Dan Trumble, a managerial accountant in Finance Business Partner Support, tells a story of one man’s salvation brought about in a way that only God can orchestrate.

Sometime back, a commenter on another blog post asked questions about sending gifts to our sponsored children:

• Do they make a difference?
• Should we wait until we hear about a need?
• Do the children appreciate our gifts?

One of my earliest lessons in the importance of our gifts came from Tausi (Tanzania). I began sponsoring her soon after her stated birth date (which later proved to be wrong, but…) and immediately sent a gift of $25. (more…)

Joseph Mayala is the Compassion Tanzania Country Director. He shares about his best day in ministry, a day the Lord spoke to him.

“I have given you a gift of praying that God’s purpose will be realized…”

It happens to other sponsors, but not to my family. I read about it every week in the prayer brochures, when Compassion employees lift up the needs of sponsors and our staff and children in the field. But it wasn’t ever supposed to happen to our sponsored child.

My parents recently received a phone call from Compassion staff. Alfan Said Yusuph, our 6-year-old from Tanzania, died due to health issues in his abdomen.

I sat at my desk, stunned by the news. Alfan was such an adorable little boy! Full of life!

In his letters, he expressed his love for the picture we sent him of our family dog. He was excelling in school. He shared about all that he was learning about Jesus and talked about the church he attended.

I found myself very distracted the day we heard of his death. I wondered how his family is coping. I wondered what kind of ceremony they would have in Tanzania to remember such a precious child. I wondered if his family realized that his sponsor family was at a loss over what to do.

I stared at his picture. I thought, How do you say goodbye to a sponsored child? Then it hit me – this wasn’t just a hypothetical question, it was a reality in our lives.

And not just in my life, but in the lives of many other sponsors. On average, about five to 10 Compassion-assisted children die each week.

I still haven’t figured out a great way to mourn Alfan’s death. It still makes me sad. I’m still overwhelmed by the tragedy of the death of a child. However, I cling to hope! I cling to hope and joy that someday, Alfan and I will be reunited.

I anxiously await the day that Alfan and I will meet at the feet of our Savior, Jesus Christ. The day where we are both in heaven, embracing, and praising God for the beauty of binding our hearts together during our short times on Earth.

We should all cling to the promise of God from Isaiah 25:8a (NIV):

“He will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces …”

Because when loss is involved, Christ is our only hope in the face of death.

Over on another blog post – Where Do You Sponsor a Child? – several sponsors have been exchanging maps of the countries where we work; maps that list the child development center numbers and give a rough approximation of where the centers are located in relation to one another.

You can now find all of those maps in our Flickr account.

Martha sits on the chair facing the window, arms crossed, and gives a great sigh of relief.  She looks at her big tummy and realizes that the days have advanced very quickly. Not many days are left before she visits the clinic.

Martha is six months pregnant. She is expecting that perhaps this time she will hold a baby in her hands, and be able to breast-feed it until weaning age. If this happens, the baby will be her first surviving child. Martha has had two pregnancies at an interval of three years, but neither of the children were delivered safely.

She lost her first child through labor complications because she could not reach the maternal clinic early enough to get medical attention. Her second child died a few days after birth because of lack of proper care and medical treatment.

Martha is so alert and aware at this time to do all she can to have her child survive. She cannot withstand the horrible idea of losing her third child after nine months of painful pregnancy. And she wants to be respected and not mocked in the village and in the family of her husband. She hopes the child inside her will reverse this. (more…)

The Maasai community has been rearing cattle for years, all their known lifetime and history.

In fact, there is a joke that goes around Tanzania about how the Maasai people claim that all the cows in the world belong to them, and the Maasai have the duty to return the cows to their natural home, in the Maasai community, which is why in the past there has been cattle rustling in the community.

To Maasai, cattle rearing is an adventure and keeping cattle is more than just an economic activity. Rearing cattle is part of the culture.

To have cattle is a symbol of prosperity and respect among the community members. Maasai are famous for their cows and goats that keep moving from one place to another in search of a greener pastures and water. Because of soil erosion and an effort to protect the environment, there has been a great and forceful campaign from the government to encourage soil conservation and land management.

The Maasai are being encouraged to keep few animals and sell the rest to improve their lives and escape the risk of losing them in times of droughts and famine. And as part of this, a new thing has been born in Likamba.

A sponsor of several children at the TAG Likamba Student Center visited them, and she was moved to do something to bless the children and support the families in their struggle against poverty.

But she actually decided to do more than just touch the lives of the children she is sponsoring. She was moved to respond to the people’s need and to the hundreds of children and adults in the community. She helped provide goats to all the families in the child development center. (more…)