More from the Compassion Bloggers trip to the Philippines…
You know what I think blesses and benefits me most as I follow along with these Compassion Blogger trips? It’s the clarity I gain in my spiritual vision. It’s the dividing line between what is really blessing and what isn’t always. It’s the finger of God pointing to what hope really is…for in our culture, there are so many things masquerading as hope that we often wind up chasing the wrong thing for most of our lives.
This post has two aspects to it.
Stephanie, who blogs at Keeper of the Home, wrote yesterday about how easily and quickly we in the United States forget the poverty that others live in on the other side of the world. But she encourages us…
[The kids] do not forget what sponsorship means to them. They do not forget how it has changed their lives.
Did you know that every child that we have asked can tell us the name of their sponsors and where they live? I had no idea. They know how many children their sponsors have, and what they look like, and often what they do for work. They anxiously await each new letter from their sponsors and treasure each one of them.
That is so encouraging! (I went and wrote my kids again yesterday. And today, after I read that only 7000 of the 57000 kids that are sponsored in the Philippines get a letter in any given month, I called to see if I can be a correspondent for another child. How can I not?)
Stephanie goes on to write:
Today we met 4 of the most phenomenal, Jesus-loving young women I have ever met. Meet Maann, Myra, Kleng, and Faith.
If you’ve ever wanted to know what the results of child sponsorship are, look no further. This is la creme de la creme. These four are Leadership Development Program scholars, a rigorous program designed to offer further opportunity for children who have been sponsored and are showing excellent potential as they graduate from high school.
The students must first be recommended by their child development center workers, who have noticed academic potential, leadership ability and Christian maturity in them. Then, they go through an intensive application process. Once selected, they receive free tuition and school supplies to go complete a university degree while receiving training and mentorship in servant leadership.
The results? Nothing less than phenomenal. As these precious daughters of the King each shared their stories and testimonies and dreams with us today at lunch, I and probably half of the other bloggers could not stop the tears from streaming down our faces.
Don’t let the beautiful, put-together, confident faces in these pictures fool you. These girls lived in dire poverty. In fact, they still do. We visited two of their homes this afternoon. Walking into their slum, down a narrow, pitch black walkway barely wider than my shoulders, I was actually afraid.
I had the privilege of talking in depth today with Kleng…
Go ahead and meet her…
I think these kids could teach me a lot.
This sounds like a really nice ministry, thanks for sharing.
What beautiful work you are doing, dear Katie…
Thank you so much for stopping by my blog. Thank you for your words of encouragement, for your thoughts, your prayers. They matter, they really do….
I've missed writing. I feel stuck. Don't know what to write about, don't know what to do with it all. It's been a roller coaster ride, these last 3 months… yet God is at work. I don't think I can yet fully appreciate all that He is doing in this time. I do know one day I will most likely see more fully!
Thank you again for your sweet words. They bless me more than I can state!