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Sunday, September 02, 2012

September

So you may have noticed the Compassion badges over there on the right. This month, I will be telling you a bit about why those are there.

Our family has been familiar with Compassion's Gift Catalog for a while now, and I've always respected their financial transparency. In addition, several of the bloggers I read have been on Compassion trips, and I've followed their writing as they saw firsthand the work that Compassion centers throughout the world are doing. I've seen pictures and read stories of children pulled out of poverty and given Hope and a future.

So when our family decided to "sponsor" a little girl a few years ago as part of our journey into Advent Conspiracy, we chose to do so through Compassion. But Amy, you ask, why the extraneous quotation marks? Because we are not the ones paying for this sponsorship; my mom pays the monthly sponsorship fee as our collective family Christmas gift (Advent Conspiracy, and all), and we spring for birthday and Christmas gifts for Diana and write her letters. It has been such a neat thing, watching Diana grow up, getting her letters, having her tell us that she's praying for us. Each year my mom asks if that's what we want for Christmas again, and each year we all--the kids included--have said, Absolutely!

And then, after Shaun's concert, we chose to sponsor--no extraneous quotation marks--two more kids, Caleb and Derrick. We're excited to see these little ones grow up healthy and hopeful, too.

I say all of this not, not, NOT to toot any sort of horn, but to speak from a bit of experience and perspective. To give you an idea of why I support Compassion's work. To assure you I'm not asking you to do anything I haven't done.



Because September is blogging month for Compassion, and I'm going to be asking you to sponsor a child. I'm blogging with lots and lots of other people in the hopes that together we can help pull 3,108 children out of poverty in Jesus' name. Join me this month, and let's see what we can do.

**For the sake of transparency, you should know that I will be receiving prizes for my participation: ebooks, books, and a shot to win a spot on a Compassion trip. For more information, or to join in the blogging fun, you can read about blog month here.

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