40 to 40 (Gratitude 9)

I am thankful for my Compassion International children. Kayiranagwa and Ambar are my current children. Delia was my child in Ecuador until the middle of July. For some unknown reason, her parents pulled her out of the program. I was troubled by this. Compassion International invited me to take another child in Ecuador and assigned me Ambar. Thus far, I've only gotten one letter from Ambar, but I was so excited to get it!

There are times when I don't necessarily feel like I have the funds to send. But then I also know I took on a responsibility to these children and it is humbling to read about how little they and their families survive on. I am thankful that they are teaching me to give both monetarily and through writing. I really try to write every two to three weeks.

And they bless me. They tell me that they are praying for me and send me pictures they drew. So, I am thankful for Compassion International and particularly my girls. I still pray for Delia.

What Do You Think?

Below is my last letter to Delia. It was hard to write. It's one thing to write about everyday kind of things. It's quite another to write to say "Goodbye." What do you think? Is it too much? Too little?

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My dearest Delia,

I received your letter from July 16^th today. I am glad to know that you and your family are well. I love knowing that you love flowers. Your name sounds like a lovely flower to me. I do not think there is a “Delia” flower, but if I could imagine one it would be a beautiful as you! My favorite color is purple. I think a Delia flower would be purple and gold and bright and beautiful.

At the end of July I learned that you are no longer going to be a part of the Compassion program. I am so very sorry to hear that. It makes my heart very sad to know that I will not be able to write to you any more. I did contact Compassion. They said they would gladly get one last letter to you. I did want to write one last time to let you know that you are very special to me and even more special to God.

I wish that I could sit down and have a long talk with you. If I could this is what I would tell you:

· I have loved being your sponsor. I have loved getting your letters and hearing about your life in Ecuador.

· I believe that God brings people together sometimes for a short time and sometimes for a long time. I do not know why He gave us such a short time to get to know each other. But I do know that He allowed us to be friends to bless us. And I do feel blessed to have known you. Whenever I look at your picture it makes me smile. And I have the picture you drew for me hanging in my home.

· Study hard. I know that studying and concentrating takes lots of work but studying will be important for your future.

· I think that you are already a kind girl, but since this is my last letter to you, I want to encourage you to be kind to others. Say nice things. Share. Help. Encourage. If you do these things, you will find that others are nice to you as well and that you are doing what Jesus would want. Be the first to do these things and you will find that kindness follows you where ever you go.

· These are all things that give hope to people. As you know I think hope is a huge thing. Here is my word picture of hope. When I was a child I was disappointed to discover that the moon is really a big rock in the sky. It does not have any light of its own. Instead it reflects the sun’s light. Did you know that? I think that God gave us the moon to reflect the sun’s light so that even in the darkest night we would be reminded that the sun is still shining. So, when you go out at night and see the moon think of hope and hold onto hope.

· This is God’s promise in Jeremiah 29:11

o “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

o I know that God has his hand on you and your future. You have every reason to hope.

I do not know that we will meet while we are on earth unless God decides to surprise us! But I will pray that we will meet in heaven and that Jesus would be the one to introduce us.

I will continue to pray for you and your family. I will remember you because you will forever be in my heart.

Many blessings. I love you and so do Katy and Mali!

One Last Letter to a Child

I know I have been strangely absent here. It would take a bit to explain. This blog has been such a place of health for me that even the doctor I see for depression asks if I've been blogging as a measure of how well or not well I'm doing. She called it "the canary in the coal mine" test. It comes from an old mining custom of trying to see if the mines were safe. Given that my mother's father was a coal miner, it seems somehow appropriate. Anyway, gases were invisible and often deadly. To safe guard the miners, they would lower a canary or other small bird down into the mine first and then pull it back up. If it survived it was safe to go down into the mines.

Blogging today is my effort to make that canary sing in the depths of the mine. But over the last week, I've felt as if my words have left me.

I don't really want to dwell on the specifics of everything. But I did want to ask you a totally unrelated question. I've been sponsoring Delia through Compassion. The end of July I got the sad news that Delia had left the program.(Click here for a specific post about that.) But since that day, I've gotten two more letters from her. One was dated the end of April. The one I got today was dated July 16th.

I called Compassion today and asked if I might send her one last letter.

I am pleased to be able to do this, but unsure of what to say and where to begin. So, if you were a child of 11 and were to receive one last letter from your sponsor, what would be most helpful to hear? Putting it another way, what would your heart cry out to share with a child if you had one more chance to share your heart with without overwhelming her?

Little Girl Lost

Today, I received a very sad email. Compassion International wrote to tell me that my sponsored child in Ecuador is no longer in the program. They were able to tell me that she is healthy and had completed the fifth grade. For some unknown reason, her parents decided not to send her anymore.

I ran into Karrie the other day. She is the friend I made at She Speaks that was traveling to Ecuador earlier this month. She carried a gift laden backpack for me and handed it off to the Compassion worker. I don't know that I anticipated Delia having received it yet. It would have had to make its way to the student center that she went to.

I called Compassion when I got off work to see if I could glean anymore info. The representative I spoke to said that there really wasn't much more. The parents don't have to give a reason. It could be that she was needed at home or it could be pressure from the community. Compassion is an evangelical organization. In a very Catholic country, they can be looked on askew. So, there was no more information to be had.

I did ask about the backpack. There's no way to know where it is at this moment. He said that the staff would likely still try to get it to her. I hope that they do. The things I picked out were with her in mind.

But, if not, they will use the things for other children at the center. As I thought about that today, I realized that while I had Delia in mind, God may have had several others in mind. The pack had a t-shirt, three stuffed animals, a book, a couple bracelets, binoculars, hair things, a scarf, . . . . The items could bless a number of children.

Though, there is one item in particular that I hope makes it to Delia. There was a locket with my picture pasted inside. I wanted her to wear it as a tangible reminder of my love and prayers for her.

Either way, I know that God will use those gifts. But, I am highly relational. So, I am sad tonight for this one little girl who is lost to me. But I can still pray for her and her grim, determined pose that God would hold her close and one day introduce her to me in heaven -- lost to me for a time but hopefully, prayerfully found in Him.

A Child in Rwanda -- Compassion International

Heads up. This is not my typical post. It tells about my other Compassion child in Rwanda, but also deals a bit with the Rwandan Genocide in 1994. I hope you'll still read, but it is just very different from my other posts.

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As I write, the things I sent for Delia and her family are in Ecuador. My friend left yesterday on her trip. I'm praying that everything went well.


But I wanted to introduce you to the other little girl I sponsor. I recently received an updated photo. I think she looks taller in this picture than the last.





Kayirangwa is 9 and she lives in Rwanda. Rwanda is a small country in Africa. How, you might ask, did I get from sponsoring a child in Ecuador to sponsoring one in Rwanda?

Several years ago, I read a book called The Good News About Injustice: A Witness of Courage in a Hurting World by Gary A. Haugen. Gary is the president of International Justice Mission. It is an organization that works with victims of slavery, exploitation, and violent oppression. No, this is not light reading. But it is important reading!

I think I was gripped with the opening paragraph. He talks about making his typical commute one morning in 1994 and having the thought of saying to his fellow travelers, "Excuse me, friends, but did you know that less than forty-eight hours ago I was standing in the middle of several thousand corpses in a muddy mass grave in a tiny African country called Rwanda?"

What? 1994? I remember thinking that those things just didn't happen any more. I had consigned them to the Holocaust and World War II.

But they do happen, like most things of that nature, for little or no reason (or rather exaggerated reason). The Rwandan genocide was between the Tutsi and Hutu people of Rwanda. The Hutu militia and every day civilians killed their neighbors -- anyone of Tutsi descent or anyone perceived as sympathetic to the Tutsi. Most estimates of the death toll are 800,000 to the 1,000,000 mark. Supposedly, it was fueled by the belief that the Tutsi and Hutu are very different and with one being superior. Sigh. In reality, there is very little genetic difference. All of that death took place in 100 days.

Perhaps one of the saddest aspects is that the world looked on and did very little to stop the escalating violence. President Clinton apologized during his term. But it makes me wonder if it wasn't a bit like World War II. There were rumors of concentration camps but we didn't step in until attacked.

I was surprised by the book and my own ignorance of the situation. I do well to keep up on local news. Global news is hard to grasp. Still, I think I should do better.

Delia caught my heart because of language (I cannot speak it but I took Spanish in high school and college) and the relative closeness of Ecuador. Kayirnagwa caught my heart because of reading that book and that sadness that anything like that could happen so recently. It was only 14 years ago. At 9 she wouldn't have been born yet, but I am sure her parents were. What an awful thing to have lived through. What a difficult thing to heal from -- whatever side you were on.

I came across a 2007 newsletter from Compassion about Rwanda. It shares the story of Emmanuel. His mother had survived the devastation but had hardened her heart. How could God care if all of those things had happened? But Emmanuel was enrolled in Compassion and became a Christian. Each morning he knelt to pray. Still, his mother wasn't interested.

In 2006 there was a drought. His mother wanted to flee the country in search of relief. Emmanuel told her not to, that his Compassion center was providing rations to families affected by the famine. At first she didn't believe him, but he convinced her to go and see. The workers loaded her with rice and water. As a result of Emmanuel's witness and Compassion's practical intervention, his mother became a Christian.

That is how I got from the United States and Ecuador to Rwanda. I know that Kayirangwa likes to jump rope and play games and that she has chores. I do not know how she or her family might have been impacted by what happened. But still, I hope, that in some small way my giving to her gives her hope and healing for her family and the tiniest bit of healing for her country. I am thankful that I know a God who can multiply what I give and what Emmanuel's sponsor gave a million times over.

Now, if any of you know of anyone going to Rwanda, I'd love to be able to send Kayirangwa something like I did for Delia!

From America With Love -- Compassion International

Think it might feel like Christmas by the time this all makes it to my sponsored child, Delia, in Ecuador. With money a bit tight, I spent several hours going through my house looking for good gifts. Most of the things I found were in great shape and very use able. I found a pocket size photo album and a couple bracelets and a silk scarf (things for her mother and sister.) I got a few household things at the Dollar Store. One of the gifts I am most excited about is a locket I found from when I was a child. It has Washington DC on it. It is a nice size and I was able to glue my picture in there. I hope Delia will wear it and that it will remind her that I love and care for her.

I also found Prince Caspian in Spanish and picked up a tiny stuffed lion to go with the book. Then there are binoculars for her father and an t-shirt for her brother. There's also an assortment of candy and gum for her friends.

It all went into this backpack that I had used many years ago. It is in great condition. That in itself probably works as a gift.

But honestly, the best gift is the letter that is going along with it.

Do you have a Compassion Child? Do you write regularly?

A friend recently went on a Compassion trip. She said that the graduates told how much the letters meant to them. She was sad to learn that 30% of sponsors don't write.

That made me sad. To think of a child watching other children get letter after letter and never getting one.

Letters don't have to be big deals. You can do them on line even. They are life lines to hungry souls because they say, "I believe in you. I am rooting for you!" I try to write every couple of weeks even though I know that I will probably only get a letter back every quarter. Still, it seems the right thing to do.

Yes, all the things I'm sending are great. I love the opportunity because it makes her seem real in a new way. But, the best gift in the bag is the letter that tells her I love her and pray for her.

So, if you have a child -- write. Write about what you do in simple terms. Write about your church. Write about shoveling snow. Write about your pets. Write about how you came to know Jesus. Remember you are building a chain of hope in those letters.

The Search for Ecuador -- Compassion International

There was a theory out there years ago saying that we are all only separated by six degrees. I don't know if that was ever founded or unfounded. I find it hard to believe that at any given time I am six degrees removed from the President of the United States or the Queen of England.





Still, it is a nice theory to think that we are all so intimately connected.





While I may doubt the six degrees, I do believe that we are intimately connected on God's level. He helps people and things fall into place in ways that we could never plan!





Karrie was one of my roommates at She Speaks. As luck (or should I say God?) would have it, she is heading to Ecuador in a couple of weeks with her church. Like me, she sponsors a child in Ecuador. They are working on getting it set up so that she and her daughter can meet Gazella.





Of course, my thoughts started turning. What if they could meet my little girl, Delia? Could they take something to her?





Compassion International would love for us to be able to send things through the mail, but with things needing to go through customs, we are limited to small, flat, light items. So, I've been confined to sending a page of a coloring book, a few pictures, a bookmark, stickers, etc. These are all things that seem to delight Delia, but her birthday was June 1 and I so longed to send her so much more.





Compassion International does allow birthday gifts of a sort. You send a bit extra and the staff in the country appraise the needs and get the child something. I was happy to do this, but I longed for that personal touch.





So, I've been corresponding with someone from Compassion and talked to someone today. If I can get some things together and get them to Karrie, Karrie can hand them off to the staff that accompanies her child. Since it will already be in country, that staff will be able to eventually get the items to Delia.





I was on cloud nine thinking of it all afternoon. What could I send? It still must be light and easy to carry. As I talked about it with Julie, I decided that my first tactic would be to scout out my house. So, I've turned the place upside down and come up with several items for Delia as well as her family. As luck (and God) would have it, they are all very light and portable. I think the only things I might be picking up are a few pretties for her long hair and some hard candy that she can share with her friends.





God even helped me stumble on something I think is appropriate for her father. It's a very small pair of quality binoculars. When I was on staff with InterVarsity, there was a foundation that gave to my support. They always sent along birthday and Christmas gifts. Sometimes it was book. Other times it was this nifty little gadgety tool thing. Once, they sent binoculars. I had stowed them away, it seems, for just such a time as this.





Please pray that things continue to get worked out so that these small tokens can get to Delia. The are small tokens of my care for her and her family. More than anything I want her to know God's love.





Do you have a child with Compassion International? Please tell me about him or her!

Two Little Girls Hundreds of Miles Away -- Compassion International

I want to tell you about 2 little girls. They live hundreds of miles from me and each other. Yet, at this point our lives are intertwined.

The first little girl is Delia. She is just shy of 11. Her birthday is June 1! Happy Birthday! She lives in Ecuador with her mother and father. She likes to sing, tells stories, and play with dolls. I like knowing that she speaks Spanish. That was my language of choice in high school and college. Not that I could converse in Spanish, I still like it that I know a few words of her language.

The second little girl is Kayirngwa. (If any of you can help me on how to pronounce that, let me know. I think of her as Kay.) She lives in Rwanda, a country in Africa. She likes jumping rope, running, and playing group games. Rwanda is an HIV/AIDS affected area.

As you probably guessed, I sponsor both of them through Compassion International. Sometimes it is really tight to try and send, but I know they are counting on the money I send.

How did I end up with two so different countries? Both times I heard a broadcast about Compassion. One specifically mentioned Delia by name. It was one of those heart tug things. With Kay, I heard about a plug for Compassion again. Something tugged on my heart again. This time I asked about Rwanda. It was through a local organization and the volunteer said, "Rah - what?" They weren't sure if they had Compassion there but they would check.

I read about Rwanda probably 15 years ago or so when I read an IVP book called, The Good News About Injustice. It deals with the attempted genocide in Rwanda. The Hutu and the Tutsi are actually very close genetically. I don't remember the exact percent of ethnic similarity but I believe it was less than 1% difference. But throughout the years there has been great acrimony between them -- enough to cause mass slaughter of men, women, and children. Something about that book nestled in my heart and God nudged it that day.

I try to write to them once a month. Sometimes I manage it, sometimes I don't. I know that children like to hear about other children, so they often get tales of my adventures with the kids I know here as well as pictures of my cats.

I love getting letters back from them. Both, at one time or another, have expressed some confusion that I live alone. They want to know where my family is. How do you explain singleness to a child? Or how do you explain that family doesn't live close as they do for them? At one point or another, they have given me their advice. Kay thinks I need to join the choir at church. Delia thinks I should play some games with people. Both are great suggestions, but my church doesn't have a choir and I'm not sure what games Delia thinks I should play. Perhaps, she is thinking of sports.

Along with pictures, I've sent along blank pieces of colored paper or stickers. I love giving stickers to the children an Barnes and Noble. They have stopped quite a few tears. I cannot imagine how children who are poverty stricken might enjoy those little things.

With my friend Jill having just been on a Compassion trip, they have been on my mind more. I wonder what it would be like to visit them. Though, after reading Jill's blog, I know I cannot imagine the poverty they must live in.

Even in their pictures, I am struck that neither one is smiling. I wish I had a snapshot of smiles. But, it is perhaps, a reflection of the harshness of life they live. That, and I'm sure cameras and pictures are a novelty and maybe meant a solemn occasion.

At any rate, I pray for them and each month manage to save up the money to send. More than anything, I pray that they know the living hope that is Jesus.