A team of writers live blogged a trip to Uganda this week with Compassion International. Friends of mine made the journey and they’ve taken me with them, sisters who smuggled me in their suitcase and shared their days.
But today—this? The dress. The bracelets. The letters. Oh my.
It was all the prompt I needed to click over to Compassion and look at the sweet faces of children who need sponsors like me.
You can choose a child based on criteria—country, gender, age, birthday, length of time waiting for sponsorship—but mostly I look at their faces. I found two precious little girls (literally: one was named Precious) and I went back and forth trying to decide between them.
I stopped to eat lunch and believe it or not, when I returned both girls had been sponsored. Surprised and pleased, I knew another child was meant for me.
At first I looked for the most pitiful children, the ones that other sponsors might ignore. My 12-year-old son wanted us to sponsor a little girl named Gift, but I wasn’t sure she was the one.
When I saw Sembooze, or Bumba, as he is called, I immediately noticed both his smile and his age: 16. He’s one of four children who lives with his mother, who works as a charcoal burner.
Can you imagine a single mother supporting a family of five by burning charcoal? I can’t.
I looked in that boy’s smiling face and I saw strength; humor; dependability. I imagine him as his mother’s rock and I want him to know that some woman in America looked at his face on a computer screen and saw him. Saw someone worth sponsoring, supporting, giving a fighting chance.
I want to support him so he can support his family. Entire families benefit from the sponsorship of one child.
I want to sponsor him so he can grow into the leader I see here, a strong male role-model.
How does it effect a life to know that someone believes in your potential?
A Forgetful Sponsor is Better Than No Sponsor at All
We’ve sponsored a child in Honduras for almost six years. I consider myself a forgetful sponsor; I don’t write and send gifts as often as I should, but I’m faithful to remember birthdays and Christmas. Our $38 a month makes a huge impact in Guadalupe’s life, but I want to give more than money. Sometimes we send pictures that the kids have colored for her or Bible story books with Spanish on one side of the page and English on the other.
Today I typed letters online to both of our sponsored children. You can send them in the mail to be translated and forwarded, or directly through Compassion’s website. Those are delivered quicker and you can choose fun stationery and even upload photos to be printed on your letter.
If you’ve got $38 a month to spare, please click the banner at the bottom of this post and make a difference in a child’s life.
Read all the posts from the Uganda Compassion bloggers here.
