Stories to Connect You With Compassion & Grow Your Faith

Celebrating Christmas at a child development center in El Salvador means giraffes, bumblebees and donkeys! And in the midst of the carols and wrapping paper, God taught me so much about His heart for the poor — and my responsibility to His children.

We recently asked you on Facebook, “If you could ask Compassion president Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado one question, what would it be?” We got a great response and over the next few weeks we’ll be publishing his responses to your questions here in our “Ask Jimmmy” blog series.

Partnering between the resource-rich part of the Church and the resource-poor part of the Church is not something particularly new or noble. It is just what we should do. It is simply what Paul asked the early Church to do.

Sarah Mae and Rizza Mae are about to exit from the Child Sponsorship Development Program feeling ready to face the world. Having learned valuable lessons and skills, they are breaking the cycle of poverty in their lives.

Tea lost in the jungle, tucked away until its time to bloom. Only the jungle may be seen at first, but the villagers know what they have planted in the middle of that thicket. They’ve planted hope. Hope to break their cycle of rural poverty.

Development is what Compassion is about. We don’t want to give a handout; we want to do the things that will truly help a child become a self-sustaining, responsible adult.

Glitter and paper and string, oh my! Check out some fun do-it-yourself ideas for Christmas cards you can send to the child or teen you sponsor.

Abandoned by their parents, 14-year-old Larpopo had become the head of her household and four siblings. When a fire burned down their bamboo hut, Larpolo wasn’t sure how her or her siblings would recover from such a devastating loss.

Many of the SDGs directly parallel what Compassion does. When it comes to goals and implementation, though, we sometimes take a different approach. Here are the SDGs that most closely match our work, along with ways they overlap and differ.

How we go about fighting extreme poverty contrasts with how other organizations work toward the same goal. We fight poverty personally; whereas, many organizations fight communally.

I don’t mean that other organizations aren’t personally invested or committed to eliminating extreme poverty. I mean that a child focused, child development approach to fighting poverty is distinctly different than a broader community development approach.

Partnership is at the center of what we do at Compassion — we not only partner with you, our sponsors and donors, but also with the local church around the world. So it’s worth understanding what we mean by partnership and how we do it.