I have been reading updates from this blog that chronicles a mom's recent
trip to Africa to visit her sponsored child. Her stories and photos have
brought me to tears, as has this music video by Sara Groves.
Ultimately, it has caused our family to consider sponsoring a child.
We checked out the website and discovered a little boy who has
the same birth date (day and age!) as Elisha. We feel this is a great
opportunity to teach our kids about sacrifice, sharing, and compassion.
A reader on Shannon's blog left this comment, and it really resonates
with where I am right now: seeing needs and struggling to discern
what my specific role is in meeting those needs.
"Since you cannot do good to all, you are to pay special attention
to those who, by the accidents of time, or place, or circumstances,
are brought into closer connection with you."- St. Augustine of Hippo
How do you respond to the overwhelming needs you see?
Do you have words of wisdom
concerning balance and discernment?
5 comments:
I worked in sponsor/donor ministries for Compassion! It is such an incredible ministry. I loved seeing the letters and drawings come across my desk from the field on their way to sponsor families. We heard many stories of children holding correspondence from their sponsors as prized possessions. Elisha will do wonderfully with that!
We took a Compassion child when Elijah was born and it has been incredible to watch him grow and change.
I read a blog from Haiti every week that often brings me to tears. It keeps an awareness of the needs of others at the forefront of my mind, and I so appreciate the honesty of the family who writes the blog. They share their struggles, frailties and triumphs, and I've grown so much in my ability to empathize, pray and figure out what action we/I can take right now, and what I can do later on in life to ease the suffering of even a few. No matter how tight our finances get, I never regret spending that $30 a month on our compassion child because even in our most meager state we have 10 times what he has in terms of material things. Let us know what you decide!
I appreciate your struggle and consideration. It's easy to look around the world or even your community and be overwhelmed about how you can change it. The bottomo line is you can't do it by yourself, but because so many people feel the Holy Spirit working on them that is how organizations such as Compassion, missionaries, etc can change the world one child at a time. Joel and I sponsor 2 kids and it has been awesome to watch them grow over the years. WHen Joel graduated from seminary, it was so cool to get a congratulations to him from Tanzania, Africa!!!! It is humbling, but a way to keep the weight of the world's problems in the forefront of your mind, but not letting them overwhelm you. I highly recommend it-it changes YOUR life as well as a child's in need.
We've been sponsoring a child through "Kid's Hope" for a long time now. Well, actually this is our second child because the first grew up and was too old to be in the program.
I know Compassion is a wonderful organization - - - the summer we spent in Haiti we saw lots of children who were being sponsored through Compassion.
However, what made my decision to go with Kid's Hope was it's association with our denomination. All of the children sponsored through it are pastor's children which helps, in a way, doubly as it relieves some financial worry of the pastors so they can concentrate on their pastoring.
Also - - - I read BooMama's blog and she was on that trip to Uganda with Rocks in My Dryer.
Two things:
1) Be sure either in these comments or on a new post to let us know how you decide to handle this issue - - - I would be interested to hear.
2) About your balance question - - - FIRST take care of your own children, which you are doing. Then do what you can - - - sponsor a child, give to those around you right here in Grand County, etc as the Lord lays it on your heart. That would be MY suggestion of balance.
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