Need help deciding where to sponsor a child?

Are you curious to see if you’re sponsoring a child in the “right” place?

Do you prefer tamales and red sauce or curry and rice?

Is your cruise of choice, boating on Lake Victoria or sailing down the Amazon River?

Are you more concerned about children experiencing drought or hurricanes and flooding?

How about children who fall victim to child trafficking or gang and drug-related violence?

Lisa Miles, wife and mother of one, sponsor of two kids in Ethiopia and occasional guest contributor to this blog, created a “Where Should I Sponsor a Child?” test.

Take it and all your dreams will come true.

“Listen to the mustn’ts, child. Listen to the don’ts. Listen to the shouldn’ts, the impossibles, the won’ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me …
Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.”
—Shel Silverstein

The following are actual warning labels on products for children:

• Not intended for highway driving. — On a tricycle
• Do not use as ear plugs. — On a package of silly putty
• Wearing of this garment does not enable you to fly. — On a child-sized Superman costume

Clearly, the average manufacturer does not underestimate the ability of a child to think and act outside the box — or a child’s belief that all things are possible.

It is this belief — the willingness of children to open their hearts and minds to all of the possibilities that God has put before them — that continually draws me toward ministry to young people. This combination of joie de vivre and simple faith is what I hope to celebrate and encourage everyday of my life here on Earth.

Did you know that the average child smiles 400 times a day? The average adult only 15. What is it that we lose on our way to adulthood? In our efforts to achieve success, to be taken seriously, to be “mature” — what is it that we give up along the way?

Try this experiment: (more…)

Today’s post is written by Shawn Wallace. He’s a bit of a tech gadget/nerd. He has a wife, a daughter, a cat and a dog. We stumbled across him because he links to us – shawnw.org.

You know how it goes. Sunday church finishes and we walk out feeling good about ourselves. “Wow, the music was great,” or “Pastor was spot on today in his teaching.” We feel revived and refreshed.

And, just as quickly as worship began, it’s over. We go home, have lunch with the family, maybe mow the lawn, or go to the park, or watch the game. We stroll into work on Monday and grind out another week. A week just like last week. A week just like any week a year ago or ten years ago, our mind venturing no further than our own tiny sphere of influence.

Friday rolls around and we’re glad the week is over. We blow through Saturday with festivals and shopping and movies and relaxing. Before we know it, we’re putting on our Sunday best and heading to worship.

Repeat, ad nauseum.

There’s a Matt Redman song that goes like this:

Let worship be the fuel for mission’s flame
We’re going with a passion for Your name
We’re going for we care about Your praise
Send us out

But it doesn’t end there. Tim Hughes sings this:

We must go
Live to feed the hungry
Stand beside the broken
We must go
Stepping forward
Keep us from just singing
Move us into action
We must go

But what does that mean, “Send us out?” What does “We must go” mean?

It means it’s time to live like we sing.

“And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward.” –Matthew 10:42 (NIV)

When Matt Redman says worship, he’s talking about worship in church. Singing. Raising hands. Kneeling before God. Beating our chest and groaning to the Creator of the universe and seeking the face of Christ.

But worship doesn’t end with that last up tempo song. Worship doesn’t end when you drop your tithe check in the offering basket. Worship doesn’t end when you help clean up after the pot luck. Worship doesn’t end when you pile the kids in the van to head home.

That’s when worship begins.

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” –James 1:27 (NIV)

“To look after orphans and widows…”

Compassion’s mission is to release children from poverty in Jesus’ name. And whether we want to admit it or not, the children they help get sponsored have been orphaned. Orphaned by the world. They’re the forgotten. Living in slums and shanty towns. Surviving in conditions we’d quickly write off as lethal.

Compassion helps to stir the world’s memory, bringing to the surface the forgotten so they become the known. We see faces and names. Their eyes cry out, “don’t forget me.”

It’s time we step out on mission. It’s time to go with a passion for His name and to stand beside the broken. It’s time to look after widows and orphans. It’s time to live like we sing.

It’s time to worship.

Early in the morning of June 11, after months of heavy precipitation, the Cedar River poured into the streets of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The water quickly swallowed the city.

• 1,300 city blocks disappeared.
• 24,000 people were evacuated.
• 83 of Iowa’s 99 counties were declared disaster areas.
• Nearly every river in Iowa flooded that week.

As I watched the floodwaters rise, my 4-year-old turned to me and said, “Mama, I think we need to get on the ark!” Had there been an ark in the vicinity, I may very well have gotten on it.

In the end, we Iowans are going to be just fine. The prayers of the nation have been with us, and we thank everyone for that. Help has arrived from all corners — from churches to government agencies. So many people have mobilized to get us back on our feet. We know it will be a slow process but, as a community whose roots are in farming, we have learned to be patient — patient with the growth of our crops, patient with the regrowth of our city.

But the impact of the floods on the world community is yet to come.

Iowa is the number one producer of corn and soybeans in the United States. It is estimated that 1.3 million acres of corn and 2 million acres of soybeans — roughly 16 percent of our grain crops were destroyed. (1) And this disaster is just one of many that decimated global crops in 2008.

So how does this impact the global food supply? In a nutshell, it means higher prices and a shrinking supply of food.

For countries in the developing world, this is a cataclysmic combination. In regions where people are already spending 80 percent of their salaries on food, the prices are going to get higher.

If 100 percent of a family’s income goes toward food, how then do they afford clothing, shelter, medical care and an education for their children?

And when the price of food eclipses what a family is able to earn, who in the family goes without? Parents, grandparents, children? How does one make such a decision?

As Thornton Wilder, the author of Our Town, once said: “I know that every good and excellent thing in the world stands moment by moment on the razor-edge of danger and must be fought for….”

We must stand together in the fight against poverty and hunger.

If you have a heart for flood victims, consider sponsoring a child in Haiti, Mexico, Bangladesh or India. These are countries that experience regular flooding, often with much loss of life, and an infrastructure that makes it difficult for families to recover.

You may also consider a donation to the Disaster Relief Fund. In the event of a natural disaster, Compassion provides food, blankets, shelter and replacement belongings to children and their families.

Please do what you can.

(1) Iowa State Farm Bureau

As many of you know, I recently took a trip to Bolivia to visit my sponsored children. It was an experience I don’t think I’ll ever forget.

I had planned on visiting my children for a long time, and this was one of the reasons why I sponsored all of my 12 children in one country — Bolivia. This way, I could visit them in one trip, creating a logistical headache for the person in the country office trying to organize all of this. Doing it this way is probably the least expensive way per child to visit them. It’s not for nothing that they say, “Cheaper by the Dozen!” (more…)

My name is Lisa Miles, and I have been a sponsor with Compassion for two years. My husband and I sponsor a 9-year-old boy in Ethiopia, and we have a correspondence child who is 17, also from Ethiopia.

I am not a Compassion exec or even a Compassion advocate (yet!), I was never a sponsored child myself nor am I a fabulous Christian recording artist. My perspective is simply that of a sponsor with a passion for Compassion — and someone who deeply loves her sponsored kids. I have to confess that the day of fasting and prayer on behalf of the global food crisis did not impact me. At all.

I fasted — I felt some minor discomfort — but speaking as a mother, one day without food is like a drop in the bucket of sacrifices I’ve made since my child was born. You mothers understand.

We have sacrificed our sleep, our free time, our career goals, our figures, our freedom to watch anything on television that isn’t animated. One day without food — not a problem. To be a mom is to sacrifice for others.

Now I’ll tell you what would impact me — and again I’ll speak as a mother.

Ask me to wake my child in the morning and tell her she will have nothing to eat today. Ask me to put her to bed at night crying because she is so hungry. When she looks at me with complete love and trust — knowing that she depends on me for everything — ask me to tell her there will be nothing to eat tomorrow either. Now ask me to repeat this daily until her ribs protrude, her tummy bloats, and she can hardly walk.

As a mom, I want to give my child everything — the best of everything. Now tell me that I can give her nothing — not even the food she needs to keep her alive.

In a heartbeat, what was once a token activity would take on an awful significance.

Sixteen thousand children die of hunger-related causes each day. Each day — 16,000!

Even as I write this, I feel the need to go back and double check that figure, because I think surely it must be wrong. It is not.

The majority of these deaths are not attributable to outright starvation, but to diseases that move in on children whose bodies have been weakened by hunger. (1) I weep for these children — but I weep doubly for their mothers. I cannot imagine their pain.

How easy it is for the rest of us. We don’t have to live that reality. We don’t even have to watch it happen. In fact, we can lead our daily lives pretending that it doesn’t happen. And I think that would be not just sad but heartlessly cruel. These mothers need our help, and if we can offer it, we should.

So I’m asking you moms today to dig deep and do what you can. Give generously and often to the Global Food Crisis Fund. In fact, give something now. Sponsor a child — or an additional child — in a country where poverty is real and deadly.

I have to add that I won’t feel bad if there aren’t a lot of comments on my post. I know firsthand that you mothers are incredibly busy laughing, cuddling and playing with your kids — and cleaning up a mess or two, or twenty, along the way. (I cleaned an entire can of blue Play-Doh off the cat today. That was a new one.) So all I’m asking is that you give me an “amen” or two — then donate what you can.

Thank you for everything you do — and will do — to help children and their mothers. I know they would do the same for you.

P.S. My husband said “ditto for the dads.”

Hello again. I’m about to take a trip to Bolivia, where I can meet many of the children that I sponsor plus several others too. I’m so excited right now!! I’m stoked. I think I spelled that right.

On June 27, I’m taking off from the Orlando airport and flying into Miami, where I’ll have to run and catch the plane to La Paz because I’ll have just a 45-minute connection window.

La Paz is the highest capital city (14,000 feet) in the world. I hope I’ll be able to breathe there. If I can’t, at least you’ll be able to say that my life ended on top of things. I’m just kidding. My doctor told me that I am capable of making this trip.

The flight will last all night. I’ll arrive in La Paz at 5:30 in the morning on June 28. I’m planning on staying up that day and then taking a look around on Sunday.

On Monday morning, I’ll meet my first child, Franz. He loves cars, so since I worked with some of the James Bond actors and actually cleaned the Aston Martin that Sean Connery drove in Goldfinger, I bought him an Aston Martin model, even equipped with some optional extras, like an ejection seat! I can’t wait to tell him: “Now, pay attention, 007. This is your Aston Martin.” LOL!

My dad sponsors two children in Bolivia, so I’ll be visiting with them as well. I’m planning to take lots of pictures and some video.

On Tuesday, I’ll meet with Dulce. I’ve sponsored her the longest, and she’s written me so many letters. She actually became a Christian about a year ago, and then several people in my church and Dulce prayed for her mom, and her mom also got saved.

Dulce’s dad is no longer with the family. She considers me her dad. And boy … am I a proud dad! (I almost stood up last Sunday in church when they had the dads stand up.) She’s been telling all of the children that she meets about the love of Christ! I’m so excited to see her and to talk with her about the Bible and to pray with her and her family.

Throughout the week, I’ll be meeting with all of the other children I sponsor in that area. On Thursday I’ll fly to Cochabamba. (”Coca-BOMB -uh.” My mom loves how that sounds.) On Friday, I’ll meet with Eliana and Isaias. Eliana wants to become a doctor and visit Los Angeles.

The following evening, I’ll fly to Santa Cruz, where I’ll meet with the last two of my children and a child that I recently found a sponsor for. Finally, the next morning, on July 6, I’ll fly back to the USA. I hope you will pray for me.

• Pray that I’ll remain healthy and won’t run out of air.
• Pray that the children will be encouraged and most of all will draw closer to God.

All in all, I’ll be visiting 19 children, 12 that I sponsor, two that I correspond with, two that my dad sponsors, two children that I just found one sponsor for, and one more that a friend of mine sponsors.