I am a big fan of what Wess Stafford and Compassion International are doing to reach children across the world.  I was first introduced to Compassion when my parents started sponsoring a girl while I was still in high school.

I started sponsoring David, a boy from Colombia, with Compassion back in 2007.  His birthday is six days before mine; he’s turning the big double digits this year – 10 years old!!

Compassion provides letter forms to me so I’m able to communicate with David.  I fill out the left side of the form in my own handwriting and mail it to Compassion in the pre-addressed envelope back to Compassion.  They send it on to Colombia where their translator fills in the right side of the letter form and then it gets delivered to David.

When David gets a letter form, he fills it out and sends it back to me.  It’s an incredible experience to read his handwriting and hear what God’s doing in his life from several thousand miles away.  There’s a personal side to it.  That’s when you know Compassion is more than just a child sponsor program.

The cost of sponsoring one child is $38 per month.  That’s it.  That’s a little over $1 a day!  (How many less lattés is that?…)  With plenty of child sponsorship programs out there you might ask, “How do we know that most of that money is going towards the actual child and not just “administration costs”?”  Compassion is open and honest about their financial information and work hard to provide the maximum amount of care for the children with the resources that they have.

Compassion partners with the child’s local church to provide help for the specific child that you sponsor.  You’re partnering with Compassion and the child’s local church together to make a difference in that child’s life.

Here are some ways that you can get involved with the ministry of Compassion:

• You can sponsor a child through the Compassion website..
• Popular Christian recording artists like Jeremy Camp, Hillsong United, Bebo Norman, and others are official advocates of Compassion.  You can get more information at their concerts.
• Churches can host a Compassion Sunday to highlight the ministry of Compassion and give people a chance to sponsor a child that same day.

There are many more ways that you can get involved with Compassion and make a difference in the life of a child.  D.L. Moody said that if he had the chance to start his ministry life all over again, he would have focused on children.

Sponsoring David has been a great experience for both of us and it’s a bigger ministry than just writing a check each month.