God creates every child with unique gifts and abilities. One of the joys our church partners have is identifying and nurturing the talent in the children we work with.

Eleven-year-old Marclif is a talented singer from Wori Village in Manado, North Sulawesi. Even at an early age, he was able to sing. His love of music started from listening to his mother’s lullaby every night before he went to bed.

Singing is in the soul of this boy, who is commonly called Nyopon. It seems that he cannot go through one day without music and singing. Nyopon never attended any music course; he learned by himself. Growing up in a Christian family, Nyopon has been taught to show his gratitude to God by singing praises in Sunday services.

Born into a fisherman’s family, Nyopon knows the struggles that his family faces to meet their basic daily needs. His father received a boat, net and machine from the social department, all of which have helped him to catch fish, but these provisions do not guarantee that Nyopon’s father is always able to fulfill his family’s needs. Sometimes in bad weather, he cannot catch any fish and has to stay home.

Nyopon always wants to participate in his village’s annual singing contest – he has won every time since he first entered in 2006 – but his father does not always have money to pay the registration fee.

Knowing Nyopon’s dream to become a singer, Mustika, one of the staff members at his child development center, offered him the opportunity to enter the “Idola Cilik” contest. Idola Cilik is a national children’s singing contest inspired by “American Idol.”

Nyopon participated in a few stages of the contest along with thousands of children around North Sulawesi in July 2009. In October 2009, he was chosen as one of the two best contestants to represent North Sulawesi in the national contest. Nyopon went to Jakarta for the national audition and competed with 13 other children from other areas of Indonesia. He was supported by the Regent of North Minahasa, which provided tickets to Jakarta for Nyopon and his mother.

The judges and audience were impressed with how Nyopon performed his songs. He even became one of the favorite contestants, as seen through the votes received from the studio audience and the TV audience. Nyopon was one of six children who received the highest number of votes.

March 13, 2010, was Nyopon’s last day in the competition. Although he only remained in the competition for several weeks, Nyopon didn’t feel sad.

“Even though I just went until the big six, I was really happy I got the opportunity to be in the contest. I can learn new things when I join in the contest. Before I usually sang in front of the people that I know; now I had to sing in front of the audience that I didn’t know. It challenged me to improve what I have learned at the center. [It] built my self-confidence.”

Nyopon attends the child development center on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and goes to a music studio if there is no activity at the center.

“I learn more about music at the center. I have the opportunity to improve my talent. I don’t have to become famous to be a better person. All I need to do now is learn. I already feel grateful to have a chance to give my best.

“It is a special blessing for me to have this chance and my sponsors in my life. I know they are proud of me. I know they always pray for me.”

In addition to pursuing his love of singing, Nyopon has another dream for his life. “I want to see my sponsors’ faces. I want to know the people who always support me all this time.” His father agrees.

“I am really blessed that my son could be a part of the child development center. I can see the difference after these two years. He became very responsible and is developing his talent. I want to thank his sponsors because of their love to our son. I hope we can meet the family one day and show our gratefulness to them.”

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Outliers are men and women who do things out of the ordinary. And in the book Gladwell delves into what makes outliers successful.

Conventional wisdom says success comes from drive, skill and talent, which is true, but not by themselves. Drive, skill and talent aren’t worth a dime without opportunity. Success is a team sport.

“When outliers become outliers it is not just because of their own efforts. It’s because of the contributions of lots of different people and lots of different circumstances.” – Malcom Gladwell

Outliers looks at the success of geniuses, business tycoons, rock stars, athletes and software programmers. And the common denominator in all the examples of success Gladwell gives, the foundational bedrock in EVERY SINGLE CASE, is that an opportunity was made available – because of geography, timing, economics, circumstance, etc.

But you shouldn’t have to read Outliers to see that. You can keep reading this blog … because opportunity is an integral part of what Compassion is about.

• Lives Transformed
• Geography Lessons
• It’s About More Than Survival
• Leadership Development in the Dominican Republic
• Anthony Njoroge: a life changed by opportunity

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I’ve thought and prayed these things many times. When viewing this world with its huge statistics of dread that loom over us (one BILLION people living in poverty), have you ever just felt stuck? Paralyzed? Anaesthetized? Confused? Helpless? Hopeless?

I’ve felt all those things. Usually when I’m looking at two things:

• The enormous earth, jam-packed with dreadful statistics, and
• Me

They both seem like depressing prospects.

Thank God this is not about me or you. Thank God for His grace. When the Lord called out looking for someone to be his messenger, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” (Isaiah 6:8, NIV), He didn’t say “Whom shall I send who has a doctorate degree? Who will go for us who’s a super-swell, smart, sophisticated, experienced guy?”

No, God doesn’t put the same prerequisites on his servants that we put on ourselves. He seems quite eager to use each one of us as his servants, just the way he made us.

I recently wrote a book about responding to poverty, Hope Lives, and between you and me, this is a bit crazy. Don’t tell anyone (especially my marketers), but I’m just a goofball from Colorado who loves donuts and reality television. But I’m a goofball who (quite audaciously) called out to God, “Here am I, send me!”

And you know what? God (quite audaciously, in my opinion), said “OK.” I’m tempted to think He might need a stricter HR department, but those are just the lies of the enemy. God wants to use each one of us (I mean you) to reach out and help His hurting world, no matter how insufficient we think we are.

We might not all be missionaries or nurses or have doctorate degrees in poverty, but God did plant a little seed, a little talent, in each of us that He wants to use and grow. There’s a guy who works here at Compassion whom God gave the talent of rapping. Yes, rapping. And he’s using it to speak out against poverty. There’s a woman who loves to write letters, and she’s using this gift to write letters of encouragement and hope to dozens of children in poverty.

Maybe you can’t write or rap, but what can you do to serve others? Bake? Fix cars? Persuade? Sew? Tap Dance?

No matter how small (or random) our talent seems, God can use it. He can multiply our offering that seems so measly and make it into something incredible, just like the little boy with the two bitty fish that God used to feed 5,000 (John 6). God gave me the gift of writing.

The small step of faith I took in this has now been multiplied by God, through Hope Lives church kits which guide churches through a five-week journey of exploring how God wants us to respond to poverty. Now how crazy is that?

I believe God is waiting for each one of us to look past the looming, seemingly impossible statistics, forget ourselves and our own insufficiencies, and simply say: “Here I am God, send me.” And I bet we’ll be flat-out flabbergasted by what he does.

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