Guarin is one of those people.

Henry’s fun and funny, he sings in a rock band, he has a passion for his job. And he used to be a sponsored child.

Here’s a little more about Henry, in his own words.

It’s 7:15 a.m. in Bogotá, Colombia, it’s cold, as usual, and I am waiting for the school bus to pick up Juan Felipe, my 5-year-old son.

As we stand at the door of the apartment building we live in we are talking about his favorite TV shows, dinner, games with his friends at school, and other things, just like every day.

The school bus finally arrives, so I give him a big hug and a big kiss and I tell him,

“The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him; and he delivers them.”

I come back to my apartment and Xiomara, my wife, is finishing feeding our little son Lucas. He is only 5 months old and he is happily kicking in his cradle, and he smiles at me as he sees me coming in.

Xiomara and I sit and start talking about how different things were for us when we were children. (more…)

We all know that on the night Jesus was arrested, Peter denied knowing Him, three times. But thankfully, Peter’s story does not end there.

In John 21, following His resurrection, Jesus asked Peter, three times, “Do you love me?” And each time Peter responded, Jesus called him to ministry: “Feed my sheep.”

Like Peter, I have been broken by sin, I am being healed by grace, and I am called to feed Christ’s lambs. Those of us who sponsor children know that Compassion’s whole ministry is about “feeding” Christ’s sheep.

I have heard numerous times that each child is said to have a sphere of influence of about 30 people, and I love knowing that every time a child is sponsored, perhaps 30 people’s lives will be impacted for Jesus Christ!

Compassion International as a Part of God’s Plan for My Life

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“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.

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