As birds sing morning songs to begin their days, Eugene Bahire, in charge of Tours and Visits at Compassion’s Rwanda office, starts his day with a morning prayer at 5:30 and prepares himself for work.

He leaves home at 6:30 a.m. and takes 45 minutes to reach his office.

After morning devotions with all Compassion Rwanda staff, which normally start at 8 a.m. and last an hour, he shifts his focus to Tours and Visits communications.

“I make sure that I have enough relevant information about the child before confirming a visit date for a sponsor or a tour.

“Having gotten the news that a child will be visited on a certain date, the student center social worker visits the child’s home ahead of time to prepare the family members or guardians living with the child, and of course some preparations are made at the student center as well.”

Eugene enjoys his job, which he longed for even while he was still at the university.

“Ever since my university time, my ambitions were to work for a Christian organization, and so this is an absolute answer of prayer to me.

“I am always happy and motivated to advocate for people in times of need, and I enjoy learning about different cultural values.”

Gifted with cultural diversity, mostly resulting from his country’s (Rwanda) history, Eugene was born in Uganda in 1976, where he had his primary education. He later moved to join his brother who was living in Kenya, and from there had his junior secondary education. (more…)

Sorry for so abruptly abandoning you yesterday. Please rest assured that if you’re ever on a tour with me, I won’t do that to you.

So, where did I leave off? Oh yes – 10 a.m.

10 a.m. Training with church partners that will be visited by another tour arriving in a few weeks. We asked six directors to come but most of them are late.

When I start 30 minutes later, I can’t go fast due to the fact that this will be a visit to their centers and they have a lot of questions.

I give them examples of what to do and what not to do, and encourage them to ask questions.

They are very excited for the visit and have a lot of enthusiasm and suggestions. Great!

But still we have to provide several guidelines. For example about the food.

We need to avoid too much spice, raw salads or any other thing that causes problems, and at the same time, not eat chicken every day.

Luckily our food is wonderful and we have lots of choices, but we cannot serve guinea pig or our best seafood dish, ceviche. Not all visitors are so adventurous to eat an animal they would view as a pet, or raw fish with chili.

Besides food, there are other intercultural issues to manage.

Time is a more relaxed concept in Peru and in all South America. To be sure that both standards meet, I tell church partners to be ready half an hour in advance. This way, they are really ready when we arrive … most of the time.

I often call in advance, though, and sometimes I have told the driver to go slowly while I point out some interesting views on the road to gain some time.

Also, for home visits I’ve learned that “accessibility” is quite a different concept for center staff, who are used to going up and down the hills – though per the visitors report, I should call them mountains – without using stairs.

I have learned to be suspicious when they say that the house to visit is located “aquicito nomas” (or very, very close).

I ask them to provide at least one house that is really close and in a flat area. They tell me that all are accessible by mototaxi, (a motorbike that pulls small car with a seat for two people), but still I ask for the names of the children to be visited and give ideas for the grocery bags we will give away at each home visit.

Another difficulty is finding the best way to communicate our ideas to the center staff. They are very loving and committed people, but many of them do not have higher education. However, they have a lot of resources and are very creative. But still, I need to set clear guidelines.

1 p.m. Lunch with the center directors. They continue to ask questions about the visit, and Elia and I continue to answer. As we usually translate in lunches and dinners, we know the art of talking and eating at the same time, so this is no problem.

The center staff are very friendly and excited, so they talk a lot.

2 p.m. We continue with the training. The directors make a draft program for the visits; each one now knows what we will see at their child development center: Child Survival Program mothers and babies, new center, older center, kindergarten children, boys and girls, teenagers, workshops, Leadership Development Program students, former sponsored children, home visits, etc.

In this way, the visitors will have the whole screen of Compassion work. Some centers also have children who will attend the fun day to meet their sponsors.

Now the coordination is made and, God willing, all will be ready when we visit the centers in some weeks.

Then I get an instant message from the Global Ministry Center, but I explain to that person that I am in a meeting and I see if he can wait. We agree to talk when my training is over.

3 p.m. Back at my desk. I have time to write down clearly some of the ideas the church partners had in the meeting. This will improve the materials for future training.

Another instant message. I see what they need and answer. However, I am not ready to answer all of it, as some answers have not arrived from the centers yet. I have to ask for more time.

I try to make one urgent call to answer, but the center does not work today so I have to wait until tomorrow.

3:15 p.m. My manager calls to get an answer about the approval for a tour request for next year. (more…)

My name is Soledad Agreda, and I am the Tour and Visits Team Leader of the Peru office. I have been doing this work for about a year and a half now, and my main responsibilities are to organize, facilitate and host individual sponsor visits and tours along with Elia Sipan, the Tour and Visits Specialist.

Our positions are thought to be some of the most exciting in Compassion. We get to go out a lot, travel on a regular basis, go to nice dinners and get to know many interesting people. It is true, my position involves these things, but it is actually much more.

With the purpose of giving a better understanding, I will describe one day in my life, but I would like to give some more information about me first.

I am single and still live with my parents and my brother. I have been working with Compassion for 12 years now.

Because I worked as a translator for children and sponsor letters before becoming an employee, when I became an employee, I started working with correspondence. However, my previous manager, who is now the country director, encouraged me to focus on sponsor visits as I had the skills of fluent English, intercultural experience and getting along well with people.

So I have been in sponsor visits since the very first year I joined Compassion. Besides the fact that I really like children and enjoy being with them, one reason I decided to work here is because I felt at home with Compassion.

As a result of my work, I have learned that I can do more things than I ever expected.

At first I did not know I could become a Tours and Visits Team Leader. In fact, the position did not even exist at that time. But as I worked through the years, I overcame some of my limitations (like not knowing Lima well; now I have a map in my head) and built my strengths (like my love for reading and history, a great help to answer questions and provide information).

Also, I have seen the faithfulness of God in the ministry and in my life and how He has taken Compassion and me beyond what we expected.

I believe we really have the opportunity to deliver children from poverty. And I still remember many years ago, while I was translating for a video, I asked the final question to the young mother we were interviewing: “What do you want for the future of your child?”

She held the 4-year-old girl, looked around the one poor room she called home, and seemed to think how trapped she was there, with a husband without a steady job, no education and the first of many children to come already in her lap.

Then she stared at me while she answered: “I want her to have a life different than mine, that she can study and progress … I do not want her to have my same life.”

So that is why we work. That is why I am here.

If I could tell you one thing it is that you should know how important you are for the children and how sad they feel when they do not get any correspondence.

Money means a lot, but emotional support and care is even more important for reaching our goal, which is what this mother mentioned: to give our children the chance for a different life.

Now let’s see what a day can be like for me. (more…)

Hello everyone. My name is Rick Carter, and I work for Compassion in Asia as part of the communications team.

My team is responsible for bringing you the stories that talk about our child development centers in Asia, such as A Day in the Life of a Child Development Center Worker or A New Beginning for Eric, as well as hosting the sponsor tours that visit those same centers. So the fine line between educating the western world about the plight of the poor and exploiting the poor by profiting from their misery is something I have to consider everyday.

Stories like this one, which talk about the reaction of slum residents to Slumdog Millionaire, remind me how important it is for us to be sure that we are maintaining the dignity of our children, their families and their communities as we share their needs with you.

Rather than “shock and awe,” our hope is that our stories and your visits to our child development centers bring you “reality and relationship.” Sometimes the reality is shocking. Our children come from the poorest of poor situations. That is their reality. To get past the shock, we emphasize relationship.

With Compassion tours and visits, we try our best to avoid the “zoo experience” – just looking. We spend time at the child development centers doing activities and interacting with the children to help develop deep relationships.

Getting to know your child through the letters you exchange is so important to understanding his or her reality, but also in seeing them beyond their environment – Compassion-assisted children have hopes and dreams for the future.

I just wrote “Compassion-assisted children” because I realized I have been calling them “our children.” And that’s the key! That’s the way to stay on the right side of that fine line – between education and exploitation.

I know I speak for all of us in Compassion Asia when I say these are our kids and we will treat them as such.

I’ve lived in China for over 15 years. Very little I see in the slums shocks me. But I do still experience awe, and the awe is in how our church partners and you, as sponsors, are helping to lift children out of poverty. Thank you for what you do.