Sponsor tours usually cost from $2,000 to $4,000, plus airfare to the departure city.

• Is that the best use of your money?
• What is the benefit to your child — to children in poverty?
• Would it be better to use that money to:
• send a family gift
• sponsor another child
• donate to the Global Food Crisis fund?

When we published our first Ask the Field post, one of the questions we received was:

Is the benefit to the child and sponsor worth the cost of a visit to Uganda? I would love to visit my three sponsored girls, but I hesitate to spend a considerable amount of money for “my dream” when the money could be used to sponsor additional children or ministries. I think I would feel guilty. What are your thoughts? –Shelly Quigg

We thought it would be better to have a discussion on this, to hear more than one person’s opinion, rather than just include it as one question in an entire 10 questions post.

What’s your answer? How should Shelly spend her money?

Popularity: 70% [?]

Last week, I visited a local elementary school to read to kindergartners through second graders for the National Education Association’s Read Across America campaign. It’s the 5th year that I’ve been invited to read Dr. Seuss classics to kids. It is seriously one of the highlights of my year.

I read Gerald McBoing Boing (my personal favorite), Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?, and, of course, the ever-popular, Green Eggs and Ham. I don’t know what it is, but it seems that when you open up a Dr. Seuss book, you immediately become a child yourself…and the children you are reading to are transported to a magical world where non-sensical rhymes suddenly make sense…and imaginary characters come to life.

As I was reading to the kids, I wondered what it would have been like if Dr. Seuss had written some stories about children in poverty. What a great opportunity to teach kids today about the conditions that their counterparts in other parts of the world live in! What would that look like? Perhaps:

I do not like that the Sneetch children cry
with empty star bellies that growl all night
I do not like that they can’t drink
of water as clean as I have in my sink.

I don’t like famine, disease and war
I wish they didn’t exist anymore.
I don’t like the heartache, come to think of it,
I do not like poverty,
not one little bit.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Dr. Seuss book if it just focused on the sad. No, indeed the Cat in the Hat turned dreary, rainy days into wonderful, happy, if not misguided, adventures. Maybe something like this:

Then all the Sneetch children would wipe away frowns
To laugh with each other on Flozzle playgrounds
They’d swing and they’d sing and they’d dance in a ring
‘Tis the end of poverty–what a wonderful thing!

Unfortunately, we don’t have such a book. Perhaps it’s because poverty is far too real and dark to capture in whimsical rhyme. But maybe, just maybe, we can all be a Dr. Seuss by rewriting the stories of real children in poverty. It’s not that hard. Sponsoring a child gives them the opportunity to break the cycle of poverty. It gives them the chance to believe in a world where poverty comes to an end. And that is a wondrous thing indeed. 

Popularity: 45% [?]

Compassion President Dr. Wess Stafford often says that ”latitude and longitude can determine whether you’re wealthy or poor in this world.” It’s true. I was born here…so I have access to things that others only dream about.

That lesson hit me hard this week when my 11-month-old son, Morgan, got sick.  His doctor tells us that it’s a gastrointestinal virus that’s going around. The worst part of it is diarrhea. Poor little guy, he’s just so uncomfortable. So, we’ve been giving him plenty of fluids, trying to get him to take naps (though he’s been extremely restless) and just loving on him…cuddling.

Then I remembered a statistic in our Health Quick Facts section of Compassion’s website: 

There are 1.5 million diarrhea-related deaths of children under the age of five in this world, every year.

1,500,000 children dying of what my little boy has right now.

My son is fortunate. We can afford to take him to the doctor. We have access to clean water and formulas that can help replenish the nutrients his body needs. And I am thankful to God for that. But I pray for those families who don’t have the same. I pray for those who, because of latitude and longitude, have no access to clean water and formula…or can’t afford to visit the doctor.

It’s not really fair, is it? We were born here, so we thrive. They were born there, so they struggle to survive. But poverty has never played fair. And God told us what the great equalizer is: YOU and ME. He called for those of us who have to share with those who do not.

Today, I ask you to pray for children in poverty. I ask you to cross the lines of longitude and latitude and give to those who suffer due to something as silly as geography. Maybe it’s through sponsoring a child. Or maybe it’s giving to one of Compassion’s funds designed to help those in need.

Whatever it is, find a way for your hope to cross the globe.

Popularity: 41% [?]