For anyone who already sponsors a child through Compassion International, I don’t have to tell you how rewarding it is. If you aren’t already doing so, I highly suggest you check out their organization and see if there’s a child you’d like to sponsor. For $38, about one dollar a day, you provide a child access to a church-based child sponsorship program that provides so many wonderful things.

When families find out they have a sponsor, you can only imagine how overjoyed they are. Someone they will likely never meet reached out to help them in Jesus’ name, and the money that might otherwise go toward one more meal out or a new pair of shoes for us can do so much more for them. Here’s a video Compassion recently released of a family finding out their child has a sponsor. I can’t understand what they’re saying, but I don’t think I need to.

I also highly recommend getting involved with serving as a Compassion International volunteer at one of their sponsorship events. It’s very simple to do and only takes about five hours of your time. Wayne and I volunteered to help match sponsors with children at an event located here in Marietta as part of a Fresh Grounded Faith women’s event.

It only took five hours of our Saturday, and we helped match 26 children with new sponsors!

Now, I warn you, this can be addictive. It is so much fun to help people find the child God has in mind for them, to help them search the world over right at the table. Some folks had a country or gender in mind, but many were open to anything. We had one woman ask for a child with special needs, and we dug through the packets until we found the little guy she was meant to help care for. Others told us, “Give me one that’s been waiting the longest” or “Which one has the greatest need?” It was great to see so many people who wanted to help others.

Working the table as a volunteer made me realize how much I need to bone up on my knowledge of countries like Togo and Columbia. If I am more educated next time, I can point people towards the countries where children are at the greatest risk of sex trafficking or where AIDS is still running rampant. I knew enough to muddle through this time, but I want to be able to help people make the best choice when sponsoring a child.

The other warning I have is that once you’ve looked at these photos, you can’t stop thinking about the kids in them. As Wayne and I went through the unused packets after the event and saw how many children there were on the list who had been waiting more than six months for a sponsor, we decided to go through that priority pile and choose two more. Two of those 26 are now ours.

We are now the proud sponsors of four Compassion kids—Edmond in Burkina Faso, Paromika in India, Tania in Nicaragua, and Brayan in El Salvador!