It works!

I hope, at some point, you've noticed the "Compassion" banner on the blog...
My family has sponsored a young lady in Haiti for 10 years through Compassion International and it has been a blessed experience to watch her grow and see how she has matured through the letters we receive. In addition to our correspondence, we are able (but not required) to send gifts for her birthday and Christmas. Compassion staff pick out gifts that mean something to her...and we have the knowledge that she knows there is another family in this world who love her.

One telling incident during our time as a sponsor: We received continuous email updates after the devastating earthquake in January, 2010 until "our" girl was located and they were able to give us the wonderful news that she and her family had escaped without injury. Compassion International lives up to their name.

But should you remain a little skeptical, here is some further proof in USA Today that sponsorship is worth it!

In case you're interested:
How to Sponsor a child
How your sponsorship helps
Compassion's financial integrity
FAQ's about sponsorship

I know times are tough but it's worth doing without one cup of coffee or a soft drink each day in the knowledge that "as you have done this for the least of these my children, you have done this for Me".

Acts of love...

Samantha Ford has a sticker on her car that reads "Half my heart is in Afghanistan". Imagine her surprise when she came out of a Dunkin Donuts Monday and found the following:

Sometimes it's easy to believe that there is no kindness left in the world. Acts like these should remind us God's love will never be overpowered by evil.

Beloved

In the midst of the extreme, sometimes painful, reality in which many of us live, we must teach ourselves to continually reclaim the truth that we are God's chosen ones. Even if it "feels" like our world does not choose us. As long as we allow our choseness to be determined by everyone who surrounds us but God, we will be suffocated by the agenda of others.

If we are the chosen of God, how do we claim it? Live it? One step is to affirm ourselves daily with the words that Jesus heard from above..."You are my beloved. With you I am well pleased." 

God loves us wherever we are in our walk with Him. He needs no convincing. We speak these words to convince ourselves that this unbelievable, unimaginable gift is ours. Everyday.

The only US citizen...

to have a national holiday dedicated to him. You know of whom I speak, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Next to his "I have a dream speech", one of my favorite passages is:

"If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composted music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, "here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well.""
(Based on Ecclesiastes 9:10, Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might...)

But perhaps one of his most profound quotes is, "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."

Christmas restored...

This story reminds us that there are people out there who want others to see the Christ in Christmas...

A similar random act of kindness happened at a Kmart in Indianapolis, where a young father wearing dirty clothes and worn-out boots, stood in line at a layaway counter alongside three small children.
He asked to pay something on his bill because he knew he wouldn't be able to afford it all before Christmas. Then a mysterious woman stepped up to the counter.

"She told him, 'No, I'm paying for it,'" recalled Edna Deppe, assistant manager at the store in Indianapolis.

"He just stood there and looked at her and then looked at me and asked if it was a joke. I told him it wasn't, and that she was going to pay for him. And he just busted out in tears."

Before she left the store Tuesday evening, the Indianapolis woman in her mid-40s had paid the layaway orders for as many as 50 people. On the way out, she handed out $50 bills and paid for two carts of toys for a woman in line at the cash register.

"She was doing it in the memory of her husband who had just died, and she said she wasn't going to be able to spend it and wanted to make people happy with it," Deppe said. The woman did not identify herself and only asked people to "remember Ben," an apparent reference to her husband.

Deppe, who said she has worked in retail for 40 years, had never seen anything like it.

"It was like an angel fell out of the sky and appeared in our store," she said.

The full story is here...

Secret Santa...

Just in case the holiday season is not what you'd hoped it would be...just in case you've begun to question the world and how we view Advent...just in case you just needed it...



Here is the story from the local paper...