Imagine a world where you grow up with a mommy and a daddy and live in a nice warm house with your family.

You have your own bed, and sleep each night with a full belly. You go to school, and in the afternoon you go to sports practice on a green grassy lawn that is safely guarded from speeding cars and other dangers.

Imagine a world where your toys are bought from Wal-Mart, and you get a new Christmas, Easter and birthday outfit every year.

That’s not very hard to imagine … is it? Most of us grew up in that setting — or one very similar.

The situation that is hard to truly grasp is living in the circumstances the children in our sponsorship program live in.

We’ve seen the pictures; some of us have had the chance to see poverty firsthand. The reality the children in our sponsorship program live in is mostly the opposite of ours.

While some children are blessed with both parents still living, many live with other family members or older siblings. They eat one meal a day *maybe*, and play with toys that they find in the trash dumps outside their wood-walled, tin-roofed, one-room shanty.

So imagine how it brightens a child’s day when he or she goes to the child development center and receives a letter from you — the sponsor.

Now imagine a child who doesn’t have a sponsor. When all the children receive letters at the center, one never comes for this child.

This child, Carlos from Colombia, was registered into the sponsorship program in April, 2008, and has never — I repeat NEVER – had a sponsor.

What questions do you think run through his head when he attends the center during letter-writing and receiving time? What would run through your mind?

“Wait!” You say. “Doesn’t the sponsorship program still provide Carlos everything he needs? He is registered, after all.”

Let me see if I can explain. (more…)

Our friends at Kerusso, creators of this incredibly fine-looking Live for Him apparel*, have offered up some T-shirts for this little thing we’re doing.

Beginning later today and continuing through Friday, October 2, we will periodically update our Facebook fan page status with questions about this here blog.

If you answer the question correctly and are the randomly selected winner, you will be the envy of all your friends and the new owner of nice Live for Him T-shirt.

You choose size and color — either the deeply stellar black body enhancer above or one of the vividly bold red variety.

We will announce the winner for each question before we post the next question.

Have fun!

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.

Back in May I published this photo and asked you to give it a caption — Photo Caption Wanted. I also included a little context from the photographer.

“Along the wall outside the Compassion project, many children watched and waited while the other children played and sang. With hundreds and thousands of children needing the hope that Compassion brings, our hearts broke to see the ones that could not be helped. Hundreds more are waiting for their chance to be sponsored, to be given hope, to be shown the love of Christ.” — scfish7

Then recently, I received the following e-mail.

“I read the blog about the children who are registered who are able to sing and enjoy meals while the unregistered ones just stare at them, wishing they were one of them. I have a hard time imagining what this is like.

“Is it like there is a ‘Century Fence,’ so to speak, that separates these two groups, where the unregistered look in and feel sad as they watch the sponsored eat hot meals and be carefree?

“Does this make them feel more unloved?

“Is it appropriate to send a picture or have one on this Web site so I can see what you are talking about? I have a hard time understanding this and maybe a picture would help.”

What are your thoughts? What do the children on the outside looking in feel?

My heart is very heavy with the sad news we are hearing about how the current global food crisis is affecting many of our Compassion children, their families and even some of our country staff. Although we are still attempting to determine where the greatest needs are and the number of children being most adversely affected, please know that Compassion is dedicated to doing all that we can to step up our help in this area of urgent need.

Most of us are feeling the pinch of rising prices in our own lives, but to the poor even the slightest increase can be devastating. In times like this, those of us with enough have the option of reducing what we purchase. But for the needy, who are often already trying to survive on only one meal a day, they have no option but to go hungry.

Compassion has already determined that we will be able to send additional funds to each country this month. We will put an extra $1 million in the child support pool. However, we realize that this will be offset by the growing needs for unsponsored children and the loss in purchasing power of the U.S. dollar. We will release additional funds in order to respond immediately to urgent proposals for food aid.

Please join us in this cause and consider a donation to our Global Food Crisis fund, with the hope that we can provide an even greater response to the specific needs of children in poverty in the months to come.