Showing Some Compassion

When I get that tickle of a thought in my head and it just won't go away, I just know its meant to be...

The seed was planted a few years ago after reading about Kelly from Kellys Korner going on a mission trip for Compassion International.  For whatever reason, we didn't decide to sponsor a child at that point...

Well, Kelly recently went on another Compassion trip and I was moved to tears and that little seed started to grow.  I started to think and think about sponsoring a child--but, with the holidays here, I got busy and sorta forgot about it until after Christmas...

We tried really hard this year to "down-size" our gift giving to the kids--but, they still got TOO MUCH!  It's almost shameful to think about how much they got!  We are very thankful we have such giving families-- but its still TOO MUCH.  There are times I'm not sure my kids appreciate what they have.  There are days, I don't appreciate what I have.  We really try to talk our kids about kids in need; we have served several charities, we have bought gifts for angel tree kids, and filled Salvation Army stockings...but, I long for them to have a deeper understanding of the world and kids who live in poverty.  I want them to share their love for Jesus by helping the most needy!!

So after feeling a huge calling....we signed up to sponsor a child last night!!!  We are so excited and they kids were thrilled to help!  We printed her little picture/info and the girls made about 20 copies and her picture is now pasted all over our house!!  We can't wait to get her info packet!!  The kids have already started drawing pictures and keep talking about how they like to sing and play house just like her! 

The "hardest" part of the whole process was picking which child to sponsor!  There are so many and all of those little faces are just precious!!  Of course, a debate started about if we should pick a boy or girl...so, we put boy and girl on pieces of a paper and drew it out of a hat.  Then we took the average of the kids ages...age 8.  We entered the info in the computer and it showed 97 girls age 8!!  Oh, all those faces!!  One little face stuck out to me, but the kids wanted to keep looking.  We then decided to look at the list of  girls who have been waiting 6 mths or longer...and the little face that stuck out to me was second on the list.  Everyone decided she was the one! 

Miss Chona Mae! 

When we clicked on her info, I was taken back that she shares the same middle name of my sweet mamaw--the one I was the closest to growing up!  and her birthday is the same as my parents anniversary...the day after Christmas!! 

We are in love and are so excited to help Compassion help this child lead a better life!!