about six years ago, i went to a michael w. smith concert on the “songs for worship” tour. they had a table for compassion international child sponsorship, and dubya (the singer, not the president 
) made a big push from the stage for people to give up less than a dollar a day to feed, clothe, and educate a child in a very poor part of the world.
i browsed the inventory, chose a kid who looked cool, signed up, took the packet home with me, and prepared to play a meaningful role in the life of this young man, who would no doubt be a doctor or the president of his country or any one of a number of worthy pursuits, all because i was champion of charity, the king of compassion.
i never mailed a single check.
the boy never received a single letter from me.
i recently found out that if a sponsored child doesn’t receive their first payment within the first ten days, they are automatically re-entered into the system so that somebody else more responsible and compassionate can sponsor them. this is no doubt quietly referred to as the adam deweber clause. since that time, i have felt guilty (with good reason) every time i’ve seen one of their commercials or walked by their display table at a conference.
so, this past week at the leadnow conference in dallas, i didn’t walk by the table. i walked up to them and signed up to sponsor a little girl from el salvador named wendy, who is just a little older than my daughter. gretchen is in charge of mailing the checks, so i know it’ll get done . we have wendy’s picture up on the firdge, and ella and i pray for her whenever we walk by it.
we don’t really have any extra money to send to anybody, and we’re still trying to get rid of a house in atlanta that absolutely is drowning us financially, but we still have been given so much more than wendy and her family. and for only about thirty bucks a month we can show her god’s love for her by feeding her and clothing her and educating her (eventually…she is only three). so we’ve taken the step of faith to do that, trusting that god will provide us a way to save wendy from poverty.
i’m also sticking this compassion international widget in my sidebar. you can click on it and sponsor the child in the photo. if you’re brave enough to take my challenge, save somebody’s life today.
here’s a photo of wendy.
Posted on November 20th, 2008 by deWeb
Filed under: Uncategorized
