This Is Where You Come In
Child development specialists say that 18-year-old Emilda Soriano has the mental capacity of a 3-year-old. But this hasn’t prevented her from qualifying to represent the Philippines in track and field at the International Special Olympics in Athens, Greece this summer. Let’s raise the money to send Emilda to Greece.
Continue Reading ›In One Word, 2011 Will Be About …
The words the Holy Spirit shares with us require us to “step up.” This discipline is not something to do on a lark because it sounds fun. It requires a commitment. It’s something that requires you to lean into the Lord and to step up and assume responsibility for the talents He has given you.
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The Enticement, Disappointment and Redemption of Green Grass
When I wake up each morning, I usually feel angry. I’m not exaggerating. Three or four days a week I wake up with a sense that my soul is drowning, like I’m 300 feet beneath the ocean surface, on the fringe of complete darkness.
I can vaguely see a place without anger. I can vaguely see some light, but I don’t know how to get to it. I can’t swim. I can’t move.
Is It Safe to Challenge the Status Quo?
Challenge is an aggressive word. It suggests victory … or loss. It implies a struggle and change, possibly forced change. Change creates uncertainty for people. And uncertainty breeds worry and fear.
Asking people questions about what they believe and why they believe it is challenging. It’s often deemed unacceptable. People feel threatened and get defensive. It’s uncomfortable. Should we do it?
Actions Have Consequences
Our ability to take ownership of our actions is a necessary skill in escaping any strain of poverty – physical, emotional or spiritual. Actions have consequences. It’s something God tried to show us through Adam and Eve.
Compassion International Is Not a Child Sponsorship Organization
If you find yourself calling Compassion a child sponsorship organization I have news for you. We are not a child sponsorship organization. We are a child development organization.
And child development isn’t just child sponsorship.
Who Cares About the Poor?
If I cared, I’d be more like Bono or Mother Teresa or even Wess Stafford — someone with influence and name recognition, someone with a story. If I cared, I’d do more, right? If I cared, I’d dedicate my life to serving the poor — as their champion, as their savior.
Tell Me How to Do My Job
This blog is meant to be an authentic and sincere communication tool with you and for you. It’s not supposed to be about us talking at you.
I strive to make this blog relevant to your sponsorship experience, and most of the time with what I publish, I’m just guessing. Your interests, situations, questions, familiarity with Compassion, etc. offer up quite a challenge when it comes to finding the proper balance between our desires for advocacy and getting more children sponsored and what I imagine your desire to be:
“Help me feel closer to my sponsored child!”
It’s important to everyone on our Web team that you get what you want, that you feel more connected with your sponsored child because of what you read here. If you perceive this blog to be a one-dimensional commercial about how great Compassion is, then we are failing you.
Please use this blog post to let me know what content you want more of and what you want less of. Let me know what information you aren’t getting that you wish you were getting.
I’m asking for your help in determining what gets published here. The comments you leave will allow me to make specific requests for blog posts from our field communications specialists and from the staff serving in Colorado Springs.
Thanks.
I Was a Christian Sponge in a Tub of Living Water
I’m a cynic. And I’m a contrarian. When the pop-culture collective is doing something, I usually don’t want any part of it. By staying aloof, I nourish my emotionally wounded soul on a diet rich in the fat of condescension. That’s how I feed my deflated sense of self. That’s how I roll.
Although I’m not always a cynical contrarian, it is often my default viewpoint, and this can be a stumbling block for a social media marketer — cynical contrarians don’t tend to mesh well with marketing objectives. Maybe this is a good thing for you.
In my opinion, most marketing is about numbers. Getting more of something. And by that narrow, cynical definition the One Act video is pure marketing.
But, in my opinion the One Act video transcends the castor oil taste manipulative marketing often leaves me with. And I think that’s because the “one act” this video refers to happened to change my life. I am not a sponsored child, never was, but the act of sponsoring a child took me down a path I never would’ve imagined.
Being a Sponsor is Not Easy
Dreams are made with sweat and discomfort, effort and uncertainty and moments of success and failure. They’re kneaded together with sacrifice and generosity and held together with drive, perseverance and surrender.
Relationships are like that too. And so is sponsorship.
Confessing to Something That Probably Means I’m Human
The poverty in my life is emotional and spiritual. The poverty in the lives of the kids you sponsor and the kids we’re meeting here in Kenya is that and more.
What Does God Want From Me?
Jesus is traveling with a crowd, teaching as He walks. A blind man sitting by the road hears the passing commotion and asks what is going on. When he learns that Jesus of Nazareth is near, he calls out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
Several times the man calls out, even louder after some in the crowd tell him to be quiet. “Son of David, have mercy on me!”
Jesus stopped and ordered the man to be brought to him. When he came near, Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?”
– Luke 18:40-41 (NIV)
I am that blind man calling out to God.
Encourage me. Strengthen me. Provide for me. Comfort me. Save me. Give me. Help me.
That’s what I want.
What do you think these kids want? What are they crying out for?
Fifty kids in Haiti. All at the same center. All need God’s love. All need God’s mercy.
How about you? What are you calling out to God for?
All the while we cry out, God is calling out to us. Follow me. Be like me. Share my love.
Is it possible that my needs and your needs complement these kids’ needs? That we offer one another an opportunity to give God what He wants?
