Compassion Keep In Touch Box

Since our pastor has allowed us to keep a Compassion table in the lobby of our church, I have been wanting to put together a box of items for our many Compassion sponsors. As a Compassion Advocate, I want to do what I can to encourage sponsors to be writing to their kids on a regular basis. My prayer is that this box will make it easier for our sponsors to take the time to write to their sponsored kids.

Here is a list of items I have included in this box:

• Monthly Compassion prayer calendar
• Blank birthday cards
• Blank note cards
• Tips for mailing small gifts print out from the Compassion web site
• Copies of the California coloring page from the Crayola web site
• Pages from activity pages I have found at the Dollar Spot at Target
• Variety of stickers
• Copies of a Bible verse printable I found on Pinterest
• Copies of old Explorer magazines

The box was very well received this morning with many people finding new things to send to their kids. My goal is to update the box at least once a month with the new monthly Compassion prayer calendar and any new printables I find on Pinterest.

What do you do to encourage Compassion sponsors at your church?

Let’s Take a Journey to Nicaragua!

Have you heard the news?? The Compassion Bloggers are heading to Nicaragua this month and they have invited all of us to join along! Well, not really travel with them to Nicaragua, but they would love for us to be praying for them as they prepare for their trip, and to follow along with their blog posts as they write about their experiences on this journey.

When you go to this Compassion Bloggers link, you can find links to the bloggers who will be travelling on this trip. I hope to take time this week to visit each one of their blogs, get to know them a little bit, and let them know that I will be praying for them. Will you consider doing the same?

I know I have really enjoyed the blog posts from previous trips (you can read the previous trip blog posts here). This time, I will be reading with new interest as I prepare for my own Compassion trip to Mexico in January!

Get ready for June!

There are a couple of things I look forward to at the beginning of each month!

Compassion has been making these desktop calendars available for a while now. I love having these on my computer!

Also, Compassion puts out a prayer calendar every month. You can sign up to be a Prayer Partner, then each month, the calendar will be delivered to your e-mail.

What do you look forward to at the beginning of each month?

Compassion Letter Writing Club on Pinterest

Have you seen the new Compassion Letter Writing Club board on Pinterest?

I was able to write a blog post for the Compassion blog to share about this new Pinterest board. That was pretty exciting for me since I have found a lot of creative paper project ideas to make for our Compassion kids on my own Compassion Pinterest board.

The focus for May on this new board is Mother’s Day, and some of the new contributors shared some great ideas with all of us.

may compassion mailing

Here is what I included in this latest mailing to my Compassion kids:

• two photographs from my latest day trip to Yosemite, one is of Yosemite Falls and the other is of dogwood blossoms
• paper dogwood blossoms
• a printable of flowers for my kids to color and give to their mom
• a card similar to this one for the kids to give to their mom

I also included a short note to each of my kids, sharing with them this verse:

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” - Romans 5:13

I shared with them that I pray that each day for them is filled with joy when they remember how much God loves them.

Have you sent anything special to your Compassion kids lately?

Capture Your 365

I have a whole week of photo prompts for you today!

Compassion Mobile Experience

ISO 100, 20mm, f/7.1, 1/640 sec

Day 124 – A Wide Angle: My whole family was able to volunteer for a shift at the Compassion Mobile Experience when they were in our area recently. I knew this was the shot I wanted to take to go along with this prompt. Have you had a chance to visit the experience yet?

strawberry jam

ISO 100, 44mm, f/5.3, 1/6 sec

Day 125 – Relaxation: that is exactly what I did after making 2 batches of strawberry jam!

crayons

ISO 100, 36mm, f/5.0, 1/30 sec

Day 126 – Crayons: Crayons in our home are not used very much any more, but it is amazing to me how many we have! Every now and then we bring them out when we are watching little people, or when we are doing a fun project for our Compassion kids.

candy

ISO 100, 50mm, f/3.5, 1/15 sec

Day 127 – Candy: Can you see my favorite candy there on the top right shelf?

macaroni and cheesse

ISO 100, 50mm, f/3.5, 1/10 sec

Day 128 – Snacks: Interestingly enough, I don’t really eat a lot of snacks when I am home during the day, so I decided to take a photo of the homemade macaroni and cheese we had for lunch on this day. Yum!

rabbit

ISO 100, 50mm, f/3.5, 1/40 sec

Day 129 – Animals: This is Kelsey’s bunny, Vinnie. She used to show rabbits while in 4-H years ago, but now she just has two pet rabbits. I can’t believe I didn’t get the very tops of his ears in the picture!

framed

ISO 100, 50mm, f/4.5, 1/15 sec

Day 130 – Framed: I believe it was back on day 68 that I did a photo similar to this one, with just me. This time I decided to have Kelsey join me.

So this wraps up a full week of Capture Your 365 photo prompts for me! Have you started joining in on the fun? Please let me know in the comments so I can visit your post of photos.