Sponsor these twin boys!

Let me introduce you to Luan and Lucas. These twin boys are two of four children who live with their mother in Brazil. They both help their mom by running errands and cleaning. Their birthdays are on December 4th and they will be turning 10 this year.

I need your help to find sponsors for these two boys. I really don’t want them to be split up, so if you know someone who has been wanting to sponsor children from the same family, here is your opportunity! We need to find sponsors for them by Friday, May 3rd. If you are unable to sponsor them, please be praying that we can find sponsors for them before the end of next week. Wouldn’t it be great for them to be sponsored by the same person and for both of them to be able to regularly receive letters!

Please share this post with your friends! If you would like to sponsor these boys, please leave a comment on this blog post or send me an e-mail at kymk99_at_yahoo_dot_com.

Guest post: Compassion Sunday

Hello, it’s me again, Kelsey. So my mom asked me to do a post on Compassion Sunday. I hope I do a good job telling you all about it.

When my mom asked me to do Compassion Sunday, honestly, I freaked out. I have never liked public speaking because I have to talk to tons of people staring at you. And that is just not my thing. But my mom really wanted me to do it so I did a little research to help me prepare and get ready.

I was going to write out my own speech but I decided to do the speech in the Compassion Sunday packet. It took a little while to get a date set but we finally set one. Me and my mom went on to the Compassion website and ordered our packet.

When it came I was pretty excited! I pulled everything out and looked at it. I also looked at all the children. When we get child packets,, I love looking through all of them and reading about where they live, what they like to do for fun, how many children are in the family and all the fun stuff.

A few days later my mom told me that there were some videos that Amy Coddington had made to show you how to prepare before, during, and after. The videos helped me a lot.

As the day was drawing near, I was getting nervous. I kept thinking that I was going to blow it and it was going to be terrible. But I remembered that God says to not worry and to trust in Him. So I prayed and prayed and prayed that I would help these children get sponsors and I wouldn’t get so nervous.

On the day of, my mom and I set up a table in the lobby with the child packets and pens. After that we went to Sunday School and my sub teacher told me I was going to do great and to not worry about it because most people get nervous and it was totally normal.

I had been given a list of when things were going to happen during the service so I knew when to come up to the front of the church. When it was my turn I was shaking so much. I said a quick little prayer and started. Looking at all those people made me nervous. My mouth went dry while I was speaking but once I started getting into it, I was able to talk without freaking out. It went smoothly after that and I was proud of myself. After I went to sit back down I was still shaking a lot, but I had finished and I did it. I thanked God for helping me get through it.

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/62272657 w=500&h=281]

Compassion Sunday Presentation from Yvonne Reynolds on Vimeo.

So, after the service my mom, my brother and I went into the lobby and stayed at the table. That day we had three children sponsored. We were so happy! Our pastor let us keep the table up for another week and the next week we had one more child sponsored. So, total we had four children sponsored! Even though it was just four children, four of those lives were changed that day.

Everyone said I did well and I was glad that I did! Well, maybe I will do it next year but I will have to think about it. :)

That’s it! I hope you enjoyed reading about my Compassion Sunday experience! Thank you! :)

Letters from 2 of ‘my boys’!

All of us Compassion sponsors will agree that we find a lot of joy in going to our mailbox and finding that familiar cream colored envelope that says ‘Message From Your Sponsored Child’! Over the course of a couple of days, I received letters from Abner in Colombia and Eduardo in Mexico.

Abner is quite the artist! He is one of my correspondent kids and he just turned 10 in December. Here is what his letter says:

Sponsor Yvonne,

I’m very happy to write again to you and to greet you. May the Lord Jesus bless you greatly. I want to thank you for the letter that you sent me and the lovely photos. I’m pleased to hear that you’re well and I hope you’ve had a lovely Christmas.

I tell you that everyday I get up at 7:00am, I help with the household and I get ready to go to school from 12m to 6:00pm.

In the evening I do my homework, have dinner and I go to bed at 9:30pm. What do you do in a type day? Please pray for my family that the Lord will bless us each day more. I’ll be praying for you and your family too.

I want to send you this bible verse from Lam. 3:25 “the Lord id good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him.”

I say bye with a big hung a God bless you,

Abner

Then a couple of days later, I received a letter from Eduardo and I was so excited about this letter!

We have been sponsoring Eduardo for almost a year and a half now. At the beginning, someone from the center or his dad would write his letters. Now he is writing his own letters! Here is what his letter has to say:

My best friends at the project are Brayan, Aldo, Candido and Emi.

I go to my project one day a week.

I get to my project by bus.

My favorite activity to do at my project is physics and baseball.

Please pray for my parents.

I would like to ask you if it is cold.

I want to thank you for the gifts.

I want to tell you that in the Compassion program there will be a festival and they are going to give gifts. I started elementary school.

I just love these boys and their sweet hearts!

Have you heard from your Compassion kids lately?

Guest Post: The Compassion Mobile Experience

Last week, Kelsey and I were able to visit and volunteer at the Compassion Mobile Experience on one of their stops here in California. I mentioned that it would be fun for her to write a post for my blog and she excitedly said ‘yes!’ I hope you enjoy her post!

 

Hello! When my mom was explaining at first that she wanted me to write a post for her blog I said yes right away. When we got to the church where the Compassion Experience truck was, I was pretty excited! When we went inside it was really nice. We were greeted and decided to go through Julian's story. We walked into a little room where it had three doors with different fabric covering the doorway to each child’s room. We went into Julian’s room and we found ourselves in her house. It was very small and it only had two chairs for furniture, with one propped up against the the back door and the other in a corner. When listening to the audio, she explained that drunk men would always pass by their house so they kept a chair up against the door to keep them out. The other one was to be slept in. They would take turns sleeping in the chair in the corner. The next little room we went into was the market where Julian sold sweet potatoes. In the audio she told us that they most likely would not make enough money to pay the rent or get food for that night. The next room was the Compassion center. It was amazing! Just all the little things you could touch and look at. Julian talked about how her sponsors loved her very much, they even sent her a birthday card which in Uganda they don’t do because it cost too much money and it was a waste of time. But she kept the card for a very long time and she loved her sponsors. At the very last room (there was a few of them so I can’t describe all of them.) she talked about where she went to college and when she came back to the center to help the children just like her. She had built a house for her mother where it was safe and far away from where she used to live. My mom was crying at the end of Julian’s story. It was very powerful and moving. There was even someone who came out and said we have it so, so, so easy here in the United States.

Ruben:

In Ruben’s first room, we were in his house. It also was very small and only had a few toys on the floor. His dad was sleeping on the only bed. They were going to run away from their house and their dad because he was always drunk and would hurt his mom. So they slipped away quietly. The next room had his new house. He told us that they kept moving around because they could not always pay rent and would stay somewhere until the owner kicked them out. They always had little to eat and they slept on the floor. He worked as a shoe shiner to help get money for the family. He said that a lot of his friends would start sniffing glue and would turn into what his father was. He knew he could never to that to his family. He told us to look inside the box saying that there should be lots of money in it, but there wasn’t. He said one of his friends must have took it because he had not seen his friend for a while. They would not be eating as well as he thought they would be. The story goes on to where he started going to the Compassion center and loved his teacher because she was really nice and would protect the children. When Ruben got older he had a pretty bad fight with his mom and moved with his dad. He also quit the Compassion program. His dad had remarried and his stepmother was not very kind to Ruben. She made him sleep on the floor after a while and would not give him food saying she was feeding her family. When Ruben asked his dad what to eat and his father would just get mad. Ruben still had a letter from his sponsors and kept it with him always. He read it one day and realized that he should forgive his mother. He went back to his home and asked for forgiveness and went back to the Compassion center. His teacher told him that his previous sponsors would keep sponsoring him. He was so happy! He started working again and was able to pay for a dresser and a little red table he was very proud of. When we got to the last room there where some paintings of his and they were amazing. I really liked his story. It was so cool that even when he had left the center he still had a letter from his sponsors.

Brinda:

Brinda lived in India and when we went into her little house it was full of all the Indian gods. She said that she couldn’t smile or even laugh because otherwise the evil eye would get her. They would always try very hard to please the gods. Her mother heard a friend talk about Compassion one day and decided to put Brinda through. When they went to the center they first went to the office, her mother was telling Brinda not to smile but she was having a hard time not smiling. When Compassion told them that Brinda could go through, she was smiling so much and when she looked at her mother, she was beaming. Brinda loved the Compassion program and laughed and smiled all she wanted to. But then one day her grandma was in the hospital and she was dying. Her mother had a Hindu priest come in and pray to the god of healing and some other gods just in case. Her grandmother didn’t get any better. So her mother had someone else come in to pray over her but her grandmother got worse. When the two priests had come in Brinda was trying to get her family to pray to God to heal her grandmother. Her mother agreed and Brinda had her teacher come to the hospital and pray for her grandmother. The next day her grandmother got well and was doing better! They were so happy and when we got to her house again they weren’t worshipping all the different gods anymore. They started worshipping the one true God. Her house had different picture and verses and bibles. At that time her sister still didn’t believe in God. Brinda’s sister was going to finish up her last semester of high school but the family didn’t have enough money to pay for it. Brinda said that they would fast and pray for three days. The first day went by and nothing happen, the same on the second day, but later that evening on the third day someone her mother barely knew came to the door and said that they would pay for the last semester of her sister’s school and they didn’t even know the family needed the money. Her sister then believe in God. I loved that no matter what Brinda kept trusting in God to provide for her family.

These three amazing stories made me want to sponsor another child to help them through whatever they were going through. But you could make a difference and help a child who is waiting. You could help encourage them and send them your love and support. Help them know about Jesus and pray for them. Sponsor a child if you can because it is such an amazing program and you could help a child in need know Jesus. And if you have the time, please go visit the Compassion Mobile Experience. It was amazing, just listen to all the different noises and listening to the story of the child and really feeling like you were there with them. I was speechless afterwards. Life is so easy here in the United States, but for a child in Africa or India or South America, it’s not that easy. It is so hard to survive in poverty. Go to compassion.com to sponsor a child, I am sure there is a child waiting for you! :)

Well, that is the end of my experience story. I hope you learned a lot from it and I hope you enjoyed reading it! Thank you!

My Compassion Sunday

So you have heard that Compassion Sunday is coming up, but for whatever reason, you are just not able to schedule a Compassion Sunday at your church.

 

You still have the opportunity to change the story for children living in extreme poverty by creating your own My Compassion Sunday page! By creating your own My Compassion Sunday page, you tell your Compassion story and share your page with your family and friends. Share your page on your blog, in an e-mail, on Facebook, Twiiter, Pinterest, etc. Share it with all of your social media contacts.

Why would I want to do this? Because by changing the story for one child living in extreme poverty, you may be making an eternal difference in the lives of more than just this one child. We may never know how many lives are changed when just one child is sponsored through Compassion. Their family, their community, their friends.

Not convinced that child sponsorship through Compassion is effective?

“. . . that children who participated in Compassion’s holistic child development through sponsorship program stayed in school longer, were more likely to have salaried or white-collar employment and were more likely to be leaders in their communities and churches than their peers who did not participate in the program.”

Courtesy of Compassion International: http://blog.compassion.com/charity-research-research-shows-that-child-sponsorship-through-compassion-works/#ixzz2OZLQUhUB

This quote is from a study that is being released in the Journal of Political Economy in April 2013. Child sponsorship works and you can read more about this research on the Compassion blog.

So what are you waiting for? Sponsor a child or create your own My Compassion Sunday page today and help to change the story for a child living in extreme poverty!