A COMPASSIONate Christmas, Part 2

(To sponsor a child with Compassion, just click here. For more of my posts about Compassion click on the category on the right.)I'd like you to meet Luis. That's him right over there, beside these words you're reading. Luis lives in Riobamba, Ecuador, which is pretty much right in the middle of the country. He just turned eight-years-old last month. His dad works as a mechanic and his mom sometimes works as a maid. He's got four other siblings.

Luis is the first child that Liza and I began sponsoring with Compassion. We've been sponsoring him for over three years now (I think). There's various reasons why we chose each of the children that we sponsor. We basically chose Luis because he likes cars. I know. It's not the most noble or deep reason, but that's the reason. I like cars. Well, more specifically, I like Volkswagens, but I thought that was somethign that Luis and I would have in common. Plus, he was really young when we began sponsoring him. We wanted a child who was young so that we could sponsor him for a long time. Plus, we were sitting together on our couch on the Compasison website looking through various pictures of kids wondering how in the world we were supposed to decide. I mean, how do you pick the one that you're going to sponsor, that you're going to get to help? How do you pick the one kid that's going to have their future completely changed because of the work of God in their lives because of Compassion? It seems like an impossible choice to make because when you're thinking about it you're considering all of the other children's pictures that you're looking at that need a sponsor that you're going to say "no" to. But then you stop thinking about it. You notice one. He or she just jumps out at you for some reason (maybe it's a yellow jacket). And you know that you're going to pick him. You're no longer focused on any child you're not going to get to help. Instead, you're completely overwhelmed with the honor that you're going to get to be a small part of this kid's life and that it's going to be better because of you.

That's a pretty great feeling.

So, there we were, looking over all the pictures, and we picked Luis. I was also happy that he was living in Ecuador because we at Student Life and Servant Life work with Steve Thompson and Camp Chacauco down there. So, I thought if I ever visited there I might could meet Luis. About a year-and-a-half ago I got to go to Ecuador, but, unfortunately, I wasn't able to arrange to meet Luis. That's cool, though. I hope to take Liza there with me sometime so that we can both meet him.

Luis and I do get to write letters to each other, though (all sponsors and their children write back and forth; in fact, it's one of the most important things you can do as a sponsor). Luis is better at writing letters and more faithful at it than I am, I'm ashamed to say. He's really smart, advanced in his class, and his letters are always full of lots of questions about me and what I like to do and what it's like in America and everything like that. He speaks and writes in Spanish, obviously. So, it also gives me a chance to practice my meager language skills.

One of the best bonds that Luis and I share is prayer. Whenever we write to each other we always let each other know what we are praying for one another and ask if there's anything we can pray specificaly about. It's awesome for both of us to know that somewhere on a different continent in a different hemisphere is someone that cares about us deeply and is always praying for us.

That's about as good as it gets.

There's any number of reasons you might choose a specific child to sponsor. Be as picky as you want. You might want to sponsor one in a country you've visited before so that you know something about the culture. You might want to sponsor a kid in a country you want to visit so that you might have the opportunity to meet them one day. You might want to sponsor a young child so you might track with them longer or you might pick one of the older kids because they're the ones less likely to be picked in the first place. You might want to sponsor a child who's the same age and gender of you're own child or children so that they can correspond with someone like them that lives completely different from them. Whatever the reason, I promise the problem won't be knowing which one you want to sponsor. It will be stopping at just one.

So why stop?

To find a child like Luis right now, go ahead and click here. There will be pictures of a bunch of kids. You can hit refresh to find more or use the tabs on the left to search for one more specifically.

Thanks and Merry Christmas.