Can you survive on $1.25 a day?

Nearly 1.3 billion people live in extreme poverty everyday. Have you ever had the chance to experience what it feels like to walk in their shoes?

By playing Survive125, you have the chance to make some of the same decisions that people living in extreme poverty have to make everyday to try to survive. Do you live in the slums or the village? Do you pull your son out of school once every 3 days to get clean water that is a 3 hour round trip walk or drink dirty water? Do you pay thugs that are threatening you or report it to the police? Can you even imagine making these types of decisions as you try to work and provide for your family?

I took the challenge and only made it to day 21. Are you willing to take the challenge? If you take the challenge, be sure to let me know your results in the comments. Share this challenge with your friends!

There are many who believe that the poor will always be with us. I don't believe that is so. Through the work of Compassion, I believe we can help to make a difference in the lives of children living in extreme poverty. Take the time to watch this video and be challenged to believe that we can make a difference!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uZV90fsoCY]

Summer Monday at Home

“There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.” - Jane Austen

Monday is usually a home day for us. Not really sure why, but it has just always seemed to work out that way. After a busy weekend, Monday just has always been a day to get the laundry done and stay close to home.

Matthew started his orchard job today, so we won't be seeing him at home most of the day for the next few weeks. He drives a tractor during the apricot harvest. They start early in the morning (about 5:30am!) and are usually done around 2pm. He is usually pretty hot and tired by the time he gets home.

So today, Kelsey and I stayed home and were able to do a few fun things together...

Making and spending more money than we will ever see

Homemade Snickerdoodles...yum!



It is Monday, so there was laundry to be done



No sense of baking all the cookie dough, so we flash froze some to be baked later



Letter from Lina arrived!



We started taking all the pictures off of the project boards from Matthew's graduation...



...and started adding them to the album for him to keep

This letter was an extra surprise today! There was a letter addressed to Kevin from Compassion. There was nothing on the front of the letter indicating that it might be a letter from his correspondent child, Murimi, from Kenya. Back in November, we put some items together for Murimi and sent them to Kenya with our friends who are over there this year working with Agape Children's Ministry. They dropped the package off at the Compassion country office to be delivered to Murimi.

Along with a nice long letter, we received these 3 photographs of Murimi! The first picture shows Murimi holding the gallon size ziploc bag of items we sent over. The next picture shows Murimi wearing the t-shirt and shorts we bought for him and he is holding the 2 Hot Wheels cars that were in the package. The last picture at the bottom shows Murimi holding the snowman picture the my husband made for Murimi as well as the paper snowflakes on his head! What a special treat this was!

Did anything special happen on your Monday?



Be a Blessing

One of the best things about being an advocate with Compassion International is the opportunity I have to help find sponsors for children living in extreme poverty.

Right now, I have 4 children who would love to be blessed by someone who will sponsor them, pray for them, and write to them regularly. Would you like to be that person for one of these children?

 Kornelius is 9 years old and lives in Indonesia. He lives with his mother and helps her by washing clothes. He enjoys playing with cars and telling stories.

 Dede is from Ghana, and she lives at home with her parents, as well as one sibling. Her household chores are running errands and cleaning. Dede likes to play house, run, and play group games.

 Yancy lives with her mother and one sibling in El Salvador. For fun, Yancy enjoys art, playing with dolls, and running. She helps at home with gardening, making beds, and running errands

Nithin lives in India with his parents and one sibling. He helps at home by carrying water, washing clothes, and making beds. His favorite activities are ping pong, volleyball, and singing. Nithin has also been waiting 7 months for a sponsor.

If you would like to sponsor one of these children, please reply to this post or send me an e-mail at kymk99 (at) yahoo (dot) com.

Compassion Letter Writing Fingerpaint Project

Last night we held our monthly Compassion Sponsor Letter Writing Night. We were hoping to work on this project for each one of our kids:

Source: attackofthetwins.blogspot.com via Yvonne on Pinterest

However, we soon found out that painter's tape doesn't come off of fingerpaint paper very well:

The original project was done on canvas, and we know we can't send canvas to our Compassion kids so we used fingerpaint paper instead. The paper started to rip in some places, so we decided to still use the fingerpainting, but in a couple of different ways.

I went ahead and fingerpainted a page for each one of our sponsored kids and my correspondent kids

Then, I drew out the letters of their names that could be cut out and glued to the fingerpaint page

Here is the one for Xiomara

One for Abner

My husband decided to cut the letters out of the fingerpainted paper.

I love how these turned out and can't wait for all the kids to receive them!

Little Abner

I just love this little guy!

Since I became Abner's correspondent sponsor back in October, I have received 3 letters from him. It seems to take about 2 months for his letters to arrive in my mailbox. Abner is the little guy who lives in Colombia and has a parrot named Rebeca.

So after being gone for a week, I was so excited with a new letter from Abner! There were 2 pages! The first page was on typical Compassion stationery and it says:

"Dear Yvonne:

I greet you in the love of the Lord hoping that you are enjoying good health. I want to tell you that I have lots of fun in the project with my teachers and I do nice things; I made a snowflake and I am learning to dance, drama, and folklore music. In drama we are working in our emotions and about our daily activities.

I thank you for your letter and the beautiful pictures. I had a nice birthday, I had a great time and ate cake. I received a heavy duty truck and a couple of toy limousines too.

I pray for all of you that God blesses you more each day.

I now say goodbye with a strong hug hoping that God blesses you always."

OK, so reading this almost makes me want to cry! But imagine my surprise when I looked on the next page and saw a picture of Abner smiling!



This next page says:

"This is me one day with my brothers and we are playing. We took a lot of pictures and this was one of them.

This is the mascot of our house. Her name is Rebeca. We had talked about her before. I hope you like it. I love her dearly.

On a good day, I will see if I can send one of everyone in my family, for now I send a hug and kisses. God Bless You. Thank you very much."

Recently, I was blessed with the opportunity to send a package for Abner with another sponsor who was traveling to Colombia to visit her Compassion kids. I know Abner loves to draw and I can't wait for him to receive the colored pencils I sent to him.

One day I pray that I will have the opportunity to visit one of our Compassion kids. Sometimes I am overwhelmed with how important these kids have become in my life. We pray for each one of them daily and send them all at least one letter each month. I pray they realize what a blessing they are to my life, knowing that one day, we will all be rejoicing together in heaven!