Our Contact Center recently received the following email from Sarah W., a brand-new sponsor. She sponsored her first child on March 25, 2011. We love receiving emails like this.
I just wanted to tell you what happened to me. I have never been so clearly led to do something.
All day I was thinking about coffee, how I wanted it but that it was a waste of money. I have done really well lately. I have cut down my intake of coffee to about once a week (used to be every day). But even buying a cup just once a week costs me about $20 a month.
I had been thinking all day that I need to stop drinking coffee completely, and that there HAS to be something better I can be doing with my money.
Then, late yesterday afternoon, a friend sent me a message that her baby might be sick, and that they were in the emergency room. She and I both had babies about six weeks ago, and my hormones are not quite right yet, so I got REALLY sad — like teary-eyed.
I was thinking how awful it must be for her and her family, and how stressful. Since I was holding my son, James, I got even sadder.
I realized that these two little boys are so lucky because they have people falling over themselves to make sure their needs are met and that they’re healthy.
Then I started thinking about how many kids don’t have responsible parents or maybe don’t have parents with enough money to ever take them to the doctor. I was sitting on the couch holding James (he was sound asleep) and praying for my friend’s son and for every other kid in the world, and sort of crying but just barely, and the name of this charity popped into my head: Compassion International.
I don’t know where I had ever heard of Compassion, but I knew I needed to Google it right then, so I put James down and Googled it.
When I saw that it was a child-sponsorship program, I thought,
Am I supposed to sponsor a kid? Surely not!
Then I looked at the price of $38/month* — a really good replacement for my coffee habit and using the money for someone else rather than just spending it on myself. But I was still thinking,
Nah, not gonna do it.
I decided to just look at a couple of kids. If I was going to do it, I would want them to be like a James in another country — like a brother.
This is dumb. I shouldn’t even look because I’m not going to do it, and how would I even pickone?!? They’re all precious and cute, and they all need help. How can I choose?
But I couldn’t resist.
I decided to click on just one child before I got off the site. So I clicked on the very first kid who had popped up, a 3-year-old from Ecuador named Jordano.
He and my son, James, had the same birthday, and I just felt like I had to, or needed to, or was supposed to, sponsor him — so I did.
I don’t often feel like I am necessarily meant to do something or led to do something, but from the time my friend sent her text message from the emergency room to the time I signed up to be this little boy’s sponsor, only about 5 minutes had passed.
I am excited to receive my packet.
*This was published prior to our rate change to $43