Precious In His Sight

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Let me tell you a secret: I'm afraid of rejection.

I have to talk myself into making phone calls to people I've never spoken to before, rehearsing the information I need, and how I need to go about getting it. I don't want to choke up mid-conversation and look like an idiot (perceived rejection, in a way).

This may also play into not liking to speak in public--at least to people I don't know (and am therefore not comfortable around).

But this is not about me. I told you that story so I can tell you this one.

I can relate to rejection, or at least I pretend I can. I honestly can't imagine living with the day-to-day implications of being born a girl in a society that despises girls but prizes boys. And yet it happens every day in India.

The Fall 2008 edition of Compassion Magazine included an article entitled "Precious in His Sight", about this very topic. The article begins by telling the story of Sarojini, who was a poor mother from a poor community.

Angry that she had given birth to two daughters instead of sons, and fearful that her unborn child might also be a much-despised girl.

"I already have two girls and even the wealthy cannot manage dowries for two daughters," she says.

The practice of offering a dowry — money or property brought by a bride to her husband at marriage — has been illegal in India since 1961.

But it is still commonly practiced and contributes to high numbers of female infanticides as well as to abortions of female fetuses.

I'm so glad for Compassion's work in India, to provide services for women like Sarojini, who have no idea how they'll care for multiple girls. Also, they've been able to convince some women to carry their babies to term and give up their unwanted female babies for adoption, through Compassion's work with a local orphanage.

It breaks my heart to think of any child as unwanted for any reason, but even more so for the simple reason that they are born a girl and not a boy (or vice versa, for that matter).

Please click here to choose a girl in India to sponsor. Please take the opportunity to share God's love with a precious girl, letting her know that she is wanted, that she has a purpose.

Or, you can also help sponsor a Child Survival Program in India (or another country, if you so choose). You'll be given a choice of which program to support on a monthly basis for $20.

Additional note: you may also make a one-time gift to CSP if continued sponsorship is not in your budget at this time. If you wish this donation to help child survival programs in India, please make a note of that in the section for "special instructions" at the bottom of the form.

Please keep these precious girls in your prayers, as well as their families and the Compassion staff who work with them.

Ok, so this doesn't have anything to do with Compassion...

But I've been keeping my cell phone with me all day, ever since about 10:30 this morning when my brother texted me and said that his baby is arriving today.

A few weeks ago my sister-in-law was admitted to the hospital (over Christmas) because she had gone into pre-term labor. Doctors managed to subdue it, causing her to not be nearly as dilated, and discharged her to bedrest at home. After an exam this past Monday (@ 34 weeks), she was readmitted, having dilated to 5cm, for more observation and whatever kind of drugs they give women to hold off the labor process.

Finally today she was dilated enough for the doctors to determine that the baby was coming anyway. At about 3pm local time doctors manually broke her "water", so the baby should be coming any time now.

They still don't have a name picked out; tossing around a few different ones. I'll repost when there's anything to tell.

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6pm update. Baby has been born. A 6lb, 18" boy.


7am 1/17 update. Baby has been named Riley Jacob. Glad he finally has a name. Jacob was one they'd been thinking about from the beginning, so I may still mentally call him Jake, at least until he's old enough to decide what he likes, and then he'll let me know!

Compassion's Blog

If you haven't visited Compassion's Blog recently, you might consider making time to stop by for a cup of coffee.

Today's post tells the story of a teenager in India whose sponsor letters got her through many tough times. It is an excellent reminder of just how important it is for your sponsored children to receive letters from you. (If you don't currently sponsor a child, check out the 10 I blogged about recently, or Compassion's website.)

Yesterday, Amber wrote about a child center visit in Haiti, in such descriptive terms that I felt I was right there with her. What hit me was the request for prayers--for the art teacher to be able to afford Bible college to become a pastor; for the project accountant, who asked for sponsors to pray for him and the other center workers as they work with the children. And the closing thoughts relate, even though it wasn't a specific prayer request. The man who showed Amber around, when asked if he liked it in Port-au-Prince where he grew up, he said no--he'd rather be anywhere else--but he stays, to help the children, to enable them to have big dreams for a future, where otherwise they would still be believing the lie of poverty: that they are worthless, without a purpose or a future.

Thanks to all the Compassion folks who make these updates possible, from the bloggers themselves, to staff workers who share stories, to whoever puts out the prayer updates on Twitter.

Thank you, Gabriel

Thank you, Kim, for sharing the story about Gabriel being so excited to go to church that he wakes up his mother--and that he wants to be a preacher because he enjoys church so much.

Thank you, God, for bringing Gabriel into my life, so that I can be reminded of how we're supposed to be--excited to attend worship services, but also having the exuberance of children.

Thank you, Gabriel, for being an example for me. I pray that you will grow into a fine preacher, that you will never lose your excitement and joy as you grow older, and that you will be able to share that passion with others in your community. Share it now!

May I be more like you, passionate about my Savior and loving to fellowship with others at church.

A peek into the life of my sponsored child

All Thursday evening (January 1 in the Western Hemisphere) I was praying for my cousin's visit with my sponsored child on Friday, January 2. By the time I went to bed at 10:30 or 11:00, I figured that the visit might be going on. I wasn't sure whether it would be a morning visit, or afternoon, or an all-day event. All I knew was that Indonesia was 12 hours ahead of me.

I had to practice patience all weekend: Friday here was night-time for my cousin; then she had to fly back to where she lives (on Saturday, I think), get situated, and have access to a computer long enough to download pictures from her camera and compose an email telling me all about her visit.

Finally I had an email in my inbox this morning! It's too long to include the entire thing here, and all the pictures too, so I'll just summarize and pick out the important points to quote directly.

The pastor, Jimmy, and a Compassion representative--Samuel--accompanied my cousin and her friend on the visit. They saw the room where they hold the children's activities, and went to Gabriel's home. The student center program meets 3 days each week, with the children divided into two classes with 5 teachers working with each class, where they do games, learning activities, Bible lessons, and have a meal. Gabriel says he enjoys it.

I was glad to get information about the family, including the ages and genders of his siblings (he has an older brother and sister, and a younger brother--the youngest is 5, his sister is close in age to Gabriel, being still in primary school, and the oldest is in middle school). The 5-year-old was described as very talkative and playful, and the sister warmed up after a while. The oldest brother and father weren't there for the visit.

The mother washes clothes to bring in a bit of income, and the father cuts and refines stones into smaller usable pieces for building. He makes about $50 a month.

What a difference in financial situation--I got a $50 gift card for Christmas and used it to buy a watch; the band on my other, $5 watch was breaking. I spent on a WATCH what Gabriel's father makes in a month, to provide for himself, his wife, and four children.

"He is only in first grade, having been held back a bit before starting. I must tell you honestly, Judy, so that you may pray, that he is very mentally slow. No one knows if this was a birth problem or bad nutrition or what else, but he is notably slow to speak, to act, and to think. He took 20 minutes to draw a tree picture for me, and his teachers say this is normal. So let us pray, trusting the God of wisdom and knowledge, to heal him totally and advance his mind and restore it to normal! Partly because of his delay, and partly because of his shyness I think, he was very hesitant to speak to me. His mother mostly talked, and she and the leader said he is always quite shy.

"But...the neat thing is she said the one thing he really gets excited about is to go to church! She said every Sunday he wakes HER up and tells her they need to go, and even when he was sick recently he pushed to go. And he wants to be a preacher! I really probably got him to speak 30 words to me the whole visit, but the one thing he looked at me and answered was when I asked "do you want to be a preacher?" and he looked straight at me and said "yes, I want to be a preacher. I like church very much." Bless the Lord, and may he become a powerful minister of the Word, even overcoming his learning disability by the Spirit!"

God knew Gabriel needed a sponsor by the end of August of last year, so that his medical bills in September could be covered by the sponsorship fees rather than the Unsponsored Children's Fund, or perhaps not getting proper treatment at all.

"In September he was very sick, and they took him to the government hospital. He was told he had tuberculosis and hepatitis, but Pastor Jimmy did not believe it. Since they had your money, they moved him to a private better hospital, where they said he had neither of those but had typhoid fever. A few days of typhoid medicine later he was healed! If he had stayed at the cheap government hospital he may still be sick.

"We ended the visit with Pastor Jimmy praying for them, for you, and for us, and the mom seemed very happy we were there. She asked that you pray she and his dad can keep their work steady to provide for the kids and Gabriel would stay well. She said to tell you thank you and she is praying for you as well."

This is a real family. Gabriel is more than just a picture on my desk. The children on display at a concert or other event, or on the website, are not some random children taken by an organization out to get our money. This is an organization devoted to helping real children, who honestly need help, and by helping one or two children in a family, it helps the entire family, and the ministry spreads to the community.

Warm clothes for Thai children

I asked Compassion for updates on Asian countries--other than India--as most of the stories and updates I've come across are from Africa, Central/South America, or India. I'm not downplaying the updates that we receive--the majority of countries where Compassion works are in Central/South America. But perhaps I have a special heart for Asia, since my sponsored child lives in Indonesia.

Through Twitter, I was informed of a need in Northern Thailand. They've been having very cold temperatures lately, and the children need warm clothes. I was asked to pray that this need would be met.

I will most definitely pray that this need will be met. However, I know that God answers prayer in situations like this by using people to meet the need. Only rarely is there a miraculous answer to prayer.

What I'd like to know is--how can we as regular folks help meet this need? If we're talking about kids at Compassion centers, it may be best for us to donate to a specific fund, earmarking the money for Thailand. If we want to help people in general--not specifically the Compassion-registered children, but everyone--perhaps there are relief organizations currently working in the area where we can send money to purchase clothes and blankets, or else we could take up clothing drives and ship them to Thailand. This will likely take longer, however, and the need is now.

But where to send the help?

Ok, I just called Compassion, and the gentleman on the phone told me that while clothing needs are generally covered through the $32 sponsorship cost, if there's a need such as this that doesn't fit neatly into one of the other funds (Global Food Crisis, HIV/AIDS relief, funds specifically set up for natural disaster relief in a certain country), the best fund to donate to would be the "Where Most Needed" fund. Partners of Compassion would likely also help.

If you'd like to make a contribution to help provide warm clothing for children in Northern Thailand, please go to the Make a Contribution page on Compassion's website, select the "Where Most Needed" fund and enter the amount you are able to give. There is a checkbox at the bottom of the form (below where you put in your contact information), that opens up a field where you can note the funds are for clothing for children in Thailand.

If God is not laying on your heart to donate to this particular need, please look over the different funds set up and prayerfully give where God leads you.

Gabriel's Blanket is finished!

I finally finished Gabriel's blanket today! I had to wait for Michael's to restock the brown yarn I started it with (I bought out the bin), and then I had asked for a few skeins for Christmas (from my mom), so rather than go buy it myself, I waited. I'm glad I did, since I would only have bought enough to finish it. She bought enough to finish it, and a lapghan to match.


I finished it on a good day. Counting ahead 12 hours, my cousin will likely be waking up soon on the day she's visiting Gabriel. I'll be praying...that it goes well, that they both enjoy meeting each other, and that I'm able to learn about Gabriel and his environment/family/situation, etc. I pray that Gabriel is blessed knowing how much I care about him, even though I couldn't be there myself, and how much God loves him too. I pray that my cousin is blessed with the visit--although I'm not sure how. She already has a heart for the people, having lived among them for the past several years (although in a different part of the country). I wish I could be there with them!

Happy New Year!

Has it really been almost a week since my last post? For all I thought I'd be bored on my forced vacation while my school was closed (I used to live for a two-week vacation; this year I was ready to go back to work after one), I found ways to keep busy.

I rounded out 2008 by finishing one afghan for my Gabriel's Blankets stash, am almost finished another (hoping to finish it today), and have begun one requested by someone traveling to Peru on the next Compassion Sponsor Tour. Other than that, I went to see a couple of movies with my family and hung out with my boyfriend around his schedule--retail ain't nice for it's employees' "life" between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Oh, by the way, may I put in a plug for the movie Slumdog Millionaire? In case you haven't heard of it, it traces a young man who wins the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire--he's suspected of cheating, but he knows all the answers because of his life experiences (which we see through flashbacks). I wonder just how much "real-life" is portrayed when they show his childhood in the slums of Bombay. I've heard that Compassion doesn't have any child centers in Mumbai (I checked Compassion's info releases after the recent terror attacks), but it's likely about as close of a glimpse as I'll get into the life of one of our Compassion kids (at least the city-dwellers) short of going on a sponsor tour myself.

New rabbit trail--visiting children. My cousin lives in the same country as my sponsored child. She's taking a holiday to a guest house near where Gabriel lives, and Compassion is allowing her to visit him on my behalf. She's scheduled to visit tomorrow (Jan. 2)--although, I have to keep in mind that she's 12 hours ahead of me, so it's already 8:30 pm where she is. This will be the first visit for any child at this student center, so I can hardly imagine what kind of a stir her visit will cause. This will be another post, as soon as I know anything! :)

To get back to my original train of thought--what do I hope to accomplish in 2009? I hope to be a "good sponsor" to Gabriel, and to my correspondence child Nells. Writing frequently, praying regularly. I hope to step out of my comfort zone as an Advocate and be willing to get up in front of people and give a presentation if necessary. I hope to complete at least three more afghans for Gabriel's Blankets in addition to any that are commissioned.

TTFN!