Make April A Month of Compassion

HELLLLOOOOO my friends! I'm very excited this evening because check it out, today my husband and I received our packet for Compassion Sunday. What is Compassion Sunday? Well, I'm glad you asked! Compassion Sunday is the day when Compassion International sponsors share their stories with their church. Wyatt and I have been sponsors for several years. We sponsor a child in Ethiopia and a child in Columbia. What that means is we write a $32.00 check each month for each child, and 83.5 percent of that money goes to provide these children with education, health screening and monitoring, developmental activities and delivery of the gospel. Best of all, we can communicate with our children with letters, postcards and pictures, and we get letters and pictures back! So, we watch them grow. We have not been to visit them yet, but that is an option. (If you're not familiar with Compassion International, check it out here. It's a great way to make a difference in a child's life.)
ANYWAY, Wyatt and I will be hosting a Compassion Sunday at our church on April 13. And today, we recieved our box-o-stuff! So that's what I'm doing tonight, checking out the goods for the lil' boogers we hope to find sponsors for. (poor grammar, i know.) I guess that should be, "for whom we hope to find sponsors." whatever.
So, I 've been going through the papers and forms and seperating the stuff for Wyatt and I from the Church Staff stuff, and I came to the Child Packets. Pictures and info on 10 children in desperate situations and you know what happened then, right?

"Oooh, Honey....look at this guy!" and "Look at her, isn't she sweet?" and "Ooooh! His eyes, look at his eyes! Honey, look!" (at which point Wyatt replies, "Uh...he's not a puppy.")

Well, obviously, we can't adopt them all, folks, so I hope and pray people will step up to plate this month and sponsor a child. Because really now, would you be able to send these pictures BACK to Compassion and say, "uh, sorry. We couldn't find anyone for these children." Hm. No, I just don't want to do that. I would MUCH rather email them to send us more packets because all the children we have info on have been adopted! So, be praying y'all.

In the meantime, here are a few stats to consider.

*Americans spend over $2 billion per year on chewing gum---eight times what they gave to children in need globally, through UNICEF, in 2005. (pitiful, don't you think?) (www.heartlandscience.org/agrifood/gum) (www.unicef.org/about/annualreport/2005/finances/income.html)

*More than 170 million children in developing countires are malnourished; 115 million do not attend school. (www.unicef.org/media/media_36237.html) (www.unicef.org/media/media_35905.html)

*Before today is over, nearly 30,000 children under the age of 5 will die from preventable diseases and related causes. (www.unicef.org/media/media_35898.html)