Compassion

A letter from Dalsys taped on my wall.  Isn’t the face her brother Ricardo is making hysterical?!

1. Create a Pinterest board titled “My Sponsored Child.”
2. On the board you create,

Pin this image to your “My Sponsored Child” board
• pin the image in this post and associate the following link with the pin:
  compassion.com/my-sponsored-child.
• pin any one of the following and tag this second pin with #mysponsoredchild.
• A photo of you and your sponsored child together.
• A photo of you with a letter from your sponsored child.
• A photo of you holding a photo of your sponsored child.
• pin anything else you want that is relevant to your sponsored child or Compassion.

Courtesy of Compassion International: http://blog.compassion.com/my-sponsored-child-pinterest-contest/#ixzz27VQGdpay

Dear God,

A few days ago a glossy catalog arrived in the mail from my favorite clothing company. I flipped through it casually earmarking items I wish I could buy.  My budget just doesn’t allow for regular clothing purchases. While I may need a few pairs of pants to hug the hips my son so recently widened, I do not need any of the things I saw.

God, as I closed that catalog, I wondered how much money this first-world country put into that publication. The thousands of dollars spent on hiring impossibly thin models and on the photographers that manipulate those ladies and clothing digitally to show perfection. And those printers and that paper and all that waste to sell an item or two of clothing made by a poor woman in a third world country to me – a “budget-constrained” first-world woman.

I felt sick as I finished this line of thought.  Sick for the poor woman who sews my clothing for mere pennies while the company she works for spent millions making us  first-world women believe we needed those clothes to be thin or beautiful or successful.

I once read somewhere that if all the world’s wealth were redistributed equally, then everyone would have enough- just what they needed.

Now I’m not a communist, but God, sometimes I wonder why you’re not.  With a simple wave of your hand you could give us all the same amount.  The same resources.  The same opportunities.  But You don’t.  Why? Some of that is a mystery.

Yet, I think some of that is obvious.  I have more so that I can give more.

Isn’t that the parable of the talents? The Master gives them that money while He’s away.  Two of them grow that money for the master’s purposes and one of them just sits on it.  That third guy-he doesn’t enjoy the money or invest it or give it away.  It’s almost a burden to him and the time the Master is away is nearly a bore.  No risk, no love, no living with the Master’s purpose in mind.

Isn’t that the same thing we American first-world Christians are doing?  God has given us so much just by birth location: money, talents, luxury, and freedom.  We’re just burying it all in a tin can in the yard rather than using it for our Master’s Purpose.  We’re hoarding God’s gifting to accomplish His mission. Hoarding it.  All to ourselves.

God, you could wave your hand and give us all the same amounts, but instead you wait on our hearts.  You wait on us to recognize the reality of your love: the crazy-love that while we were still filthy wretches you died for us.  Died to claim us as your own family.  Because when we are filled with the reality of what you gave (everything) to love us, to save us, then we can’t help but want to share everything- especially You- with everyone around us.

Change our hearts, God, to be filled with the reality of the gospel so that we would give everything we have to the least of these.  After all, without Christ, we’d still be the the least of these.

Help me to love you with everything I have,

Melissa Ann

P.S. I’m blogging here for Compassion International.  It’s blog month, where we’re praying that 3108 children will be sponsored this month.  As of last week 837 children were already sponsored this month; isn’t that amazing? Pray about sponsoring a child in Jesus Name?

I received a letter from our sweet Delsys today.

With these words written down by a teacher:

“I love you.”

I nearly wept right there in the car with my three kiddos on my way to buy a board to replace a broken step.

Love.  Isn’t that what drew us to sponsor Delsys?  To reach outside of ourselves and our first world life into the depths of a third world country and love one someone through a small bit of our budget and a large bit of our hearts in letters.

I can’t even begin to describe to you the joy to hear those words.  To know that even on those days when I don’t leave my home or my young children: that I am reflecting the love of Christ to this precious little girl.

Compassion would like to see 3,108 children sponsored this month.  It would be the most ever sponsored in the month of September.

Would you hop on over to the Compassion Website and pray for these children?  Pray that they might come to know the Lord.  Pray that they would pursue education and dreams outside of the the third world countries.  Pray that someone will sponsor those children.  Pray that you have the courage to give up 5 fancy coffee drinks a month to be a sponsor.  Pray that you can be a blessing.

And let me know how the Lord changes your heart when you hear (or read) those simple words:

I love you.

I’m thinking about our sweet Delsys today.

Did you know that most families in extreme poverty live on less than $1.25 a day?  Could you live on that?  Give it a try: https://www.live58.org/survive125/

I only survived 19 days out of a month.  I made simple choices to keep my children in school and to keep my daughter from working in a place where rumors were flying about sex trafficking. I was sexually assaulted walking home from work.   And I ran out of money and food in 19 days.

19 Days out of 30.

Oh, sisters (and the rare brother who stops my blog home), this makes me cry.  I’m not very tender-hearted.  I don’t have the spiritual gift of mercy.  So crying over something not directly related to my life doesn’t happen very often.

There are two beautiful letters on my wall from a sweet 5 year old girl named Dalsys who lives in El Salvador.  Two letters from a girl in poverty.  A girl who we invited into our family with just $38 a month to give her.  She will go to school.  She will have dreams.  She will be able to pursue some of them.  For just $38 a month.

A friend wrote this thought provoking post a few weeks ago on defending our daughters from sexual abuse.  Would I do everything in my power to prevent and stop such abuse?  Yes, up to and including laying down my own body or life for those precious little girls.

But these children and women in poverty, aren’t they our sisters and Christ’s daughters as well?

Does $38 a month stretch us?  Yes, some months it does.  But other seasons, like now, not so much.  Can you join me in giving up a coffee or two a week and sponsor another child?  To fight poverty.  To help a mom prevent having to make the choice between sending her daughter to work at a place known to sell girls in sex trafficking or letting that same daughter go hungry?

Please.  Sponsor a Child.  The blessing of having Dalsys in our life is way larger than those $38 could ever be if they stayed here in our home.

As I type, Brandt’s mommy Lindy is being wheeled into the OR for the birth of her precious child.  Brandt has Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome.  Basically, the left side of his heart will not be able to pump blood.  In three surgeries, doctors will engineer the right side of his heart to do the work of a normal heart.  The first surgery, the Norwood, will occur before he is 2 weeks old.  Pray the Brandt will be a big boy, that the NICU staff will be able to stabilize him quickly, that the Norwood surgery would be a 100% success, and that Glen and Lindy will rest fully on Jesus during this time.