Children

Over the weekend, I had a chance to volunteer with Compassion International and a great team at a local church to encourage folks who came to see the passion to considering sponsoring children.

There, I had the chance to meet a sponsored child from Kenya who was there to share his testimony with the audience. He is now an adult and is traveling around the US to share his testimony on how the sponsorship turned his life around. Thanks to his testimony during the event, many folks came to our booth, ready to sponsor a child. We were literally quite swarmed! At the end of the night, exactly one hundred children were sponsored! How amazing!

My favorite story of the night came almost at the end, when the crowd had dissipated and a 10-year-old boy walked up to me and started looking at the many photos of children on the tables. He was part of the passion play and still had his makeup on when he came over. At first, he didn't have any questions. But as he looked at the photos, he began asking many great questions about sponsorship, writing letters etc (he even asked if he could meet the child!), and he became increasingly excited about possibly sponsoring a child. After getting his answers, he was ready to make a commitment (by doing extra chores at home to start with!) and I asked him to talk to his parents. His mom told him that if he found a child with his exact same birthday, they would sponsor the child.

With the help of a couple of his buddies, he found her! The girl from India had the exact same birthday. He was very excited about it, and his countenance was beautiful (which had nothing to do with the makeup). He was going to make a difference in his new friend's life.

It was an incredible testimony. This boy had such faith that he was not thinking at all about having to do extra chores to help someone he had never met. He was not afraid of making the commitment. He received the calling and he went with it with confidence and joy.

It might be said often, but volunteering is not all about giving; volunteers are often blessed in unexpectedly marvelous ways. That night, I was blessed beyond measure to meet a young man who was once a sponsored child, and to see one hundred families made commitment to sponsor children, to make a difference in their lives. I didn't know the stories of all one hundred sponsors, but I know the one about this 10-year-old boy who is going to make an eternal impact, one child at a time.