Compassion International
I would recommend perhaps instead of the normal “Christmas” pile of gifts that you may normally get this year at Christmas, that you might request an alternative gift. Compassion is a Christian charity organization that allows you to “sponsor” a child somewhere in the world. The commitment is $32/month, but your sponsored child is receiving not only meals and education, but is receiving Christian instruction. All of this is managed through a local church in the are of your child.
To view the “grade” that Charity Navigator gives it, click here. There is plenty of information for this organization on the web. I had concerns about the actual instruction children would receive, but I found that not only does Compassion focus on the physical well-being of the child, it focuses on the education of the child, as well as the Gospel. So, this organization takes care of the “whole child” as it were, not just a part of his/her life.
Tim Challies (a reformed blogger) will be blogging about a trip with Compassion to the Dominican Republic in November. He will band together with others to blog about the job that Compassion is doing throughout the world. Please stay tuned to his blog for more information in the month to come. If you’ve been to a Christian concert in the last few years, Compassion is the organization that these musicians discuss during their concerts. They usually have a sign-up booth there in the concert hall. If you’re like me, though, I didn’t sign up there in the concert hall, but rather prayed about it, researched the organization, and then committed to it after knowing it was what God wanted me to do.
As American Christians, surely we can give up 1 Christmas worth of presents that we, ourselves would receive to sponsor a child for an entire year, right? We have been sponsoring a boy named Samuel from India since last December. It has been a blessing to do so, even though I’m not very good at writing letters back to him. I wish I was less lazy.
Whether or not you sponsor a child through Compassion International, please consider how this year you might be able to tangibly help those less fortunate than yourself not only physically, but spiritually as well.
This entry was posted on Saturday, October 4th, 2008 at 9:50 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
