Just an Observation

I worked today at Barnes and Noble doing customer service. A little boy about 5 or 6 came up to the desk and asked us to page his mom since he couldn't find her. (Unfortunately, this is a common thing. People think the store is safe since it is a bookstore and let their children browse in totally different sections of the store. Don't get me started on this....) While we were waiting for his mom to show up, David and I engaged him in a conversation.

"What do you want to be when you grow up? President?"

Giggle.

"I know -- a baseball player."

He shook his head.

"Let me think. Hmm. I'm thinking you want to be a Jedi Master."

Big eyes. "Yeah!" He pretended to hold a light saber.

"How do you think I knew that? Think I'm psychic?"

"You READ MY MIND!"

"Nope." I winked at him. "I read your shirt. It's got Star Wars all over it."

I tend to have difficulty with small talk -- unless it is with small children. But the interaction today got me thinking. Maybe the key is observation. Even adults give us clues as to what they are interested in. So, maybe tomorrow will be an observation day.

The 411 About Supporting a Child

I had the privilege today of helping out at a Compassion booth at a Christian Women's Conference (Hearts at Home) that is sponsored here in Normal, IL, MN, and MI. I know a lot about Hearts at Home as the founder is a friend of mine. Still, not being a mom, I've veered away from helping out at the conference (don't want my I-wanna-be-a-mom jealousy meter to raise too high) and instead helped out with a couple of Jill's kids. But, they are out growing me.

Last week, Compassion contacted me and asked about helping out at their booth. I love what Compassion does and even though it risked tweaking that meter, I decided to do it. I am so glad that I did. We were busy the entire time. And I got to work with Lisa Martin from Compassion and learned a lot about how to answer the questions.

Here are some of the common questions we got and the answers:
How does this work?

• For $32 a month you sponsor a child. It is a 1 to 1 relationship. No one else will be sponsoring your child. This allows you to build a relationship with the child. (I got to insert bits about the children I am sponsoring.)

Do the children really write you?

• Absolutely. They have to write at least 3 times a year. However, they can write more than that if they want. I had taken along a couple letters that my kids had written to share.

What do you write about and can you send gifts?

• Write about whatever is on your heart. When you do, you will find that your children's letters reflect their concern for you and that they are praying for you. Coming from such family oriented cultures, my children struggle to understand how I can be single and live by myself. They've offered up advice like joining the church choir. When a friend moved, one wrote that she wanted to come to me so I wouldn't be lonely.
• If you have kids, write about them. I write about kids I know.
• You can't send packages because of the cost involved and the fact that things might not make it through Customs in other countries.
• You CAN send small, fun, flat things: pictures (They treasure these), coloring pages, pieces of bright colored paper, stickers. Think "Flat Stanley."
• A couple times year you CAN send extra money for gifts for birthdays or the family or Christmas. The Christmas money gets pooled so that all the kids get things. On the birthday or family gifts, Compassion workers in that country find out what the child/family needs and they go from there.

How much of the money goes to the child?

• 80 cents of every dollar is used to directly benefit the children. The other 20 cents is overhead. Compassion is a very fiscally well run organization. The money is used for education, food, spiritual development, etc.

What about if there are other children at home?

• Typically, only one child (depending on the family needs) is involved in the program. But Compassion understands that in these countries, sharing is a strong family value. Children take home what they learn. They teach their siblings letters by writing in the dirt. They can tell their parents that the reason they get sick so often is that the water isn't boiled. The children become advocates.
• The children at the center have their nutritional needs addressed. This means there is more to go around at home.
• By only having one child in the program, Compassion can influence more families. If there were 5 families with 5 children each with each child enrolled in the program, that would be 25 children impacting 5 families. Compassion thinks bigger than this. By taking 25 children each from different families, they impact 25 families and a bigger segment of the community at large.

Is Compassion a Christian organization?

• DEFINITELY. The program is run in conjunction with a local church. Families are encouraged to go to church but it isn't a requirement. Even if they don't go to church, the children are taught scripture during the day. Again, this is carried back to the families.

How do you pick a child?

• If you are at an event, you can pick up a packet with the child's info and everything you need to get started. But how do you decide? For some people it is a country they are interested in or one they think they might visit. For others, it is wanting a child close to their own child's age.
• You can go online (see the link in the sidebar) and search for a child that way.
  
• Compassion can also pick a child for you.
  
• There are priority children. These children have been waiting 6 months or more for a sponsor. Think how much it would mean to sponsor one of these children.

What do the communities think about Compassion?

• Lisa shared with me how much the communites appreciate Compassion. Compassion typically tries to buy food and supplies locally. As a result, they are investing in the local economy.

Do the letters from sponsors matter?

• YES!!! It is a tangible way that a child feels loved by the sponsor. If you support a child, please write!
  
• It is also possible to go on Compassion sponsored trips and meet your child. I'm praying about that.

Why do I sponsor my two children? Because Jesus calls us to be people of compassion. Compassion is not just being moved by suffering but being moved enough to want to do something about that suffering. After working the booth today, I have a greater realization of the impact that my sponsorship has not just on my child but on the families and the community. It's a ripple effect.

She Speaks

I've made the very hard decision not to go to She Speaks this year. I was already registered and everything. The issue is financial. I've already been feeling financial stress and yesterday woke to a broken fridge. That needs to be replaced.

I am grieving not going. The content is great and I've learned things the last two times I've gone, I am more disappointed about not seeing the friends I've made. I do so wish I lived closer to people. I was even planning on going a day or two early and helping. LeAnn had told me it would all be grunt work (setting up tables and such) but I loved the idea of going and giving something back to P31.

I'm sure God has other things in store for me this summer, but I am disappointed.

However, I will keep the She Speaks counter going as a reminder for me to pray.

Catch the Wave

A couple of years ago, I asked a friend to teach me how to run. She was an avid runner and she readily agreed. We worked on it for a couple months but I made slow progress. She ended up moving suddenly and all of my motivation went out the window.

In my town there is the Lake Run club. They have a class/training program for new runners called Catch the Wave. I recently decided to join that even though I was joining late by 2 weeks. Last Wed I ran with the group for the first time in 27 degree weather. (Yuck!) I was in the slowest group but in the middle of that group. The slow group was a long snake. It was fun to run with a group of people.

So, I am working my way to running a 4 something miles in May. Please ask me how I'm doing at it! I need the encouragement.

What can I encourage you on?

Give Me Your Eyes -- A Compassion International Post

I am one of those pesky adults that likes to ask children questions. It can be the kids at church or a niece or nephew or one of the ones that come into the bookstore.

• What did you do at school today?
• What is your favorite color?
• What is your favorite book?
• Do you like puppies?

Not so often, but sometimes I ask (especially if there is a chocolate milk mustache), "What did you have for dinner?"

I've recently fallen in love with Brandon Heath's song "Give Me Your Eyes." Here is the chorus:

Give me your eyes for just one second
Give me your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
Give me your love for humanity
Give me your arms for the brokenhearted
Ones that are far beyond my reach
Give me your heart for the ones forgotten
Give me your yes so I can see

As I've listened to that song today, I've found myself imagining asking, "What did you eat today?" to children around the world. God has had me imagining wide eyes and distended tummies as His children look, crestfallen at the ground and shrug thin shoulders.

Compassion has a lot of information on children in poverty. Here are some of the sobering statistics:

• Over 600 million children in developing countries live on less than one US dollar a day.
• 9 million children under the age of 5 die every year with malnutrition the cause of one third of these deaths.
• 1 in 5 children does not have access to safe water

My sponsored children are involved in Compassion International (obviously) so they had at least one meal today. But so many others didn't. (And one meal? Is that enough?) As I write I have a full stomach. Here is what I ate today:

• Breakfast: 2 Waffles, OJ
• Snack: Juice, peanuts
• Lunch: Peanut Butter Sandwich and fresh fruit
• Dinner: 2 KFC Snackers and a pop
• Safe water available at all times

By US standards, it wasn't a huge amount of food. By developing nations standards, by imagining big eyed children with rumbling tummies and parents that ache to feed them, it seems almost obscene.

Given the delay in posts being delivered, by the time you read this, it will be tomorrow. It's just one day, but for tomorrow I will fast and pray for all those children and pray that God shows me better how to reach the ones that He sees.

"Give me your eyes" could be a dangerous prayer. I wonder what would happen if I prayed that every day.

Let Peace Begin With Me

Memory is a strange thing. I can forget what I had for lunch two days ago but other strange bits of information from my childhood lodge in my brain just waiting for an event or for something someone says to dislodge them. For example, there is the Purple Cow poem I had to memorize when I was in the second grade. (I won't bore you with that rendition here.) More to the point, events over the last few months have dislodged the chorus to a song I learned for a recital in the sixth grade: Let There Be Peace on Earth.

I'm posting today at the Internet Cafe. Click here to finish reading this post.

The Greatest Disease in the West

The other night I went to my small group from church. It turned out to be an extra small group. There were two of us plus the two leaders. Usually there are about 8 or so. At any rate, it gave us some time to chat that might not have otherwise been there.

We ended up talking about friends in a round about way. Being single, I spend the majority of my time alone. Okay, I am with others at work, but it isn't a friendship. Most people there wouldn't know much about my personal life. There isn't really much time or space to share there. And then there is what people would think of as appropriate or inappropriate things to share in a work environment.

I have this deep need to connect with people. But I seem to struggle with making the deep friendships. I'm not sure why that is. My counselor would say that I never saw it modeled. That is true. Ever fiber of me longs for the friend who knows me inside and out and has been there over the long haul. It also longs to know someone else that way.

I came across this quote from Mother Teresa:

The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love.

Have you ever thought of loneliness as a disease? I think she is right. It's not a disease of the body, but it is a disease of the heart and soul. You can't catch it the same way you can a cold. But some of the same things that help someone ill feel better can help the lonely: being physically cared for (hugs), prayed for, shown care in tangible ways.

If a doctor prescribes an antibiotic, I can pick it up, take it, and get better on my own. But no one recovers from loneliness on their own. The heart of it is that we need each other more than just an occasional email or a text announcing (though I haven't seen you in eons) that you are one of my 10 or more BFFs. It requires being there for others in a solid way rather than the semi solid way our culture is breeding.

So, how do you make friends? What are your tips?

Do you think we have any cause for concern that the internet and such is building a false sense of intimacy? Yes, we can text at the speed of light, but does that preclude anyone really knowing us?