Join me in Mexico!

Tonight (Lord willing!!), my son and I are in Houston, Texas, awaiting the arrival of the rest of our team for our Compassion Sponsor Tour to Mexico!! I would love to have you follow along on the trip with us! There are a couple of ways you can do this:

1. Follow my Instragram account! We should have wi-fi access each evening at our hotels, so I am hoping to upload a few pictures each day. As much as I would love to upload blog posts each night, I don't want to put that kind of pressure on myself. So the blog posts will have to wait until after our trip.
2. Follow our Facebook group! There should be daily posts here, as well as photos to share with our family and friends.

Gifts for Felix, our new Compassion sponsored child we will be visiting with on Saturday!

Thank you to everyone who has been such a big support of this trip and for your prayers!! 

Compassion Joy Dare: December

I am linking up with my friend Jill today over at Compassion Family for her Compassion Joy Dare monthly link up. December was filled with Compassion joys for me!

• received a letter from Lina, she shared with me that she has a dog named Riki
• wrote a blog post for Compassion's blog
• wrote another Compassion Share & Tell post
• our tickets and itinerary arrived for our Mexico trip!
• we started sponsoring Felix in Mexico!
• we shopped for Felix and his family

But the really big Compassion joy I was able to experience last month was attending a graduation ceremony at Denver Seminary for Olive Akullo!!

Olive stayed with our family about a year and a half ago when she came out to California to speak at our church and another nearby church. We stayed in touch through Facebook and I was so happy that all of the details came together so that I could fly out to celebrate her big accomplishment with her!

Have some Compassion joy to share? Be sure to link up with Jill each month as we celebrate God's blessings we experience with Compassion!

The Lord has provided!

Have you ever had one of those dreams where you feel like you are falling through the air, wondering if someone is going to catch you? This year has been kind of like that dream. In May, we took a big leap of faith when I signed up to join Compassion for their Mexico Sponsor Tour for January 2014. As a single income family, we just don't have a lot of extra money laying around to pay for a trip like this. But we knew, if God wanted me on this trip, He would provide.

When I started my ledger back in May to keep track of money that was being earned for the trip, I wrote Genesis 22:14 at the top, "The Lord will provide." On my own power, there was nothing I could do to earn the money for this trip. But God allowed me to use some of my gifts and talents to make and sell various items over the last 8 months. He also provided for a few donations, a couple even from people I have never meet in person! What an abundant blessing that has been! And even more of a blessing is that I will be traveling with my 19 year old son! Warms my mama heart knowing that he will be with me on this trip!

So in these last few days before we leave, I have been knitting dishcloths as gifts for some of the moms we will meet on our home visits.

My daughter and a few of her friends have been helping me make friendship bracelets for the many children we have a chance to love on.

As a family, we went shopping to buy some gifts for Felix and his family.

And we bought a few other things we might need on our trip!

As I continue to prepare for this trip, something really stood out to me last night as I was reading 'Crazy Love' by Francis Chan: "God, bring me closer to You during this trip, whatever it takes..."

That is my prayer, I want to experience God like I have never experienced Him before. Will you pray this prayer with me over our trip?

December Compassion Share & Tell

With Christmas in just a few days, I know it is hard to even think about Valentine's Day! But since letters to our Compassion sponsored children can take 2 to 3 months to arrive in their hands, many sponsors will do a little planning ahead when writing their letters. While I didn't talk about Valentine's Day in the letters I wrote this week, I did find a great printable on Compassion's Second Friday Letter Writing Club board on Pinterest.

Here is what I wrote to Lina this month:

Hello Lina!

This month, I want to remind you how much God loves you! Do you know this verse from the Bible, John 3:16? "For God so loved the world that he gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." Sometimes it is hard to believe that God loves us that much, but He does! And He always will!

Are you familiar with the Leadership Development Program through Compassion? If so, is it something you have thought about for your future? A couple of weeks ago I traveled from my home in California to Colorado. I was able to attend the graduation ceremony for a Leadership Development Program student. She is a formerly sponsored Compassion child from Uganda. It was a blessing to be there for her celebration!

You asked what my favorite hobby is. I love to read. I like to read biographies and books that help me to learn more about God. Do you like to read books?

I want you to know that I continue to pray for you and your family!

I Love You!

Yvonne

When I write to my sponsored children, I like to pull out their binder that holds all of the letters I have received from them. This helps me see what questions they have asked so I can try to respond to their questions in my letter. In this month's mailing, I sent a postcard from Colorado, a printable USA map (which I colored in California and Colorado, and a printable from Compassion's Second Friday Letter Writing Club board on Pinterest.

In order to keep everything together for this mailing, I layered all the papers for each child, then stapled the postcard (with 2 staples) to the papers. My sponsor number and name, as well as Lina's number and name are written on everything. You can also print out your own labels with this information to speed things up a bit when preparing letters for your sponsored children.

Letters for all three children that I am currently writing to were placed in one large manila envelope. Like labels with names and numbers, I have printed out labels with Compassion's address. Just a simple step to save a little time!

Ready to share what you wrote to your sponsored child this month? Be sure to come back and join the link up!

Compassion Christmas Display

Do you have a few copies of Compassion's Gift Catalog on hand? If you do, or even if you do not, I am going to show you how you can set up a Compassion Christmas Display for your church lobby.

Here is what you will need to set up your display:

• a few copies of Compassion's Gift Catalog (if you do not have any catalogs on hand, print pictures from Compassion's Gift Catalog website)
• black poster frame (I found mine at Walmart)
• sheet metal to fit inside the frame (I found a sheet already cut to fit at Home Depot)
• small Christmas tree
• red and green cardstock
• scissors
• glue stick
• hole punch
• ribbon
• black marker
• magnets

First, place the sheet metal inside the poster frame. This will give you a magnetic surface which will allow you to easily change out your Compassion display.

Next, cut round circles from the red cardstock to be used as ornaments for your Christmas tree. Then use the items from the back of the Compassion Gift Catalog, cut the individual items out, and adhere them to the round ornaments. Hole punch toward the top, decorate the ornament with the black marker, and add a small bit of ribbon. Hang these ornaments onto your Christmas tree.

Then, find other gift ideas and quotes from the gift catalog. Cut these out and glue them to pieces of green cardstock. Place these on your framed piece of sheet metal with a few magnets.

Finally, place a few extra copies of Compassion's Gift Catalog onto the table (as well as a few child packets!) and your Compassion Christmas Display is complete!