A Compassion Blogger?

A few days ago, I signed up to be a Compassion blogger.

I became at Compassion sponsor in the summer of 2008, after my freshman year of college. 

Sponsoring a child was something that I had thought about when I saw a booth at a Christian event, but hadn’t ever had the means to do before. That summer, I went to CreationFest (which is awesome, you should totally go) and once again saw the Compassion booth. Although I was still a college student, I now had a summer internship and decided that I could save the amount it would cost for me to sponsor a child for a year from my summer earnings, and make it work.

I choose Gabriela, a girl 10 years younger than me who lives in Peru. I choose her because I thought that we had the same birthday (May 19) but I misread her information, her birthday is actually March 19. But that’s ok, I still love her anyway.

I’m coming up on the 5 year anniversary of my sponsorship of Gabriela, and although I haven’t had a full-time job at any point during my sponsorship of her, I have always been able to make it work, and it has never seemed like a sacrifice. I can’t profess to being a great sponsor. I’ve always been able to send her sponsorship money, and often extra for her birthday and Christmas, but I have a pretty poor track record when it comes to letter writing. She only gets 2 or 3 letters from me a year, tops. It is something I would like to change, especially since you can now write your child online through the Compassion website.

So the other day, I was poking around the Compassion website and discovered that there is such a thing as a Compassion blogger and that I could be one. I found the following description and thought, “I can do that.”

Blogging about children in poverty can be a simple but powerful way to raise awareness for the most vulnerable and needy children in the world. You will receive assignments once to twice a month via email with different topics on poverty that you can blog about.

I even checked the previous topics before I signed up to make sure that they weren’t big and scary. I also created a Compassion Sunday (April 21) website, to share my story and encourage others to sponsor a child. If two people sponsor a child through my site, Gabriela’s family will receive an extra $50.  I thought that since I tend to be a slacker sponsor, it was the least I could do. Click here to read about others who have done the same thing.

COMPASSION’S MISSION:

Compassion International exists as a Christian child advocacy ministry that releases children from spiritual, economic, social and physical poverty and enables them to become responsible fulfilled Christian adults.

Now, that’s something I can stand behind, can’t you?

Much Love,
Sarah

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’” :: Matthew 25:40 (NIV)