Compassion Sponsor Letter Writing Night

I don't know about you, but I am so ready to go on a Compassion Sponsor Trip after reading so many of the blog posts from Tanzania this week!

In the meantime, this afternoon, the kids and I colored flags I found on the Crayola web site. The flags are from the 26 countries where Compassion is working. We added these to our Compassion binder that we have been putting together.

Tonight was our monthly letter writing night! I love finding craft projects, stickers, and other items to send to our sponsored children. A couple of weeks ago, I found some VBS sticker packs at Michaels for $1 each. I let everyone know that if they joined us this evening, I would give them a sheet of stickers for their Compassion child.

For our project this evening, I found a neat idea on Pinterest. We used cardstock, traced our hand, cut them out, and added a Bible verse. On the back, we are hoping a translation of the verse will be written in the child's language, if needed.

We are going to send an extra sheet of paper with instructions that we would like our sponsored child to trace their hand onto the paper, add a verse, then send it back to us. If we get any handprints back, my plan is to add the child's picture to the handprint, laminate them, and add them as bookmarks for my Bible.

In addition to the stickers and handprints, we are going to send them a state page that I found on the Crayola web site. I decided to color one of the pages and will send each of the kids a blank page for them to color.

Since we are sending items to twelve kids, we usually make sure we label everything. I made labels for everyone which makes it a little quicker to label multiple items. Then all the items for one child will be placed either in a ziploc bag or an envelope. The ziploc bag or envelope will also be labeled for each individual child. Then all the ziploc bags or envelopes are placed in one big envelope to send off to Compassion. We are hoping this makes it a little easier for the crew in Colorado to sort out for each of the kids.

What types of things do you like to send to your sponsored children?

Travel to Tanzania!

Would you like to experience a Compassion trip without leaving your home? This week you can!

The Compassion Bloggers are in Tanzania right now! Now that our homeschool high school graduation is over (I will be posting about that later on this week), I will have time to read about these bloggers and their experiences in Tanzania.

If you are touched by their stories and would like to sponsor a child in Tanzania, be sure to follow this link:

Share with me what your favorite blog post is...I will try to share which one is my favorite... :o)

Olive's visit

This past weekend, we had the privilege of hosting Olive in our home.

Olive grew up in Uganda as a Compassion sponsored child. She is currently attending the Denver Seminary where is working to earn a Masters degree in Professional Leadership. Her goal is to return to Uganda and do whatever the Lord would have her to do to help other children living in poverty.

Another Compassion Advocate who lives close by had contacted Compassion about having an LDP (Leadership Development Program) student come to speak at their church. When Compassion realized that we were close by, they thought it would be great if Olive could speak at our church also during that same weekend.

So the arrangements were made and soon we were driving to the airport to pick up Olive. We talked a lot that evening and learned so much about her and her life in Uganda.

On Saturday, we met up with our new Compassion Advocate friends and headed to San Francisco for the day. Olive had never been to California and San Francisco was what she wanted to see. Here are a few photos of our time in the city:

Olive went home with Cathy and Steve that night as she would be speaking at their church on Sunday morning. On Sunday evening, we were able to put together a special Sunday evening service (with the help of many from our church family!). We had a great attendance! Matthew and Kirsten started the evening with a couple of worhip songs, then we did an interview style presentation. I had asked a few of our church family for questions to ask Olive that evening. Then our pastor followed up with a short powerful message, and Matthew and Kirsten closed our time with one last song.

Then we did what our church family does best, we spent a lot of time in fellowship with each other and many people had time with Olive, talking with her and getting to know her story just a little better.

We didn't have any new sponsorships that night, but I believe the sponsors who were in attendance have a better understanding of how important it is for us to be writing those letters to our sponsored children, telling them that we love them, are praying for them, and giving them the encouragement they so need to here.

If you ever have the chance to host a formerly sponsored Compassion child in your home, do not hesitate to say 'yes'! Without having gone on a Compassion trip...yet, this is probably the next best thing. These young adults have lived the experience and have a powerful testimony to let us all know that Compassion works, not only in the life of this one child, but to all the people in their family and community. I am so thankful for the time we were able to share with this sister in Christ!

Two letters in one day!

Monday was a great mail day! Two creamed colored envelopes came in the mail from two of our correspondent Compassion kids.

The first letter came from Victor in Ecuador. Here is what he wrote:

Dear Yvonne,
I greet you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Thanks for writing and telling me more about you. I am happy to hear from you. I have some flowers in the garden of my house and we also have fruit plants such as mango. I like to take care of them. My favorite verse is Proverbs 12:2 "A good man will obtain favor from the Lord, but He will condemn a man who devices evil." My family and I keep you and your family in our prayers. Please have my mom in your prayers and my studies too. How is your weather? I made a picture of my garden on the back. I close sending you hugs in Jesus Christ.

And here is a picture of his garden drawing:

I love all of the details he put into his garden drawing. And he even put a drawing of himself smiling!

The next letter is from Abner in Colombia. For a 9 year old, he wrote a long letter!

Dear Yvonne,
Greetings and bear hugs. I want to tell you that I traveled with my cousin Juan and my aunt Elisa on Christmas, we visited a town named Guaduas and there I saw colorful butterflies but not just that, there was also my favorite animal, the horse; there were many fruit and I've never been in a place that beautiful outside of Bogota. I want to tell you that my aunt and I were scared because of snake, black and long but my cousin was laughing because I was afraid. We ate lots of bananas and coconuts; I helped my aunt with the cooking. I love horses and my favorite horse is Canelo, he is brown and beautiful. I spent most of my Christmas time with my aunt, cousin and siblings and then I came back home and came back to school 2 days after that; I'm in 4th grade and I'm enjoying school with my friends. My favorite subject is English and my favorite verse is Psalms 8:3 "When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?" I'd love you to pray for me that I can do well at school. Blessings and goodbye. Thanks for all the letters that are beautiful.

Abner told me in his last letter that his family has a parrot named Rebeca. I asked him if he would send me a drawing of Rebeca and here it is!

I pray that I can continue to be an encouragement to these boys as they continue to grow their relationship with God. I pray for their families and for their studies. I pray they will grow up and make a difference in their communities. Thank you Lord for allowing these boys to be a part of our lives!

So what else does Compassion do? Bite Back!

A lot of people know that Compassion International is a child sponsor program whose mission it is to release children from poverty in Jesus' name. But Compassion is so much more than this! I was thinking it might be nice to do some blog posts about some of the other things that Compassion does in the countries where they are working to help these children and their families be released from poverty.

Are you aware that people still die from malaria around the world? A person dies from malaria every 30 seconds and 3 out of every 4 of these deaths are children in Africa.This video does a great job of explaining how mosquito bites are still killing too many children around the world.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LftEavUydNk]

When Jordan Foxworthy (yes, the daughter of TV show's 'Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?' host, Jeff Foxworthy) went to Africa with her dad to visit their Compassion sponsored children, she came back as a changed young lady. (You can watch her video here. Scroll down to the third video.)  She worked with Compassion to start the Bite Back campaign to help provide insecticide-treated mosquito nets to children living in poverty. These nets help to protect the family while they are sleeping. This is the time when most mosquito bites occur.

Bite Back is a great way for teenagers and kids to become involved with Compassion. For just a $10 donation, a family will be provided with an insecticide-treated mosquito net to protect them from a mosquito bite which can lead to malaria.

Matthew was able to present Bite Back to our youth group and over the course of several weeks, they collected enough money to purchase 15 nets. You can make a donation today, or even better yet, order a presentation kit to share Bite Back with your church family. Help the fight to end malaria!