March Compassion Share & Tell

Welcome to my monthly Compassion Share & Tell post! This month, I am sending just a few things to my Compassion kids. 

Here is what I am sending to my Compassion kids this month

What are I sending?

• Sunbeam Smiles stickers - found these at a local Bible book store
• DaySpring cards - these are cute 99 cent cards in Spanish! I found these at a local Bible book store, but we did see them at Hobby Lobby too.
• Spring bookmarks - are you following Compassion on Pinterest? I sure hope you are! So many ideas to print out and create for our sponsored children!

Inside each of the cards, I have written, "I am so thankful for you!" I don't believe we need to send a long letter to our sponsored children each month. These simple things will let our kids know that they are in our thoughts and prayers.

I don't know about you, but wouldn't you love to receive something like this in your mailbox? I know when those cream-colored Compassion envelopes arrive in the mail, they sure do brighten my day!

Want to share what you have mailed recently to your sponsored child? Leave a comment below, or if you have a blog, join the blog link up. I love to see what other sponsors are sending to their Compassion kids!

My Empty Shelf Challenge Update #1

When I was a kid, I loved to read (and actually, I still love to read!) In our home library, I have my battered, well-loved paperback copies of the Little House series of books that were read many times as I was growing up. During high school though, reading became a chore as we were 'forced' to read what I considered dry literature and then write about it. To this day, I find it hard to write reviews about books. Sometimes, it is just simply hard to put into words how a book has affected my thinking and my outlook on life.

But like I said, I still love to read and can devour many books over the course of a year. At the end of last year, Jon Acuff announced a challenge on his website, The Empty Shelf Challenge. Basically, start with an empty shelf on your bookcase, and as you finish reading books through the year, you add them to this empty shelf. At the end of the year, you can see all the books that you have read!

Now, I have never been one to make book lists before. It would have been really great if I kept a list of books we have read during our homeschool years, but we haven't (and I do really regret this, but anyway...) But, I do have a Goodreads account which makes it very easy to now keep track of books that I want to read, as well as books that I have finished reading.

I set myself a goal that I would like to read 24 books this year, which easily breaks down to two books per month. So, how have I done so far with the challenge? 

Filling up my Empty Shelf

Well, since the challenge was announced at the end of December, I have completed 12 books! You won't see all of the books on my shelf, since I am working my way through books on my Kindle also. If you didn't click the previous link, here is the list of books I have finished so far:

• The Reluctant Prophet by Nancy Rue
• Unexpected Dismounts by Nancy Rue
• Too Far to Say Enough by Nancy Rue
• My One Word by Mike Ashcraft
• Notes from a Blue Bike by Tsh Oxenreider
• Whispers of Hope by Beth Moore
• The Warrior by Joyce Swann
• Understanding God's Heart for Children by Jennifer Orona
• Crazy Love by Francis Chan
• Working with the Poor by Bryant Myers
• The Hole in the Gospel by Richard Stearns
• Sycamore Row by John Grisham

It is never too late to start a reading challenge. There is even a Pinterest board you can join to share the books you are completing this year.  

Tackle It on Tuesday: Pinterest Spring Burlap Bunting

Last week, I shared with you a fun project I had found on Pinterest to make a Spring Pom-Pom Burlap Bunting. I already had most of the supplies on hand, so on one afternoon, I cut out all of the burlap and fabric.

Spring Burlap Bunting supplies

Taking the time to cut out all of the burlap and fabric was the longest part of this project. Plus I had enough supplies to make four of these. The quick and easy part was using the glue gun to put it all together! Overall, I was able to put these together over two afternoons.

Four finished projects!

So you might be asking, "What is she planning on doing with four of these?" Well, I am glad you asked! Last year, I used my Gifts from Our Little Corner Facebook page to post things for sale to earn money for our Compassion Mexico trip. Because I would like to go on trips in the future with Compassion, I am going to continue using that Facebook page to post items for sale. So, if you would like to purchase one of these for your own home, be sure to pop over to my Facebook page and let me know which one you would like!

Now onto my project for this week...

Craft room clutter

One of the blessings of having an extra room in our home is an area to work on craft projects and having an additional area to store things. One of the drawbacks of having an extra room is it kind of becomes a dumping ground for a lot of things...ugh!! And most of this clutter is my own doing. Now that my daughter's drama performances are over, my goal is to spend time this week putting these things where they belong. Wish me luck!!

Compassion Mexico ME983 - Part Two

Today, I am going to continue sharing about our last full day in Mexico at Compassion ME983.

One thing we found at this center that was so different from the two others, these kids were a little more reserved...that is, until we started getting them to chase after us. This is when we saw the big smiles and started hearing the laughter! In the above video, Matthew and Rebecca had tons of kids joining them. Such a simple fun activity, and everyone enjoyed it!

Then it was time to do our VBS (Vacation Bible School) activities with the kids. A few of us had prepared songs, a craft, a skit, and a couple of games to play with these kids. The kids were separated into four groups to go through each of the stations in a rotation. Matthew went out with the game group, and I had the song group. Thankfully, we had a translator with us and had fun with the kids while we taught them a couple of songs.

I first learned this song in the summer of 2012 when our family was back at a Compassion conference in Colorado Springs. At that conference, Grant Norsworthy led the group of us singing this same song as we Skyped with a project in Guatemala.

This one was a simple song to teach the kids, plus with the motions, they caught on pretty quickly! We weren't really sure how the song time was going to go because the people here speak a slightly different dialect of Spanish. But for the most part, we seemed to do okay!

Love all these smiles!

Now, I can't remember at this point if I took some of these pictures before our VBS time or after, but I just have to share a few of them with before I finish up this post.

One more game of futbol

Matthew and Rebecca played a game of soccer with the kids. Do you see these kids are playing barefoot?

Getting ready to say goodbye

Much too quickly, our day at this center was coming to an end. It was time to load up into the back of the cattle trucks for our return trip to our bus.

Beautiful cloud filled sky

God provided an amazing day for us at this center, even with the travel set backs and language barriers. We were able to see the hope that Jesus is providing to the many families in this community. It was really hard to believe that our time in Mexico was almost over.

The kids running after us as we were leaving

As you can see, quite a few of the kids ran after us with cries of 'Adios!' I wonder if any of us will ever have a chance to go back and visit with these kids. I wonder what an impact our visit made on them. I know that I will never forget our time here, or at any of the centers we spent time at on this trip.

It feels so cliche to say it, but going on a Compassion trip truly is life changing. So many memories and smiling faces that are etched into my brain and into my heart. And I am so thankful for the many people who helped me to make this trip possible. God worked a miracle, like only He can do!

Compassion Mexico ME983 - Part One

Life has been incredibly busy around here since we got back from Mexico! Here it is two months after we left for the trip and I am finally having a chance to write about our last full day in Mexico. This day was full of adventure! And because there is so much to cover about this one day, I am actually breaking it up into two parts.

Before I tell you about our day, let me tell you about the community we were on our way to visit. Jol Sacun is a jungle community in Chiapas, Mexico with approximately 900 residents. Most adults in this community work on plantations and earn about $128 per month. Typical houses in this area are constructed of cement floors, wood walls, and tin roofs. The most common language spoken here is Tzeltal. At the time of our visit, there were 177 Compassion children registered at Sc'uxul yo'tan Cristo Student Center.

Unlike the other two days when we visited student centers, we were all together as a group today. So we loaded up on the bus really early in the morning and started our long trek to the student center. Well, once we left the main road, our large bus had a bit of trouble navigating the windy, basically dirt roads we were traveling along. At one point, the bus actually got stuck! We were on the border of a small village when this happened, which ended up being a really good thing!

Friendship bracelets for the children

While the leaders in our group were working to figure out how we were going to get the rest of the way to the student center, we started passing out friendship bracelets to the curious kids who were gathering around the bus. Before our trip, some of the young ladies at our church came over to our home and helped us make quite a few friendship bracelets. I wasn't really sure when or where we would pass these out, but God already knew we would run into this group of children. He is amazing like that!

So any guesses on how we traveled the rest of the way to the student center? Would you believe me if I told you we traveled in the back of cattle trucks? No? Well, here is a video to prove it!

Our group of 30 or so people divided up into the back of three cattle trucks and traveled an additional hour (yes! I did say one hour!) to the student center! I have to tell you though, it was probably the best way for us to travel for this portion of the trip. The area was so lush and green and beautiful, we would have missed so much being in the bus with the tinted windows.

On our way to Compassion ME983

We finally arrived!

A few greeters

By the time we finally arrived (about 2 hours after our anticipated arrival time!), most of us needed to make a quick pit stop before we all made our way into the church for the beginning of our time here.

Very full church!

They had all of us come to the front of the church and introduce ourselves and tell them where we live. The kids even recognized some of the names of the states, even in English!

Very curious, but shy children at this center

We were really behind our 'schedule' even before we arrived with our bus trouble. So after our initial greeting, we all made our way back to the cattle trucks. We split into three groups and went with three different families to spend a little bit of time with them, helping them with some of their daily activities.

Picking coffee beans

Our family group was paired with this family and we spent about 15 minutes helping them pick coffee beans.

Matthew doing his share of the work

Fifteen minutes worth of coffee bean picking

Did you know that coffee beans look like oval cranberries when they are ripe? I didn't either! Because we arrived so late, we only spent about 15 minutes with the family helping them pick the coffee beans. Then it was back to the student center for lunch and the rest of our afternoon, which I will share with you in part two. So stay tuned!