One Day at a Time

I'm a planner. I like to know what the future holds. I like it when things are predictable and routine. Not to say that I'm inflexible or that I can't be spontaneous -- I enjoy surprises as much as the next person, as long as they're good surprises. :) But when it comes to major life issues, I get really edgy when I'm not sure how things are going to pan out.

So you can imagine my battles with anxiety when my entire life is tossed up in the air and I have no idea when or where it's all going to come down. Right now, that's where I'm at. I know I'm probably moving, but I'm not sure when that's going to happen, nor am I sure exactly where. I know my job is changing to some extent, but it's anyone's guess as to how the issues with the agency I contract from are going to turn out. They could be little changes or big ones. And if they're very big, it's most likely going to mean that I need to seek a different employment situation altogether. And that, of course, ties into when and where I'm moving. And will the house sell? Will it sell fast or slow? What if I have to take a job elsewhere before it sells? Or what if I sell it too soon and I have nowhere to live here before I find a job elsewhere? All these questions and unknowns are totally stressing out this planning mind!!!!

I have to constantly remind myself that although I don't know what the plan is, God knows the plans He has for me, and they are plans to prosper me, and to give me hope, and a future. When I get anxious about all the decisions that have to be made, and the waiting that has to occur in the meantime, I keep reminding myself God is in control of the whole thing, He already knows how it's going to pan out, and I can trust Him that He'll work it all out for good.

But I still hate not knowing.

When discussing how to seek the will of God in matters such as these, I often hear people complain that if only we had the benefit of the Israelites in the wilderness -- the cloud by day and the fire by night. Why, how easy it would be to follow God's will if it were that cut and dried. But would it really be so much easier?

I don't think we cut those poor Israelites enough slack. We judge them far too harshly. I really don't know that we would have made any better decisions than they did if we were in their places.

I was listening to the book of Numbers this morning as I was getting dressed, and the following passage really spoke to me concerning my current situation.

Numbers 9:19-23

When the cloud remained over the tabernacle a long time, the Israelites obeyed the Lord's order and did not set out. Sometimes the cloud was over the tabernacle only a few days; at the Lord's command they would encamp, and then at his command they would set out. Sometimes the cloud stayed only from evening till morning, and when it lifted in the morning, they set out. Whether by day or by night, whenever the cloud lifted, they set out. Whether the cloud stayed over the tabernacle for two days or a month or a year, the Israelites would remain in camp and not set out; but when it lifted, they would set out. At the Lord's command they encamped, and at the Lord's command they set out. They obeyed the Lord's order, in accordance with his command through Moses.

I put myself in those Israelites' sandals as I heard these verses read. For two days, or a month, or a YEAR? Can you imagine? You're following this cloud, and it stops. You have no idea if you're going to be picking up and leaving again come morning, or if you might be stopping here for a few days, or you might be living here for the next year!! You have no way to plan anything. Do you unpack your things and settle in? How long do you live out of your "suitcases" expecting to be leaving the next morning before you decide you must be staying here for awhile and unload everything? How do you set up playdates for your kids and dinners with your friends when you have no idea if you'll be on the road again? I would find such a life so totally frustrating and would be anxious all the time. And can you imagine after a few months goes by? Good grief, God, I thought you were taking us to some Promised Land and here you're leaving us stuck out here in the wilderness for months -- are we EVER going to get anywhere? Or for those who were among the "over 20" set who knew they weren't going to make it to the Promised Land, EVER, what must they have thought? They probably loved staying in one place for a year -- and dreaded seeing that cloud moving them onward. Onward to where? Why must we pack up our things and move when You've already told us we don't get to enter the Promised Land anyway? Why can't we just settle somewhere else and stay put?

No, I don't envy the Israelites, and I don't know that I could have been as obedient as they were in this order. I might have obeyed it but I certainly wouldn't have had a good attitude about it!!

So anyway. I guess God wants me to take a lesson from the Israelites today and live day by day, waiting for His leading, and trust that He will get me to my Promised Land in His good timing. I have absolutely no reason to be anxious if I truly believe what I say I believe. And so I will remind myself each morning to look for the cloud to see if it's moving, and not worry about where tomorrow's cloud might take me, but just keep following today. I only hope I can be as obedient as the Israelites in this particular matter... :)

Bad Habits, Hungry Children in Africa, and Other Odds and Ends

So back in February when I was doing all the Compassion blogging, I mentioned that there was a teenager in Uganda I had my eye on and was hoping someone would sponsor him. I never followed up on that comment.

Somebody sponsored him. I did. You see, four sponsored kids was a stretch. I just really didn't feel comfortable sponsoring a fifth child. It's not like another charity where if you find yourself in over your head, you just call a phone number and reduce or discontinue your donation. There's a real child on the other end here! I knew if I decided to sponsor a fifth child, I had to commit to continue that support until the child exits the program. Yes, Compassion does allow you to discontinue your sponsorship if you should need to do so, and they will look for a new sponsor for your child and they won't be dropped from the program, but I personally could just never do that to a child.

Well, young Milton was really on my heart for a couple of weeks. I really felt God was leading me to sponsor him, but at the same time, I knew the money to do so simply wasn't there. I've heard many a sermon about going out on a limb and trusting God to supply the need and all of that, but to act on it? Well, that was scary.

In a ministry team meeting a few weeks previously, it had been shared that the money Americans spend on ice cream in a year is nearly three times the amount it would take to supply enough food to everyone in the world (this amount being in addition to what is already being given), and nearly twice the amount it would take to supply not only food, but also clean water and health care to the entire world. (again, the additional amount needed to meet these needs)

It really convicted me -- that's just ice cream! How much other trivial stuff do we spend money on every day? If we just gave up HALF our ice cream intake each year and gave that money to these causes, everyone in the world could have enough to eat, clean water, and health care!? That is just mind-blowing.

So as I became convinced that God definitely wanted me to sponsor Milton, and convicted regarding the ice cream statistics, I made the connection between the two and realized that what I was being asked to do was to give up something I currently was spending approximately $32 a month on and give that money to sponsor Milton instead. The money would thus be supplied. I really put a lot of thought into what that could be. I rarely eat ice cream, so that couldn't be it. I thought through my daily and weekly purchases, and was glad as I realized I'm really not much of a trivial spender. I have a lot of things, but those things are already purchased. As far as ongoing expenses, I'd already given up a lot of trivialities, such as cable tv, netflix, newspaper, etc. The remaining expenses were pretty essential. (And I'm self-employed and internet is a necessity for my business so not even that could be gotten rid of, thank goodness, because I'm afraid I'm just not good enough at heart to give up the internet even to save a starving child -- what a woefully selfish person I am...)

So anyway, after great thought, I finally settled upon my "sacrifice". Potato chips. It's a good idea anyway. It's my one unhealthy habit still remaining after working hard for many years to totally "clean up" my diet. But I was so addicted to potato chips that despite my high priority on my health, I just couldn't bring myself to get rid of them.

Now here's the funny part. I didn't decide to totally stop eating chips. I was going to vastly reduce the amount eaten. Limit myself to maybe a couple of bags a month, instead of the 3-4 bags a week I was accustomed to eating. Yes, I am a potato chip fanatic. They were a healthy brand, at least!! :)

So anyhow, I make this decision -- greatly reduce the chips, it's good for my health, and it will save me the amount of money I need to sponsor Milton. So I sponsored Milton. The very next time I went to the grocery store, I laughed as I noticed they were out of the particular type of chips I always purchase. "Didn't trust me not to get them, I see, so you took care of it for me," I laughed with God.

But the next time I went, they still weren't there. And I looked carefully and the STICKER WAS GONE!!!! It's been two months now, and they're still gone. I haven't had my potato chips that I was totally addicted to in TWO MONTHS. And they say you can break an addiction in that amount of time, but my friend, they are wrong. I crave those chips every bit as much today as I did the first day I was deprived of them.

Another odd thing has occurred lately. I've been dropping pounds like crazy. I had no idea why. It was becoming quite alarming -- I was losing about a pound a week, and I don't have it to lose. I was thin before; now I'm dropping to dangerously low weight levels!! I tried eating more, and more, and more, but it was never enough and the pounds just kept going away. I know, I know, there are many out there who would kill for that problem, but let me tell you, it can be very frightening to have your weight dropping so quickly to levels that make you look positively emaciated. At last, it finally occurred to me. THE CHIPS!!! Of course!!! 3-4 bags of chips a week, a fattening food, suddenly GONE from my diet altogether! No wonder I'm dropping weight like crazy!

So last week I purchased one bag -- just one -- of the most similar chip on the shelf. The same BRAND. Just a plain chip instead of rippled. How different could it really be??? And remember, I said I was reducing my chip intake, I never said I was giving them up completely!! So I felt perfectly entitled to that bag of regular chips. Especially since I can't seem to stop the weight loss any other way.

That chip was just not the same. Not the same at all. I won't be settling for THEM again.

I've gone so far as to look up the company to see if they stopped making the rippled chips. After all, the other five varieties sold by this brand are still on the shelf at the store!!! And I certainly bought enough of those rippled chips that the store should not have discontinued them for lack of sales!!!! The company apparently still makes them. And I can order them online for $36 a case.

$36 for a case of potato chips. $32 for Milton's monthly support. Do I really need those chips?

I didn't think so.

Want to give up your own "potato chips" or "ice cream" or whatever it may be, and sponsor a child? Click here.

If His Eye is on the Sparrow...

... then I have to wonder what on earth He's thinking about this robin on my deck.

I have an insane bird living in my yard. Several days ago, I kept hearing a bang outside -- every few seconds, I'd hear it again but it wasn't a consistent rhythm. I finally went to investigate but saw nothing unusual. I went back to getting ready for work, and within a minute, I started hearing the noise again. I checked again, but nothing. I began to walk back to the bathroom but then hesitated, just barely within sight of the kitchen window and the french doors in the dining room next to it, the area from which the sound was coming.

I stood quietly waiting and sure enough, about a minute later, the sound began again, only this time I could see what was causing it. An enormous robin was standing on my deck just outside my french doors, and kept flying halfway up and slamming into the glass. Again and again, he did this, until I walked toward the doors and he flew away. I opened the door, looking around to see what the attraction might be. No nest in sight anywhere. Nothing unusual at all.

And yet as soon as I left, he did it again. And again. And again. All morning long (at least until I left for work) this robin kept flying up and slamming into my door.

The next morning, I heard the familiar noise again. I kept trying to scare the bird off, but he just kept coming back for more. I have no idea why this bird wants in my house so badly, nor why he hasn't figured out after a hundred attempts that he can't get through that glass. At last in frustration, I got a blanket and managed to hang it inside the door, thinking that if it no longer looked clear, he would stop. He did, but made a couple more attempts first!!

So I left the blanket hanging there a couple days, and no longer did I hear this crazy banging on my door. I figured it might take a couple days for the bird to find a new occupation and break the habit he has apparently formed of slamming into my door.

Last night, I took the blanket down. As I write this post, I hear the consistent BANG! SLAM! FLUTTERBANG! CRASH! against my door again.

Are there any bird psychologists out there? WHY does this bird want so desperately to get in my house, and how can I make him stop!?!?!? He is driving me nuts!

Six Degrees of Separation

I'm not fond of Facebook. I think it's a mess, to be quite honest, and it doesn't seem that most people use it for anything more than sending invitations to any number of silly applications that force you to invite 12 more people to be able to do anything with it and taking a bajillion quizzes that tell you essentially nothing. However, I'm there nonetheless, and last night, I discovered an interesting feature.

Facebook informed me that it had a list of people that I might know and wish to add as friends. It listed 30 people. Strangely enough, I really DID know about 25 of them, and I have no idea how Facebook figured out that I knew them. Most of them were on the "friends list" of people who are on my "friends list", but even so, there are hundreds of people on the friends lists of my friends, most of whom I don't know. How did Facebook guess with such a high accuracy which ones I did?

Well, you can't see the profiles of people until you add them to your friends list, but you can see who is on THEIR friends list, and by doing exactly that with some of these people that turned up on my "People you might know" list, I was fascinated to discover all the connections that I never knew existed.

For example, I clicked on the name of a girl that I knew from my old church. (How Facebook knew I knew her has me floored. We don't live in the same city. We didn't attend the same schools. I have nothing about the church on my facebook account to indicate we knew each other from there. She is not even on the friends list of any of my friends. How in this world did Facebook know I knew her? Kind of eerie.) So I look at HER friends list, and I see a little girl that I used to watch when she was in kindergarten, of course not a little girl anymore. I look at her list and find the son of a missionary I knew as a child. I look at his list and find the little brother of a friend I had in junior high. On his list I find... my cousin that I didn't even know was on Facebook. Who knew! On his list, I find a 2nd cousin... on my OTHER side of the family that THIS cousin is not related to. I link from there to another 2nd cousin, and what do you know, her list contains the name of a little boy I babysat one summer when I was in college, as well as one of my sister's best friends. The connections go on and on, no matter whose name I click on, I find SOMEONE on their friends list that I also know, and in most cases, had no idea that those two people knew each other because I do not know them from the same place.

It really makes you realize what a small world it is. If you have a Facebook account, I encourage you to try this experiment for yourself. It's a lot of fun to see who knows whom, and you can find people you haven't even thought about in 20 years. :o)

We interrupt this blog for a special promotion...

Let's be frank. Household products do not enthuse me. I know some people rapturously extol the wonders of this product or that, but I just don't get into that. Sure, there are products I like, products I prefer, but it's nothing to get excited about. At least for me.

But today I made a discovery. A household product that I can get excited about.

Dusting is not a particularly hated chore, by any means, for me. I hate washing dishes. I'm not fond of scrubbing bathrooms. But dusting is fine. I don't know how often one is "supposed" to dust, but I probably don't do it frequently enough, because I'm not a scheduled housecleaner. I clean things when I notice that they need to be done, not once a day, once a week, once a month, etc. And therefore it's not likely that I am going to dust unless I notice a layer coating some shelf or knickknack or piece of furniture. But then I dust everywhere. As I said, it's not a dreaded chore, but it's not a chore to get excited about either.

Well, all that is in the past, ladies and -- well, I guess it would be a stretch to think that a gentleman would have read this far in a post about cleaning the house... However, I discovered a product today that has entirely changed my viewpoint on dusting. Dusting has instantaneously become my very favorite chore ever and one I will greatly look forward to each day... for I can't imagine not dusting every single day now, knowing that I will get to use this product each time I dust.

What is this amazing product? Swiffer cloths... but not just any Swiffer cloths... those are pretty nice in and of themselves, but goodness, I've been using them for years and they aren't anything I've gotten overly excited about once the newness of their initial discovery wore off. These are very special Swiffer cloths... they are scented with febreze. Now I noticed at least two fragrances available on the shelf, and perhaps there were more. I typically don't buy fragranced products -- first, I usually would prefer to skip the fragrance and spare my nose anyhow, and second, I figured the added fragrance is just that many more toxic chemicals to inhale. However, there did not seem to be any unscented ones available, and I was completely out, so I was stuck buying the fragrant swiffer cloths.

I don't know about the other fragrances, but the lavender vanilla scent has got to be the most lovely scent I have ever smelled. I wish I could buy a perfume that smelled exactly like this. Seriously. I guess it's not really a perfume type of smell, but then I could smell it ALL DAY LONG. At a minimum, I wish it was a fragrance that could linger around my house long after I finished dusting. I might just have to leave some cloths lying around in each room. :o)

Perhaps I should just look for Febreze in this fragrance and spray it on all my clothes. I suppose that would work.

In the meantime, dusting is now my favorite chore, because I get to inhale this lavender vanilla fragrance that is better than any lavender or vanilla I have ever smelled before. So if I don't blog for awhile, you'll know why... I'll be dusting. :o)

Happy Spring

I intended to post a "Happy Easter" entry, but it just sneaked up so fast this year!! And it didn't feel terribly Eastery, because there was just no evidence of spring in the air yet. It looks like spring is finally starting to approach, so I'll post about Easter now.

Easter and spring signify new life... another chance to start fresh. Very timely for me, as just days before Easter, I officially began a new life of sorts.

I love all the pictures of the resurrection that God paints for us in nature. Baby birds hatching from their eggs to say, "He is alive and so are we!" and leaving those empty eggshells behind them like that empty tomb. Flowers and trees blooming represent to me the beautiful new lives we have in Christ after a dead dark winter of the soul. Spring offers hope after a season of death and despair, and the resurrection offers hope and abundant life as well.

Update on the wee ones: I saw Little Girl and Baby Boy for Easter, both as cute as they can be. We went to see the Easter Bunny, and thankfully, Baby Boy didn't cry, although he intently watched all the other crying babies. :o) Baby Boy is making a few sounds but still not really talking much, but he's so bright and understands so well that I'm not too concerned yet. He signs, though, and it's so cute. He has about 20 signs he uses consistently.

Little Girl is reading. I gave her an "Early Readers' Bible" for Easter, not sure if she'd be able to read it as it was a harder level than I expected it to be given its title, but she plowed through it and with only a little help on the biggest words was able to read me a whole story. She likes to write far better than she likes to read, and she also loves to draw, so she is constantly busying herself with drawing pictures and writing stories. She adores Baby Boy and he thinks pretty highly of her too. They are so cute playing together. :o)

Hope everyone had a blessed Easter, and is ready for spring! I know I am!

My Compassion Story

I know I've already said all this in recent posts, but Shaun Groves is calling for our Compassion stories on his blog and my story was too fragmented, being discussed in several posts. So here is a consolidation.

My introduction to Compassion International was when I was in youth group. My youth director became very involved with Compassion, and chose a child in Rwanda for our youth group to sponsor. We all brought in our spare change and such from week to week and together were able to make the monthy payment in that way. I still remember the horror that spread across that room of teenagers when the child asked in response to us asking him if he had any pets, that yes he did, he had a dog, and he was very very fortunate to have the dog because it would go out and kill small animals and bring the meat back for him to eat. Wow....

So when I got out of college and got my first job, I decided this was something I wanted to do. At that time, Compassion just sent you a child -- there wasn't all this browsing and choosing stuff going on -- and they sent me Staurin, an 8 year old boy from the Dominican Republic. He had a sad look on his face, and they said he was performing below average in school. I was thrilled to see that just a year later, the sadness was gone, there was a look of hope in his eyes, and his school performance had improved and was marked as average.

One of the saddest things about Staurin is that right after he began his sponsorship, he wrote me that he was now living with his grandmother, because his mother had to move away to find work so that she could provide for his siblings. A couple years later, she did return, and Staurin's family has lived together since, but it showed me just how much they valued the program, and how necessary it was for his family. My guess is that his mother had to leave to find work, but Staurin was left behind with his grandmother so that he would be able to continue in the Compassion program. For his mother to value Compassion so much that she would be separated from her child so that he could participate really says a lot. Staurin is 16 now and wants to be an engineer.

A couple years later, I decided to sponsor another child, and Compassion now had a few pictures online. I selected an adorable little girl from Colombia named Astrith. She looked like Punky Brewster in her brightly colored mismatched clothes. :o) Unfortunately, the internet wasn't then what it is now, and children who were chosen on the website weren't automatically removed -- they had to be manually removed... and someone else had already selected Astrith before I did. I still have her picture saved on my computer and pray for her when I see it.

Compassion sent me Angie at that time, as she was the same age as Astrith and from the same country. I'm glad they did for I just love Angie so much and can't imagine if I'd never gotten to meet her. Angie was only 4 when I sponsored her, and her mother and oldest sister Leidy wrote the first few letters. Angie will be 11 next month, and is so sweet and affectionate in every letter, and always so grateful that she can attend the Compassion program.

Last year, I decided to sponsor a child with the same birthdate as Little Girl, my niece, and I kept searching the website until I found Marsabi, who is now 5. Marsabi and Little Girl write letters to each other and draw pictures. Little Girl was so excited at Christmas to make Marsabi a Christmas card. She carefully drew a picture of Baby Jesus in the manger, saying she wanted to make sure that Marsabi knew what the real Christmas was all about. She speaks of Marsabi often, and when she put together a shoebox for Operation Christmas Child this year, she hoped that maybe, just maybe, her particular box would make it to Marsabi. :o)

And little Rebecca from Uganda, age 5, is my newest little girl. I was already feeling burdened for Africa, but not really sure what to do about it, and then BooMama announced this trip to Uganda! The decision was sealed, and it was just a wait to see which child God had for me. Long story short, it was Rebecca, and so I look forward very much to getting to know Rebecca and her family.

I think my Compassion family is complete, but there's a teenager from Uganda my heart is burdened for, and I keep hoping someone will sponsor him. If nobody does, I might just have to take him in too... :o)

Current pictures of my four can be found in this post.

I've been a believer in Compassion's ministry for nine years now, and have seen the value it has had in my own life and in the lives of my sponsored children. But the bloggers' trip to Uganda has really opened my eyes to just HOW great the need is. There are so many children without hope right now... we can change that... we CAN. If everyone would sponsor one, just think of the miracles God could perform for Uganda. Please sponsor a child now!

It's a Girl

I am reminded of Marilla's emphatic remark to Rachel Lynde, "Well, we're not getting a girl," only to have Matthew appear with a girl in tow...

Yes, I said I thought I was getting a boy, about 7-10, but as it turns out, God sent me a girl, age 5.

Meet Rebecca from Uganda. She likes to play house and play with dolls and jump rope. Sounds like a typical little girl. :o) And she's in school. At the proper age.

As I searched through the children of Uganda over the last few weeks, I noticed something -- a lot of the children were listed as having average performance in kindergarten, or in primary school, despite their ages being sometimes as old as 12 or 13. I'm assuming that those children never had the opportunity to go to school until recently becoming involved with Compassion, so they're having to start at the beginning despite their advanced age... how wonderful that they're able to go to school now, but if only they had been able to start at the right age... well, Rebecca is starting at the right age. :o)

Here is a picture of Rebecca, and I realize I've not posted pictures of my other children, so I will go ahead and post them all here...


Rebecca from Uganda, age 5





Marsabi from Mexico, age 5





Angie from Colombia, age 10





Staurin from Dominican Republic, age 16




The Uganda bloggers are currently on their way!! Check out this link to follow their progress as the week goes on...

I just wonder if Boomama will meet Rebecca.... :o)

When God Makes Me Laugh...

I know there are times that I must make God laugh, but there are times when God makes me laugh too, and this is one of them.

Since making the decision that I'm going to sponsor a new African child, I've been so eager to just jump in and do it, but God has not yet provided clear direction on which child He has chosen especially for me. Waiting is so hard for me!!! And yet I wait... but not patiently, I must admit.

First, there was Moses. An adorable 6 year old in overalls -- I am overly fond of children in overalls, I just think they are so adorable -- and I definitely knew Moses was the child for me. Of course, I hadn't yet asked God His opinion on the matter, so I set forth to do that very thing. I asked Him specifically to show me whether or not I should sponsor Moses, and then I proceeded with my Bible study for the day. Not a word in there to answer my question. I was startled. He always answers one way or the other, but not to even mention it?? I headed back to the Compassion site to look at Moses once more... and Moses was gone. Out of the subset of children I had searched under, Moses was the only one that someone else had in that hour I was gone decided to sponsor... Okay, God, so that was a definite no on Moses.

I wait. A couple of days pass with no clear direction, I've studied the profiles of the children in the subset multiple times and none seems to jump out at me, and then one day two new children are added. One was named Polycarp. Polycarp!! Who trained under the disciple John and then led the church at Smyrna!? Yes, yes, this little Polycarp must be the child for me!! But of course I have to pray about it first. Again no clear answer at all. Frustrating. I went back that evening to have another look, and what do you know, Polycarp was gone. None of those other children on the list, just Polycarp. Sigh. Another no.

And then another child drew my attention. Adam. Yes, Adam could be the right child for me, couldn't he? And boom, five minutes later, Adam is gone. I'm not kidding!!

Next my attentions were drawn to a child named Timothy. I had seen him several times and not thought he was the one, but now I was beginning to wonder. I was already composing letters to him in my head -- To Timothy, my true son in the faith... :o) So last night, I sit down to ask about Timothy, and this time I specifically said, PLEASE don't just NOT answer my question this time. Whether it's yes or no or whatever the answer is, PLEASE ANSWER!!!! And He did. I proceed to my Scripture reading to see His answer emblazoned on the page before me: "wait for the promise of the Father..." and "it is not for you to know the time or the season..."

I noticed this morning that Timothy -- and only Timothy -- is missing from the subset of children.

And I just had to laugh.

:o)

And so I continue to wait....

Africa

My heart has become burdened for Africa lately. I can't explain why. I've never thought much about Africa before, I'll admit. I remember the images of little starving Ethiopian children on the tv screen constantly when I was a little girl, and of course we've all probably heard at some point during our childhood when refusing to eat something we didn't like about the poor little starving children in Africa who would love to have that to eat. But other than a casual "hmm, those poor kids in Africa" thought here and there, I never really thought much more about it.

I blogged about Compassion International a year ago, and introduced you to my three sponsored children, Staurin, Angie, and Marsabi. (You can read that post here.) It wasn't intentional that they're all from Central and South America, but it's not really surprising either. After all, those countries somehow seem a much closer need... it's on our land mass, after all, and I've heard so many missionary stories from places like Haiti, Costa Rica, etc., and my own sister-in-law is from Argentina. Having three sponsored children in Colombia, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico just brings Central and South American poverty to the forefront of my mind.

However, just in the last few weeks, Africa has weighed heavily on my mind. I'm sure that is in great part due to Life Today, an amazing ministry that I've only recently discovered. I'm very impressed with the integrity I see in this ministry and have begun supporting their efforts in mission feeding and drilling water wells. Since I've been watching a lot of their programming, the images of starving little children and their grieving parents, and of the nasty sewage-filled water these families drink from, have really been burned into my mind.

And now, the bloggers, including one of my favorites, BooMama, are going to Uganda with Compassion, to blog about what that ministry is doing in that country. I'm really excited about this. I'm always so eager to see what's going on for myself, to watch the changes that are made in children's lives, to hear their stories. I'm hoping for LOTS of details from these bloggers!!

I received a DVD in the mail from Compassion the other day, full of short features. I watched most of them, but the one that really left the most impact on me was Michael W. Smith's visit to the Kibera slum in Kenya. I was appalled at the living conditions of these people; I've seen poverty and really wretched living conditions many times before, but never have I seen anything this bad. My heart was suddenly burdened for Kibera and I decided it was time to sponsor another child, this time from Africa. I've been searching through the photos and praying regarding the particular child God has chosen for me to sponsor this time, but so far, I don't believe the child is there. I waited and prayed six months for Marsabi before God showed me that she was the one, so I hope I don't have to wait THAT long this time! :o)

I think this child is a boy, around 7-10 years of age. I can't explain that, it's just what I feel like God is telling me. I am really looking forward to "meeting" him, and watching God perform a miracle in his life. I am wondering if the blogger's Uganda reports will lead me to my sponsored child there, or if he is in Kenya, perhaps even in Kibera itself, or perhaps a different African country. I'll keep you posted when I find him.

In the meantime, I encourage you to check out this awesome ministry for yourself -- where else do you have the opportunity to make such a vast impact and investment in an impoverished child's life, and actually get to see the results over the years? It's a blessing I know you won't want to miss.