Compassion Episode 6

So the months came and went. A close friend of mine attended a Big Daddy Weave concert, and there she began sponsoring a little boy through World Vision. But I still stalled. It was not until the Sunday before New Year's I finally started doing something about the Lord's leading..
That morning at church, my dad preached on Nehemiah 5, where Nehemiah is condemning the wealthy people in Jerusalem for the way they were mistreating the poor - they were "helping" the poor by providing food for them, but making them pay back ridiculous amounts of interest on loans, and making them be slaves when they couldn't pay the money back. Okay, it's not exactly talking about sponsorship - in fact, it really doesn't have much to do with sponsorship at all - but God can speak to you through anything. That's one of many, many ways God is so indescribably much more powerful than us... when I write something, I can't make you see exactly what you need to see in it every time you read it, you read what I wrote and that's it. God's words are perfect for every situation because HE speaks to you through them!!! Okay, well, if I don't get back on subject, you aren't going to see anything about Compassion International in my words right now, LOL!
Anyhow, one line in the sermon really stuck out in my mind and made me think of Compassion. I don't remember what led up to this line, but Dad said, "Honoring the Lord means lifting up those who can't be lifted up."
"Lifting up those who can't be lifted up." Wow. In third world countries, these people often have no knowledge, ability, or even opportunity to be lifted up for their poverty. They suffer, and eventually they die in their struggle, because they cannot get the food they need, or the medical care, or the unsanitary conditions contaminate what little food and water they have, making them sick and weakening their immune systems. They can't afford anything better, because they can't get better jobs - either because jobs are not available, or they don't have the education for a better job. And they can't afford an education because they spend what little money they have on food. But we, here in America have more than enough. We can lift them up. No, let me restate that. THROUGH US, and OUR SERVICE to the Lord, GOD can lift them up.

"Honoring the Lord means lifting up those who can't be lifted up."

It reminded me of something Todd Agnew said at that last concert, while he was talking about World Vision. He was referring to the verse in the Bible where it says, ""The King will answer and say to them, `Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the LEAST OF THEM, you did it to Me.' (Matthew 25:40), and he was saying, "If we love God, we love them. If we serve God, we serve them," then, "If we honor God, we honor them." Wow.

One excuse I'd had not long before that for not sponsoring was that I needed a picture of the bow to put it on Ebay. We'd recently gotten a new digital camera since our old one had broken, and almost immediately lost the USB cord for it. As soon as we got home from church that day, I began searching for that cord. After pretty much turning the house upside-down looking for it, I finally gave up and decided to go ahead and take the picture... and if it was His will that I sell this bow, He'd help me find the cord to get it on the computer. So I did. Once I'd taken the picture, I went look for something else I would need in order to post the bow on ebay, and go figure. Right next to the other thing, was the cord to the new digital camera. Isn't God great!?!?!?!?!?
I was going to post the bow on ebay that day, but my parents suggested that I try selling it on a local radio program for buying and selling first. So I sent an email to the radio show mailbag asking them to put it on "barter bar." I only got one phone call about it though; that person said that he was going to call back later and then come by to look at the bow, but he never called back and never came. It was not until two weeks later that I posted the bow on ebay. Then the listing lasted a whole week.
Every night, from that Sunday when I finally decided to follow God's leading, until the night that my bow sold, I went on Compassion's web site, trying to choose a child to sponsor. Thousands of children there, needing a sponsor. In exasperation, I often thought how I wished that I could just sponsor every single one of them. But just one was a leap of faith. After this year, the money from the bow will be used up. How will I be able to sponsor a child?
Once I had limited it down to two little 4-year-old girls, ironically born on the exact same day. Even with all of the many, many pictures of children I looked at during that time, I can still picture those two little girl's faces in my mind. Melany lived (er... I'm assuming still lives) in Ecuador, and Sherly in Peru. I was determined I was going to sponsor one of those, but long before my bow sold, both of them had been sponsored. I praise God that those two at least didn't have to wait any longer! Once or twice, I made up my mind again, but with the same results.
Finally, the night after the bow sold, I went on Compassion's web site, ready to sponsor a child. I had a little girl picked out - a 4-year-old in Guatemala named Lilian. The only problem was, I had planned to sponsor a child on the "longest waiting" list (kids that have been waiting for a sponsor for over six months). At the last time I'd looked at Compassion's site, in all of Latin America there were no girls who had been waiting over six months. Before I sponsored Lilian, I felt God telling me to check just one more time. yes, now there were three there. He almost immediately led me to a 5-year-old girl in the Dominican Republic, named Jasmin. I filled out the form to sponsor her on Compassion's web site that night, and a little over a week ago, got my first letter to her in the mail.