When Sponsorship Ends

When we started sponsoring children through Compassion International, I never even considered what it would be like when our sponsorship ended. The first one came pretty quickly.

We sponsored Natalia in Colombia because she was just a bit older than our daughter at the time. It wasn’t too long after we started sponsoring her that we learned about her and her family moving. She ended up in an area that was not close to an existing church partner, so our sponsorship ended.

Our daughter wanted to sponsor another young lady in Colombia about the same age, so we started sponsoring Lina.

As we were able to start sponsoring additional children, we had numerous sponsorships end for one reason or another…one family pulled their daughter out of the program, one church did not have enough committed volunteers, one country ended up not being able to partner with Compassion anymore…

It was starting to seem like we were not ever going to have a long term sponsorship.

However, I have been very fortunate to have had the opportunity to visit two of our sponsored children more than once.

I was able to travel to Colombia twice. The first time in 2015, and again in 2019. I learned on that first trip that my letters to Lina helped to keep her in the program. Her previous sponsor did not send very many letters. When she started receiving letters on a regular basis, she decided to keep attending, and eventually completed her time as a sponsored child in the spring of 2022. As hard as it is not having any regular communication with her anymore, I am excited about her future. I spent 11 years praying for her and writing letters to her. For someone I have only spent a little bit of time with, that is a lot of time invested into the life of another person.

There is one other sponsored child that I have been able to visit, and did not even think about my time as his sponsor coming to an end anytime soon. There are things I learned about him and his family that definitely gave me compassion for him, and I realized why God connected me to him in the first place. I believed he still have quite a few years left as my sponsored child, so I was completely taken by surprise when I learned recently that my sponsorship of him has come to an end.

This is a situation that Compassion hopes will happen in many communities where they partner with local churches around the world.

The church where this particular sponsored child attends has reached a point where they no longer need Compassion’s support.

When I have been on Compassion trips, I have heard this many times.

Compassion wants to be there for the neediest of the needy. And when a community can get to a point where they say ‘thank you, please go help in another area of our county’, this is a reason for celebration!

But as a sponsor, this is still a hard thing.

The years of praying, letter writing, and the time I spent fundraising to earn money to be able to go visit him…I invested so much of myself into the relationship with this young man.

In my final letter to him, I reminded him that God is always with him. I reminded him that God wants to know him. I reminded him to cling to God when life seems overwhelming. My prayer is that he knows Jesus, so that one day, we can be in heaven together.

"I can't find Joy"

Last week, I was working the Compassion table at a leadership event. On the second morning, a woman came by and was looking at the child packets that were laid out on the table.

After a bit of time, I heard her say, “I can’t find Joy! She was here last night when I was looking at the children on the table.”

I had to let her know that maybe Joy was sponsored the previous night. So the woman kept looking at the children and I encouraged her to open the packets and read more information about the children on the inside of the packet.

She found one little girl from the Philippines and began reading. Then she said, “This girl is from the community that I am from!”

Even though this woman couldn’t find Joy, she found the one child that God knew she would need to sponsor.

Way back, when we started volunteering at Compassion events, we would be asked how people decide which child to sponsor. It wasn’t until my son and I went on our first Compassion sponsor trip, that I realized we are not the ones with the ultimate decision on which child to sponsor. We may think we are deciding, but I truly believe that God already knows which child each family needs to sponsor.

At this same event, I even found a new child to sponsor.

I wasn’t looking to sponsor a new child. But when I saw his birthday, I knew I needed to add him to my Compassion family. My daughter’s birthday is on December 6th, I read that he likes math, and I just received my first letter from his mom and she wrote that he likes the color blue. I loved math in school and blue is also my favorite color!

There are times when it is hard to find joy as we live through many of the challenges of this life. But I am thankful for the many reminders that God places in our life to keep our focus on Him.

Over the last two years, I have missed working at Compassion events, seeing kids be sponsored, and having great conversations with people about how Compassion is working to release children from poverty in Jesus’ name.

I pray we are moving into a time where more events will be held and I can help more people find a child that will be a reminder of the joy that can be found when we invest into the lives of others.

Write to your Compassion Child: Share the Gospel

When I was on my last Compassion sponsor trip in March of 2019, I noticed that one of the translators with us had on a bracelet with four symbols. The four symbols were a heart, a division sign, a cross, and a question mark. I asked him to share with me what the symbols meant. He told me he got the bracelet from a ministry called Cru. The bracelet is one thing they use to give people an easy way to talk about Jesus.

Basically, the heart means that God loves us, the division sign means that we live apart from God, the cross means that Jesus gave everything for us, and the question mark asks ‘will I choose to follow Jesus?’.

Have you ever shared the Gospel in a letter to your Compassion sponsored child?

This might be the best time to share the Gospel with your sponsored child, especially if you know they have not decided to follow Jesus yet.

I love that Compassion’s mission is to ‘release children from poverty in Jesus’ name’.

There is no guarantee that this life is going to be easy and without struggles and challenges. Our Compassion children and their families have to overcome struggles and challenges that we may never experience living here in the United States.

When they realize the eternal hope that Jesus provides, they are filled with so much joy like I have never seen on the faces of Christians living here in the United States.

As we prepare to celebrate the birth of our Savior this Christmas, consider taking the opportunity to share the Gospel with your Compassion sponsored child in your next letter.

Write to your Compassion Child: Bible Verse Image

Back in January, I shared a Compassion letter writing idea about creating a fun birthday photo collage to add to a letter for your sponsored child. In that post, I wrote about how I know our sponsored children love receiving photos in their letters.

In fact, on the Compassion blog, their latest post mentions that for little Kenenisa, “photos are his favorite thing to receive, and every time he gets one he makes sure to share it with the other children at the center.”

Over the years of writing to our sponsored children, I have sent many photos of our family.

But I also love to take photos on our days trips from some of the beautiful places we have here in California, then I add Bible verses using Canva, and add those photos to the letters I send to our sponsored children.

Here are a few I have sent over the years:

Your photos do not have to be taken with any super special camera. Some of the ones I have used for these Bible verse images are ones I have taken with my iPhone.

In the text of your letter, you can explain why that particular Bible verse is important to you and maybe explain a bit about the photograph. The more Truth we can share with our sponsored children, the more hope they can have and know that they have a loving Father who is watching out for them.

What Bible verses have you shared with your Compassion sponsored children?

Write to your Compassion Child: Sermon Notes

Back at the beginning of March, I wrote out the Bible verses from Matthew 6:25-34. It was reminder for me to not be anxious with all the incoming new’s reports that were coming in about COVID-19. We were getting ready for our son’s wedding, and I really needed a good dose of God’s Word to keep me grounded during that crazy week.

The online sermon I watched before we flew to Illinois for the wedding was from McLean Bible Church and David Platt, the pastor, preached a sermon on those same verses from Matthew 6:25-34. The definition he shared for the word ‘anxiety’ was this: “carrying concerns in this world in such a way that we lose perspective on life and/or lack of trust in God.”

Since March 15, I have watched almost all of the sermons from McLean Bible Church, have learned a lot, and have been encouraged by the sermons they are sharing each week.

This summer, they are doing a series through Philippians 4. The sermon from July 26th addressed the issue of anxiety again.

In this crazy time that we are living through, I know it has been a challenge for me to think about what to write to our Compassion sponsored children. So I thought, sharing some notes from the sermons I have been listening to might be the best thing for them to hear right now.

It is heartbreaking to read the updates from the countries where Compassion works through the local churches. We are living through a time that none of us has ever experienced before.

When I write letters to my Compassion sponsored children, I want to remind them of God’s love for them and encourage them as much as possible. I do not know when our letters will be delivered, but Compassion is encouraging us to continue writing to our sponsored children.

What has been an encouragement for you from the sermons you have listened to over the past few months?