I was so blessed to get interview two wonderful Compassion Sponsors about the experience as sponsors for my Compassion Sunday 2011 presentation. Unfortunately, time constraints made it so I could only show a tine portion of the interview. This broke my heart because I was so blessed by the things they said.
Thankfully I now have the opportunity to share with you the long version of my interview with my good friend, Rachel Dowd, about her experience sponsoring Diego Jean Baptiste.
Rachel blogs at Keep it Simple about being a woman of God, being a godly mother and wife, thrifting, crafting and pretty much anything else you could possibly be interested in!
Just a short note to share a great resource with you if you do sponsor a child through Compassion International or any other organization.
This last Sunday, was Compassion Sunday and I shared with my congregation the testimonies of two sponsors within our congregation. The video I shared with these interviews emphasized the relationship that develops between sponsor and sponsored child. It is wonderful, inspiring thing but only when it exists.
As I spoke to people after the event, most of the concerns I heard were in regard to writing letters to a child. There were a few people who admitted that they were "a bad sponsor" because they never wrote to their child. I even had one brave person say that they chose not to sponsor a child because they knew they would never write letters.
Let me first give you an "it's okay" hug by telling you two things:
You probably are not as bad as you think. When I first started sponsoring Fabiola, I only wrote her when I received letters, that was about once a year. While it is difficult to build a relationship on one letter a year, that was one letter she would not have received otherwise.
Now that you feel a little less scummy, let me encourage you: letter-writing is not as hard as you think and it is SO valuable.
Start with simply writing a letter every time you receive one, everything you need is right in the envelope. It doesn't have to be a long one and it doesn't have to be incredibly deep. In fact, the simpler it is is, the easier it is to translate and to understand.
Here is my typical outline for a letter:
Greeting: Hi, how are you, I hope you and your family are well, thank you for your letter
Questions:
Respond to their letter: comment on activities, answer questions, encourage them if they are struggling, comment on the verse or picture they shared with you, comment on their photograph (you're getting so big, beautiful, handsome, I like your shoes, hairbows, etc)
How was your (Christmas, Easter, birthday, & maybe new year's--stick to christian holidays)
How did you celebrate? Did you eat special food or listen to music? Did you have a party at school? Did you get presents? What did you get?
It is cold/hot here, how is the weather where you are? (Seriously, ask them about the weather!)
How is school? What are you learning? What is your favorite subject? What is hard for you?
How is your family? This is a great opportunity to ask the names of the people in their family.
Personal favorite questions: color, subject in school, song, game, sport, food, season...these are all easy questions and give you a way to respond
Tell about yourself!!! Talk about your family, your job, schoolwork, even your problems (keep it light!); give your child something to pray about because I guarantee that they are praying for you.
Close it: I'm praying for you and your family, I love you, I thank God that you are in my life
I usually can only fit about half of this in before I run out of space. It may seem shallow at first but this at least gets you writing and I promise that your child will never complain that you send them shallow letters. Baby steps!
Finally, even if you are not the best sponsor now, or you're afraid to commit to writing a child and failing, please please please don't let that keep you from sponsoring them. Even if you (gulp) never write your child, your sponsorship enables your child to live a life that is filled with encouraging people even if you can't be one of them: volunteers at the Child Development Centers, pastors, and teachers.
And even if you aren't the best sponsor now that doesn't mean that you won't grow. Like I said, when I first started sponsoring Fabiola I wrote her once a year. Now I write two three sponsored children every month. I don't say that to puff myself up because I know there there are some who write to 10 or more kids! I say that to encourage you: take on the challenge, fail at it for a while, and let God teach you how to be be an encouraging, supportive, letter writing master.
I'd like you to meet, Michelle, a very encouraging blogger/Compassion Advocate that I just met.
Michelle has eight Compassion correspondent sponsor children in addition to her sponsored child, and she writes them all at least once a month. I was blown away, she's a letter writing wizard! But don't be intimidated, remember: baby steps.
Back in January, when I decided that I wanted to interview some Compassion sponsors within my congregation for Compassion Sunday 2011, I thought the process would be fairly simple: record videos, cut together with astoundingly professional prowess, print.
Even as the process became increasingly complex, I kept thinking to myself, "This really isn't a big deal, I can handle this," until, after about 10 hours of frustration with some video editing software, I quite literally threw myself upon my bed in despair.
"I can't do it God, it's not possible. I don't even want to try anymore."
As he often does, God interrupted my thoughts with the glaringly obvious truth:
This isn't your vision. It's mine.
This video, my vision for communicating the reality of poverty and beauty of sponsorship to my congregation, Compassion Sunday, the ministry of Compassion, all those children and even poverty itself; they are all His, not mine.
If I'm honest, I failed at my attempt to create my idea of a moving and powerful 5:54 video. But God didn't. He created a video that, somehow, spoke to people in a real way.
And my little congregation rescued 11 children on Sunday.
God did that, in part, through my imperfect, amateur video. He did it without my consent and without my complete surrender.
And He did it better...
...we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.
A big thanks to Darla Grubb and my friend Rachel Dowd (and Molly Dowd!) for volunteering to be part of this project. This is a just a tiny fraction of the amazing things they shared with me about sponsorship. I will post the audio of the entire interview as soon as it is edited. In the mean time, check out Rachel's blog at Keep it Simple, she is absolutely bursting with wisdom about being a woman of God, financial freedom, mommyhood, and simple homemaking.
Just a quick update to let you know that Compassion Sunday is this Sunday April 10th. This is just an opportunity for everyone who loves Compassion's ministry to share it with other people, specifically their church family.
I've been putting together a video interview of a few sponsors in our church and I'm super excited to share it with my family and here on this blog.
Check back on Monday, April 11th and I should have it posted. In the meantime, check out this video promo from Compassion.
With Compassion Sunday only one week away, I am frantically trying to edit together my video presentation (using a program I've never used before!) and, I admit, I was feeling a little overwhelmed and stressed.
Because this is so much bigger than me. It makes me smile to know that there are millions of people out there praying, supporting, blogging, photographing, singing, podcasting, and talking about the amazing work that Compassion International does.
It makes me smile to know that I am part of such a dedicated, talented, and creative family.
To prove that, I wanted to share a professional video :) about TOMS Shoes' One Day Without Shoes event taking place across the world TOMORROW, April 5th. If you'd like to participate, read more about this event, or find out more about TOMS, visit toms.com or you find them on facebook or twitter.
With Compasion Sunday 2011 coming up fast on April 10th, I'm taking the opportunity to tell you about a girl that I love!
If you have never heard of Holly Starr, stop right now and listen to this:
That is a track from Holly's debut album Embraced and it has had a fast and furious ride to success since its release in 2008
**To see other videos, visit Holly's YouTube channel.
Why do I mention Holly? Well first, she is a phenomenally talented young Christian artist. Secondly, her transition from average high school girl in a small farming town in Eastern Washington to nationaly recognized Christian musician will blow your mind. She's played at Creation Festival and Lifest, and is currently on tour throughout the US. On its release day, Holly's sophomore album, Tapestry, made it up to the #11 spot for Christian music on iTunes. Thinking about how God has worked throughout these past 5 years in Holly's life gives me goosebumps, it's just insane.
Even so, reviews of Holly always include words like "authentic," "down to earth," "hard working," "passion," and, of course, "talented." You can hear the deep passion she has for the Lord and for people welling up out of her heart when she speaks. I love listening to Holly talk about Jesus, it feels like I'm getting saved all over again.
But the most important reason, today, that I mention Holly is that she is also a Compassion Advocate like me. For me, being a Compassion Advocate means I talk about Compassion here and at my church. I try to explain Compassion's ministry and encourage people to get involved by sponsoring a child.
Holly does the same thing, only she does it from a stage. In Fall of 2009, Holly also had the opportunity to travel to El Salvador with Compassion International. You can read her own account of that experience at hollystarrmusic.com. As an advocate, Holly has committed to using her music to, among other things, share Compassion's ministry with people and release children from poverty in Jesus' name. This is a powerful thing and I'm so blessed by her decision to partner with Compassion in this way.
If you want to listen to a sample of Holly's music, you can visit her Myspace or Facebook pages or it's also available on iTunes and Amazon.
If you'd like the full experience, you can watch Holly Starr live THIS WEDNESDAY March 30th at the Wenatchee Valley Praise Center with Shawn McDonald (tickets are almost sold out so hurry!). Click here to view Holly's other tour dates.
Check her out, you'll be blessed! And take a few minutes to consider changing a child's life, it will be one of the most powerful and rewarding things you do.
, made it up to the #11 spot for Christian music on iTunes. Thinking about how God has worked throughout these past 5 years in Holly's life gives me goosebumps, it's just insane.