Compassion Blog: Our Compassion Story

 When we decided to sponsor a child this year, we thought it would be a "nice thing to do for someone". And then we began looking through all of the children that needed sponsoring. Their faces made their stories real. We found a 3-year-old from Tanzania named Conzera, and something about her reminded her of our daughter. I started to cry. I felt something for this girl, a real connection to her that couldn't be explained.

The beautiful thing about sponsoring a child through Compassion is the contact that you get with these children: you can write letters, send paper dolls, maps of Canada to colour... but most importantly, you can specifically pray for someone who you otherwise would have never known.

Our sponsored child, Conzera, is 3. She's 2 years older than The Caterpillar and our hope is that the two of them can "grow up" together. Yes, their lives will be vastly different - and their opportunities will be worlds apart - but our hope is that our family and Conzera's family can have a bond through "growing together".

Currently, Conzera has no parents. She lives in an AIDS affected region of Tanzania and, with five other siblings, lives with her grandparents who are also employed as farmers.

We hope to be Conzera's surrogate parents. We might never meet her (although we hope one day we can), and we can't give her the same love and affection parents do, but we can take the authority that we now have over Conzera's life and pray for her, and intercede for her. We can believe that she is our Adopted and, from a very big distance, treat her as such.

My hope is that one of you readers can find a similar connection, too.

Right now I'm advocating for a five year old named Linda and my goal is to find a new sponsor for her.

Linda lives in Nicaragua.

I always thought that Nicaragua was, well... comfortable. I thought it was a pretty well-off nation, as far as third-world living goes. (Ridiculous, right?) Don't ask me why. I'm ignorant like that sometimes.

But then my friend Julia moved there. Julia chronicles her life in Nicaragua, and while she has access to medical care and (sometimes) the internet, she recently shared a very honest and real post about the disparity that is found in Nicaragua.

Julia shared about a family she met who is literally dying of hunger.

She wrote,

"I have always said that living in Nicaragua means living in extremes. There is extreme heat in the dry season, extreme rain in the rainy season, there is extreme poverty,  and extreme wealth. Most of the time I would say I love living here, but sometimes, like today, I feel like I hate it.

Part of me wishes I could be back in Canada, oblivious to the poverty, the sickness and the extreme cruelty and evil in the world. Sometime I want to forget that these people exist. My heart would hurt less if I didn’t know they existed.

But I know, and it hurts, and I can’t change that.

I feel helplessness like a thick heavy blanket weighing me down. But I do not feel hopeless. When I close my eyes and remember that family I see them surrounded by darkness, but in the background there is a glimmer of light, and as that light grows I see the darkness fleeing.

It may be hard to find God is this situation. But he is there. He loves them and weeps for them just like I do now. We only saw them for an hour, but he sees them every minute of every day. He never leaves them and never, ever forsakes them. It was HIS plan that we go to their community today. We were able to give them medicines, vitamins, clothes and vegetable seeds because GOD planned it. Today we couldn’t fix everything. But I have to trust that God is in control, and that gives me hope."

Now, Julia's post wasn't about Linda specifically, but we can't pretend that just because Linda is clothed and clean in her Compassion photo, her life is clothed and clean every day of her life.

As Canadians, we have the ability to make a difference. $41 a month is your daily coffee. It's $10 a week. It's one meal out. It's $492 a year (sounds like a tax return to me.) We can make small sacrifices to make big changes, and I'm asking one of you to help Linda or another sponsored child you might feel connected to.

If we could get two of you to support Linda and another sponsored child before April 21 2013, my own sponsored child will receive a $50 gift.

Plus, if you sponsor a child through Compassion, I will make you your very own country map to highlight where you & your child live.

I'll make you a map like this one! Pin it to your wall, or send it to your Sponsored Child to colour!

Grow with a child. Let's do this together.