Hold on Tightly Loosely
The question of whether child sponsorship is about us or the children we sponsor generates a lot of discussions. Should we hold on tightly to the things and people we cherish or should we hold on loosely?
Child Sponsorship Is About Relationship Building
“Sponsorship is not about the money you give but about the lives and relationships you build.” This is not just a clever thing to say. It’s a profound statement that I learned from the children themselves. I’ve seen that our children are more concerned about building their relationship with you than the help they get.
Your Sponsored Child Prays for You
“We hope we can always uphold our sponsors in our prayers. I hope our sponsors also want to tell more about struggles that they face every day. It will help us not just know them better, it will help us to have better relationships with them and Christ through our prayers.” And so prays Megawati, one of the sponsored children from Sola Fide.
Any Last Words?
Grab the last letter you received from your sponsored child and share the closing sentence with us.
Write Your Child the Second Friday of Every Month
Members of the Virtual Child Sponsorship Letter Writing Night group in OurCompassion have committed to write letters to their children on the second Friday of each month. The group provides letter-writing ideas and/or craft projects to use as a theme when writing.
How Young Is Too Young to Sponsor a Child?
Compassion has sponsorship booths at hundreds of events across the country, throughout the year. Some of those booths are at events specifically for teens. Working in the contact center, I sometimes speak with parents whose teen sponsored a child at one of these events.
The parents are often concerned that their teen will not be able to see the commitment to fruition. Sometimes the parents are upset that we would even allow their teen to sign up to be a sponsor.
Your Sponsored Child Prays For You
As sponsors you are held in high esteem by the staff in our Ghana office, by the staff of our church partners, and among all the children in the child development centers. Compassion would not be Compassion without you. The children would not have the lives they have without your response to Jesus. We in Ghana appreciate you and pray that your relationship with us will be a lifelong one. Amen!
How to Make Your Financial Contributions Go Further
When you set up a regularly occurring and automatic direct payment plan (e.g., Automated Clearing House (ACH), bill pay or credit/debit card), you save us at least $1 on each transaction. It’s a significant amount when you consider that many of the children’s families we serve survive on less than $1 a day.
A Pear and Prayer
There is nothing in the world like visiting a Compassion-assisted child’s home. Absolutely nothing. Nothing can prepare you for the sights, the sounds, the smells. Most of all, nothing can prepare you for the beating your heart is about to take. It’s like you got in a fight with the Holy Spirit. And every time, the Holy Spirit leaves you limping and bruised and, thankfully, a better person for the battle.
The Fear of Sponsoring a Child
Can you relate to any of this?
“Most of my reluctance to Just Begin Already with sponsoring a child, though, has boiled down to fear. It’s easy to look back across the years and consider the times I’ve had my phone, electric, or gas turned off when money was a struggle. Easy to replay old conversations with bill collectors and lawyers and remember how my stomach used to squeeze uncomfortably when the phone rang. Easy to recount old wage garnishments. Easy to recall years that I’ve spent $1000 or more on overdraft fees in a never-ending cycle of appeasing creditors and trying to beat the bank.
“Easy to paint the possibility in my mind that if I make a commitment like this, maybe I will let the child down, and it will not be a matter of my discomfort, but of his or her life or death.”
Read the entire post, From Cornerstone: Sponsoring My First Compassion Child, at wrecked.org.
But don’t just read and comment over there. Let us know if there were other fears you had to overcome before you took the step to sponsor a child. Tell us if there are fears you’re fighting right now when thinking about sponsoring a child.
By doing so, you can help make this post a relevant and valuable resource for people who are thinking about helping a child in poverty.
UPDATE: July 5, 2012 – The original post is no longer available on the Wrecked.org website.
How Do We Preserve the Integrity of Our Programs?
With programs in 25 countries, many people wonder how we maintain the excellence and good stewardship of our operations around the world. In addition to annual external audits, we ensure the highest integrity in our programs through internal auditing.
Internal auditing, both in the development centers and country offices, is designed to determine how well our operations are running and to identify weaknesses that are causing goals and objectives to go unmet.
Is Compassion a Trustworthy Organization? Are You Being Duped?
Accountability. This word has so much meaning. In this fast paced and cynical world, many people have lost trust in nonprofits. It’s actually very sad, but I understand why.
How many times have you heard about the misuse of funds hindering an organization’s effectiveness, or greed compromising decision-making and values? Regrettably, I think we all have heard it too many times.
