Last Saturday, we organized an evening together with Compassion Switzerland. Some of you were there. A former Compassion sponsorship child talked about the impact the sponsorship had on his life. Without it, he would not have been the young professional that he has become. It gave him an incredible boost to become more than just a nameless kid from a disadvantaged family.
The story was impressive and moving. If you were not there: you missed something significant!
I have worked for an organization that organized both child sponsorship programs and granny sponsorship programs in Eastern Europe and East Africa. These are the two most vulnerable groups in societies: kids and elderly. In a lot of countries there is no AHV and BVG or other pension programs.
It was my duty to go check on those sponsorship programs that we organized in conjunction with local churches and Christian organisations. I have spoken to many sponsorship children and their parents and a whole row of grannies that received sponsorships from a “rich” sponsor from a western country. I have seen the impact on the kids or elderly that were brought together in a program to share community and togetherness. School tuition was paid for the kids, school uniforms were purchased, the elderly received medical care and (in Ethiopia) came together for a ‘coffee ceremony’ or in other ways supported each other.
If you click this link, you can watch a little clip from a few of those visits. Sorry for the poor quality, they are from two handfuls of years ago. Every time I come across those clips and watch them, tears spring into my eyes, and I know that sponsorships make a HUGE difference. And as the auditor of the projects, I can honestly say that by far most of these projects are squeaky clean financially. No penny goes to waste.
While I was in Tanzania, I met one of my ‘own’ sponsorship children and one of my ‘own’ grannies. Although it is some 10 years ago, I remember these encounters like yesterday. They are engraved in my mind forever. Until today, my wife and I have six sponsorships, two children, four grannies.
Why am I writing all of this?
It is simply, because becoming a sponsor is a splendid way to heed the call of James 1:27: Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress.
We all have food in our mouths, a roof over our heads and if we find ourselves in need, there is always somewhere to turn to. For kids and elderly in developing countries that’s just not the case. They go hungry, they get rained on in bed because the roof is leaky, there is no money to pay for school and no resources to get medical care.
I know, there are other ways you can implement James 1:27, so by all means, do it! Sponsorships are not the only way.
We have asked Compassion to leave a few ‘sponsorship files’ on our Welcome Table for a few weeks. Hook up with a child in a developing country that needs your support. To be fed. To sleep in a proper bed. To be able to go to school. Grab one of those files and let’s make sure we do something more than lip service.
See you Sunday,
Pastor Nico