Destination Experience Compassion Conference: Day 4

The big day had finally arrived!

After months of planning and 2 full days of driving, we would be spending the whole day at the Global Ministry Center for Compassion International!

On the way to the entrance of the building, this statue was my favorite.
Great reminder, right on the walls of the building!
Even though we were in for a full day, we arrived a little early so we could walk around the building a little bit. On this wall is a huge world map with highlights from each of the 26 countries where Compassion works.
This is the room where we spent most of the day with about 200 other attendees of the conference.
Matthew went up on stage before the room was filled, he looks pretty comfortable up there... :o)
Grant Norsworthy led us in worship to start off the conference
Then Innocent Mucunguzi welcomed us and thanked all of us for our volunteer work with Compassion. He challenged each one of to "sacrifice 5 minutes to write to your sponsored children. Sharing with them is caring."

After Innocent spoke, we were all off on a quick tour of the building. My favorite part was this mock up of a project center. There was a big screen at the front of the room with children singing. There were so many little details in here. I just have to go back so I can spend more time looking around.

Once we arrived back in the conference, we were able to take part in one very special treat!

This is a Skype session with GU930, a child developement center project in Guatemala. Since they are in the same time zone as Colorado Springs, they were able to get up, practice, and be ready for our 11am worship time together. We had a great time singing along with them! (I was really hoping to upload a video, but after waiting way too long, you will have to make do with a picture. Sorry!)

One of the most important things I came away with is that our sponsored children want contact with us. For the kids who receive letters regularly, their self-confidence is higher. Our letters do not release these children from poverty, but our letters give them hope. The little bit of time that we spend writing letters to our kids can produce a big outcome.

This was an amazing day I was able to spend here with my family!