Why bother getting that advanced degree? Just for the credentials?
Why eat the whole pint of Ben and Jerry’s ONE Cheesecake Brownie when 500 calories of poverty fighting creaminess would be good enough?
Why buy the pint to begin with? An outright donation to some cause that rhymes with Compassion 🙂 would probably make a more direct impact in the fight against poverty. It would sure help my poor jeans — not the donation part, the not buying and eating part.
Here are some of the more exceptional reasons I do things.
- I enjoy it.
- I can’t help myself.
- I wanted to.
- I had to.
- It’s good for my career.
- The ladies like it.
- My boss made me.
Pretty good. Right?
Why do you think Compassion does what it does? Just for the heck of it?
Nope!
We do this poverty fighting stuff because we want to release children from poverty in Jesus’ name. (Honk if you appreciated the subtle way I inserted our tagline.)
But what does releasing children from poverty in Jesus’ name mean? I did it again 🙂 How do we know we’ve been successful?
This is for you Andrzej. It’s “the” post Becky alluded to in her reply to your comment on Maila’s Dream.
Although I’m not talking about the actual “how” we measure our success or the “method” we use to measure our success — that’s all top secret cloak and dagger type of stuff — I am hitting you up with the measuring stick we use.
Compassion’s success in releasing children from poverty is Outcome Driven.
We’re successful when the children in our Child Survival Programs (CSP) are physically healthy, curious, and self confident, when they have healthy age-specific relationships and when they interact and communicate with the world around them.
We’re successful when the mothers and/or caregivers in our CSP programs are sufficiently healthy to provide for the well-being of their children, when they’re motivated and able to be economically self-supporting and when they’re committed to Christ.
We’re successful when the children in our Child Sponsorship Program commit their lives to Christ, choose good health practices, are physically healthy, are motivated to learn new skills, demonstrate the skills to support themselves in the future and interact with others in healthy and compassionate ways.
We’re successful when the students in our Leadership Development Program do all the above and demonstrate servant leadership.
We’re successful when our church partners in the developing world demonstrate effective vision and leadership and take ownership of their vision by establishing efficient structures, practices and management to achieve their goals.
And finally, we’re successful, when you, our sponsors and donors, are actively committed and engaged in advocating for the needs of children in poverty, when you have a positive Compassion experience and … and … okay, I’ll say it … when you comment on our blog posts. 🙂
“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.” —Proverbs 31:8-9, NIV