Tag: 10 Questions

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to live in the country where your sponsored child lives? What it’s like to work for Compassion? What gets the people going who do this work each day? If so, now’s your chance to “Ask the Field!”

Ask your burning questions of our staff from around the world about their country, their work — whatever you want to know. I’ll choose 10 of your questions for them to answer. (Being the protective mother bear that I am, I’ll make sure to choose culturally appropriate questions. What’s polite dinner conversation in the U.S. may not be appropriate in their country, so keep this in mind as you ask.)

I’d like to introduce to you Dennis Tumusiime and Edwin Estioko.

Dennis is a native of Uganda and works as a tours and visits specialist for Compassion International Uganda. (Did you know that Compassion doesn’t send a bunch of Americans over to other countries to minister to the children, but works through natives of that country so they can culturally contextualize the ministry? That’s pretty cool.) Anyway, Dennis has been working for two years with Compassion to coordinate and plan visits from sponsors and donors to Uganda. (So, if you visit Uganda, you’ll probably get to see that smiling face!) Coordinating all these trips means he’s quite an adventurous man.

Edwin Estioko began working for Compassion six years ago and is originally from Quezon City, Philippines. He is Compassion’s Field Communication Specialist in the Philippines and writes stories about and takes pictures of the ministry that is happening through Compassion International Philippines. He is married with no kids, so he and his wife can easily consider all the Compassion children as their own.

Dennis and Edwin are excited to answer your questions, so ask away!

Two more. Three to go.

Read all the posts in the Wess Speaks series.

• In Too Small to Ignore you shared much about your childhood. But I don’t remember reading anything about your first six years … what do you remember of your early childhood? (Vicki Small)

My very earliest memory is from when I was about five. I don’t know why our earliest memories are usually frightening ones, but I remember getting caught in a barbed wire fence when I was five years old. I still have the scar from that. I was totally trapped like an animal – the more I pulled, the more I tore myself apart. That’s my very earliest memory.

My second earliest memory is the S.S. United States – the ship that took us to Africa when I was five years old. It was on its second voyage. It had crossed, like the Titanic, from England to New York and we were on the return trip. The reason that memory is so emblazoned in my mind is because we went through a horrible storm. Turned out it was the worst storm that the captain of the ship had seen on the Atlantic in 30 years.

I remember looking at the waves way above the top of the ship. They would go down and the ship would just leap out of the water – the exposed propeller would rattle the whole ship. One minute we were going uphill because the ship was almost straight up, and the next minute we were running downhill.

My dad and the captain were the only two who didn’t get seasick. (My dad had just gotten out of the Navy.) But it was so bad that I remember one time at the dining room table, in one wave everything on the table slid right into my dad’s lap. We even strapped ourselves into our beds at night.

And for some reason (stupid little boy that I was!), I got outside and managed to climb up on the railing. I was hanging onto the railing as we were rising and falling in the storm. My mom came and grabbed me, otherwise, I could have gone overboard.

• Do you have any hobbies? (Amy)

My wife knows full well that she’s raised three children – two daughters and me. Because even though I’m all grown up now, 58 years old, I am still a child at heart. I still love to have fun. I am anything but a workaholic. I work really, really hard, but when I am not working, I am really not working.

So anything outdoors, I am all over it. I love to fish, especially in the ocean. I love to hunt. I love camping. I love hiking.

I don’t love golf. I used to caddy, and I know how to play golf, but I play it so poorly that all it does is make me mad.

I live on a little ranch with a lot of Ponderosa Pines, so I love clearing brush and chopping trees.

I play some sports. Every Friday that I’m in the office, I play racquetball with a bunch of guys.

I love riding a motorcycle. I would love to get a Harley someday, but I don’t have that kind of money. At least the motorcycle I do have – a Honda Magna 65 – has a big enough engine that nothing passes me up!

If you’re new here, these are transcribed answers from a conversation we recorded with our CEO, Wess Stafford.