Dragos, 13, of Romania, with his gifts.
Dragos, 13, of Romania, sent me this wonderful photo of himself with gifts he purchased using a family gift I sent to him. According to his letter, he bought: “a jacket, a tracksuit, pajamas, oil to cook, rice, beans, sneakers, t-shirts, preserves, pens and many other things.”
I think his smile in this photo is better than all of those items together!
I received this photo from Andrei in Romania after sending his family a financial gift earlier this year. It looks like he got quite a few clothes, and I’m so happy to see that he got something fun – a soccer ball!
His letter:
“My dear friend,
Thank you so much for the wonderful gift you sent me. Thanks to you, Easter holidays were wonderful. My family and I are grateful for your goodness.
We will pray for you!
God bless you!
With love,
Andrei”
Virgin Mary icon card
Sponsoring a child could be described in many ways.
Giving is one word that sums up a sponsor’s role well. It covers the spectrum from giving money to financially help a child to giving love and encouragement through letters and giving small gifts like stickers and coloring pages.
But what happens when the giver receives a gift in return?
I recently found out the answer to that question.
Last week, I opened a letter from my sponsored boy Dragos, 13, of Romania, whom I sponsor through World Vision. Tucked inside his lovingly-written letter was a small photo of a painting of the Virgin Mary. He wrote, “I’m sending you an icon of Virgin Mary to protect and to bless you and your family.”
It left me completely humbled.
There are a lot of gifts I receive from my sponsored children without them even being aware that they are blessing me, like words of love and gratitude, beautiful drawings and the occasional photograph.
So what made this gift so different and so special?
This is a child whose poverty is great enough that he is enrolled in a child sponsorship program. This is a child whose parents are unemployed, living in a poor, rural area, and raising six children. But this boy sought to bless me.
And he did.
And as Jesus explains in the following verse, the effect was far greater than most gifts.
Luke 21:3-4 – “I tell you the truth,” he said. “This poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”
Samuel, 6, Colombia
Sometimes I’m just going along, living my life, and suddenly God’s Timing jumps up and surprises me!
I don’t know why it’s always a surprise when it happens to me. Maybe it’s because as I get bogged down in the details of the day-to-day, it becomes easy to forget that God is working in my life. His timing is always perfect, and that doesn’t necessarily relate to our imperfect lives and world.
Regardless, it’s always a pleasant surprise when it happens.
One time, it went like this:
It was a typically relentlessly hot August afternoon. I was at home, hanging out with my kids, hiding from the afternoon sun on our couch and watching movies, waiting until the worst heat of the day had passed so we could spend the evening swimming. I heard the mailman drive past outside, and being a Compassion sponsor, I can pick out the sound of the mail truck like a mom who zeroes in on her child’s cries on a crowded playground.
Naturally, I slid on my flip flops and headed outside to check the mailbox in hopes of hearing from one of my sponsored children. The possibility of finding a cream-colored Compassion envelope in the mailbox was definitely a small price to pay for braving the desert heat.
And this time, I was rewarded for my effort! I rushed back into the house, plopped back down on the couch, enjoying the cool AC, and tore into the newest letter.
This one was from Samuel from Colombia. He was 6 years old, so his tutor at his Compassion project or his mother always helped him to write his letters. As I unfolded the letter, I was surprised to find several pages stapled together. Samuel’s letters up to this point rarely filled half a page, so I wondered what was going on.
As I began to read, I realized this was no ordinary letter. It was two full pages written by Samuel’s tutor in July, and she had some bad news to relay.
Samuel’s mother had suffered a stroke and was currently hospitalized. She suffered paralysis on her left side. And Samuel, who was living with his aunt temporarily, at the time wasn’t allowed into the hospital to see his mother for fear of upsetting him too much.
Samuel’s tutor let me know that she was picking up Samuel each day, bringing him to the Compassion project, feeding him lunch and taking him to school and back home. She also let me know that Compassion had been notified and was offering all the support and help possible.
As I took in this bad news and tried to comprehend what this all would mean to Samuel, I continued to read. I ‘d barely gotten through the explanations of his mother’s medical issues, when the letter’s tone turned thankful.
It turned out, within days of Samuel’s mother going to the hospital, the family gift I had sent to them back in May had arrived. It was only $100, but it came at a time when this woman, who already struggled to support her child, was facing a scary health problem, an unknown amount of time in the hospital and likely mounting medical bills.
Samuel’s tutor described how she and the Compassion project director visited Samuel’s mom in the hospital, and that she was able to recognize them. She said they told her about the gift, and that Samuel’s mother “expressed a faint smile of gratitude.”
And I sat there in my living room astonished that such an easy act for me, logging into my account and sending that gift to Samuel two months before, had arrived at just the right time for this family. It was clearly God’s Timing at work.
I couldn’t know in May what this single mom in Colombia would be facing in July, but God knew, and he used that simple act by one of his children in the United States to bless one of his children in Colombia at just the right time.
I’m thankful for that special glimpse of God’s Timing, and humbled that he would bless me by involving me in some small way. It occurs to me that the gift I sent in May not only helped Samuel, but it also helped me.
Receiving news like that, I definitely would have wanted to help out in any way, but what could I really do for Samuel with so many miles separating us? I could have sent a gift right away, but financial gifts generally take two months to arrive. I could send Samuel letters, cards and stickers, wishing him well and letting him know I’m praying for his mother, but again, those would take a couple of months to arrive, so would have no immediate effect.
With God’s Timing, I could rest assured that I had done all I could do, and all that was left was to pray for Samuel and his mother and leave the situation in God’s hands.
What can you do with $100? Pay your cable bill? Take your family out for a nice meal? Buy a new outfit?
I’m sure you can think of many ways to spend $100, but what do you have left when that money is gone? Is it anything that made a lasting impact on your life? More important, is it anything that made a lasting impact on someone else’s life?
Take a look at what you can do for someone else with $100.
Roxana from Guatemala was able to purchase groceries and clothing.
Esteban from Nicaragua, who lives with three young brothers and their single mom, was able to purchase a stovetop with two burners.
Paula from Colombia purchased food for her family.
Zainabu from Ghana purchased items that her mother could use to make food to sell at the market.
Compassion allows sponsors to bless their children with monetary gifts above and beyond sponsorship. These can be birthday gifts, family gifts or even general gifts. The gifts can range anywhere from $10 to $1,000, and one hundred percent of the gift goes to the child, with no money taken out for administrative costs. Compassion restricts the amount of money you can send to your child in order to avoid creating dependence in the child’s family or jealousy within the community.
When you send a monetary gift to your child, it is changed into the child’s local currency and transferred to the Compassion office in his country. A Compassion representative then meets with the child and his family to decide what items are most needed before going to purchase the items.
It can take up to two months for this process to take place, but when the gift money is spent, the child will write a letter to you detailing the items purchased. Sometimes, depending on the resources available in your child’s center, you will receive a photo of your child with the gift, too.
These gifts can help your child’s family tremendously. The average income in the communities of the children pictured above varies from $42/month (Ghana) to $147/month (Colombia), so giving a monetary gift is a great opportunity to help your sponsored child.
“Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the Lord your God which he has given you.” Deuteronomy 16:17
Giving Gratefully 