Compassion

**I thought I set this to post while I was flying home today, but apparently it was a major fail. That’s what happens when you take a Benadryl before posting.

After we visited another Compassion project yesterday, we went to the market since it was our last day and we all wanted to pick up a few souvenirs to take home.

Here are a few things I’ll take home with me.

A fab amber ring that was a total bargain thanks to my mad haggling skilz (Can I pull off skills with a z? I’m on the fence about it).

The ring totally reminds me of something Rachel Zoe would wear and when I saw it I said, “I’m dying. I am totally dying”, in my best monotone voice.

I also purchased some Dominican coffee because rumor has it that it’s even better than that slop Juan Valdez is peddling down in Columbia.

And, lastly, some pure Dominican vanilla extract because it is going to make my Christmas baked goods muy delicioso.

But there are other things I’m taking home with me that aren’t tangible, yet will remain etched in my memory forever.

And then there are the things that have caused me to leave a big piece of my heart in this country that was totally foreign to me just five days ago.

I owe a huge thank you to Compassion for what they have shown me this week. I am truly forever changed.

To Shaun Groves, thanks for sending that follow up email asking if I was sure I didn’t want to come on this trip. I can’t imagine anywhere else I would have rather been for the last week.

And a special shout out to my roommate and photographer extraordinaire, Keely Scott. Every photo you’ve seen on my blog this week has come from her. I couldn’t have told the story without her. And I wouldn’t have laughed nearly as hard if she hadn’t been my roommate.

Thanks to all of you who have sponsored children this week. Words can’t express the difference it is making in their lives. And if you haven’t and would like to do so, it’s not too late.

To read the other accounts of the week you can go to Compassion Bloggers.

I talked about how hard yesterday was in my last post, but it was also my favorite day so far. The kids were so excited to see us and I got a small glimpse of what it must feel like to be Hannah Montana, but without the long blonde hair and legwarmers.

I couldn’t get enough of them as they climbed all over me while saying, “Mi Americana! Mi Americana!”

They were all so precious and I took pictures of them with my camera so that they could see themselves. I let them hold my backpack. I let them braid my hair and wear my Aggie baseball cap.

At one point one of the little girls lifted up my shirt a little bit and started poking my stomach. Wanting to use one of my few Spanish vocabulary words, I said, “Blanco!” thinking that she must be fascinated by my white skin.

The translator looked at me a little sheepishly and said, “She says you’re a little bit fat.”

Perfect.

So I said, “Great. Tell her the fat girl wants her camera back.”

I am sitting in my hotel room mentally going over the events of the day and I have tears rolling down my cheeks. I’ll be honest, it’s not the first time it’s happened today.

On the flight to Miami, I listened to my iPod most of the way. The song “Captivate Us” by Watermark came on and as I listened to the lyrics I felt like I was seeing a glimpse into my week as I listened to Christy Nockels sing, “Captivate us, Lord Jesus, set our eyes on you. Devastate us with your presence falling down”.

In that moment, I prayed that God would devastate me with His presence on this trip. As much as I imagined that I wouldn’t walk away from a trip like this unchanged, a small part of me was worried that I might. What if it turns out that I’m dead inside?

Today was one of the most heartbreaking, yet joyous days I have ever experienced. We left this morning and headed to one of the Dominican’s Batey communities. These are basically Compassion projects in the midst of sugar plantations owned by large corporations. We were told that most of the residents are Haitian refugees who were lured to the DR with the promise of a better life, which hasn’t been the case. Instead they find themselves barely surviving in a country that doesn’t even recognize them as citizens. They aren’t necessarily slaves, but they aren’t free either.

As we drove into the Batey community, we were surrounded by fields full of sugar cane on every side, which gradually led to a small village where we could hear the excitement of the children before we even got off the bus.

We divided into groups and began to visit a few classrooms that are part of the Compassion project. The first class I went to was filled with kids ages 3-5 and my heart melted onto the floor right on the spot. They sang a few songs for us and we reciprocated by teaching them The Chicken Dance or as I preferred to call it in my limited Spanish vocabulary “El Pollo Bailar”.

Y’all will be glad to know that El Pollo Bailar is every bit the hit in the Dominican Republic that it is in America and that my rhythm is equally limited overseas. There are some things that cross all cultural boundaries.

After a few classroom visits, I was taken to a small classroom to meet my sponsored child named Ana Anjelica. Although I’ve sponsored a child in Uganda since the last Compassion trip, I just began to sponsor Ana prior to this trip. I was prepared that she might be a little solemn because her profile picture was so serious.

I approached Ana and with the help of a translator explained that I was her new sponsor and was so excited to meet her. I had brought a backpack filled with various things that I felt certain a six-year-old girl would like, but as I pulled them out she never cracked a smile. She was polite and answered questions that I asked through the translator but no smile, even when I pulled out my surefire ace in the hole, also known as a Ballerina Barbie.

Honestly, it would have been great if she’d jumped up and down with excitement, but I understood why she didn’t. I have no concept of what her day-to-day life is like or what it involves.

After we met, a group of us went to her house for a home visit. Her home was the worst one I’ve been in since the trip began. There weren’t even sheets used for partitions, but rather long pieces of paper from a Beauty Rest mattress ad. I introduced myself to her mother whose nickname was Chica.

Ana immediately disappeared behind one of the Beauty Rest partitions and about that time her grandmother showed up at the house. We began to talk with them and ask them questions about their life. Ana is one of three children with another one on the way. Her father is a day laborer and just goes out and looks for work every day.

This was her grandmother. She followed us all the way down the road as we left and her expression never changed.

Toward the end of the visit, I asked Chica how I could specifically pray for her family. This was her answer.

“I don’t really believe that God will answer the dreams I have for my children, but I hope they stay in school and get an education so they can have a better life.”

It broke my heart and it made me understand while Ana is such a solemn girl with a sad look in her eyes. She is being raised in an environment where there is no hope.

And here’s where I’m going to be really honest and say that I totally understand why her mother feels the way she does. All she’s ever known is poverty and difficult circumstances. Chica can’t even comprehend what a better life would look like because all she has ever known is hardship. It’s the reality that poverty goes so far beyond material things.

Honestly, it’s hard for me to reconcile it in my mind and understand why I am blessed with so much, when others have so little.
If I were in their place, would I believe that God could answer my dreams? Would I even dare to dream?

I believe as strongly as I believe anything that God is good, but sitting there in that house filled with sadness it was hard to understand all His ways.

I cried as I sat there on the little couch in Ana’s home because I wanted to offer them some kind of hope and, all of a sudden, my $32.00 a month didn’t feel like much at all.

But the thing is that as Ana’s sponsor, I have the opportunity to give her hope. By providing for her socio-economic, academic, spiritual, and physical needs, I am giving her hope for a better life with my $32.00. However, the most important thing I can do is to commit to write Ana on a regular basis to let her know that I love her, that God loves her, and that it’s okay to dream of a life beyond what she knows.

Because if I’m not telling her, then who is?

I understand that in my head, but it devastates my heart. I looked at this little girl today who is the same age as my Caroline, my smiling, laughing Caroline, and all I saw was sadness. God used it to devastate me, but He also used it to challenge me to go deeper. These Compassion kids aren’t just kids on a piece of paper or a random snapshot. They are real kids that are barely making it in this world and need every last piece of hope they can get.

And if you think you can’t make a difference, then let me tell you about Beatriz.

Beatriz was a lady we met on our second home visit and has three children, two of whom are sponsored by Compassion and she told us that she was a Compassion child from the time she was six years old until she graduated from high school. We asked her if she knew who her sponsor was and without pausing, she said, “Bill from Michigan.”

Not only that, her son Misael pulled out the letters he’s received from his Compassion sponsors named Peter and Melanie from Massachusetts. He was so proud of his letters. And even though this family didn’t necessarily have any more materially than Ana’s family, they had joy. It was a startling contrast.

Until today I had no idea how much hope these kids find in having a sponsor and how much the letters they receive mean to them. Not only do you know their name, they know yours and find hope in your words.

And for some of them, like my Ana Anjelica, you may be the only one telling them that there is more than the life they know and that God has a plan for their life.

Words have power, even when they’re written by a goofy American who does a bad version of El Pollo Bailar.

If you’d like to sponsor a child, you can go here or click on the image in my sidebar and if you already have a sponsored child, I encourage you to take the time to write them before the day is over.

And if you haven’t read all the other bloggers on this trip, you can find their posts over at Compassion Bloggers.

Today during one of our home visits, we got a little impromptu concert by two of the children. This is Misael and his sister Emily and they are both Compassion children.

It was one of the bright spots in a day filled with a lot of heartbreak. I’ll be back with more later, but in the meantime if you’d like to sponsor a child you can click here.

We are back at the hotel after a day spent visiting the first of many Compassion projects we’ll see this week. I am not going to lie to y’all and tell you I smell good because I don’t. It was hotter than Houston in August here today and my fellow Texans know what that means.

Let me just say it’s not a DRY heat.

I’m not sure how I’m ever going to be able to articulate everything I experience this week, so just know I’ll do the best I can.

This morning we drove to a Compassion project to see their Child Survival Program, otherwise known as CSP. While Compassion has been around for about fifty years, the CSPs just started in the last ten years. The goal is to provide intervention for kids living in poverty before they are even born.

Mothers who are part of the CSP receive prenatal care before their child is born and then continue to receive assistance in the form of food, medicine, clothing, and nutritional education for that child until the child turns three years old and is eligible to be a part of Compassion’s sponsored children program.

We arrived at the project and were taken to the church where they told us we’d get to be a part of their worship. It turns out that we didn’t hear what they were saying because it wasn’t actually worship, but a WORKSHOP. However, they did sing two songs so really we got worship AND workshop. It was the proverbial two birds with one stone.

The workshop was taught by one of the Implementers in the project (think social worker) and the purpose was to teach mothers the importance of basic nutrition for their babies at various ages. The room was packed full of young mothers and some of the cutest babies I have ever seen. I won’t even discuss how tempted I was to load one or six of them in my backpack and head for the bus.

“Hello. Would you like to come home with me so I can pinch your cheeks everyday?”

There were two interesting points made in the workshop. The first was that you shouldn’t serve your babies alcohol, EVEN AT CHRISTMAS. That means no eggnog for the toddler crowd this year.

The second point was how to get your kids to eat even when they don’t want to. I listened very carefully to that part because I was hoping someone in the Dominican could offer me some useful tidbit about how to convince Caroline to eat more than half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich every third day.

After the workshop, we went out in groups for home visits. The first home we went to was nothing more than a small shack with a tin roof full of holes. There were two bedrooms that were basically just curtained off areas.

The woman’s name was Rosario and she was so gracious and welcoming. We met her youngest son named Adolfo who is part of the CSP and her three older children. She told us that her husband is out of work and that they pay 900 pesos a month in rent, which is the equivalent of $30.00.

Anyway, the Implementer was with us and began to show us a typical visit. They started by singing a song and when it was over the translator explained that the lyrics said, “Look how happy is our home when we have Jesus”.

Rosario told us that her home was happy because they had Jesus.

And at that point my eyes filled with huge tears.

Because there I was sitting in a shack with a tin roof, filled with four smiling children and a mother who was beaming as she told us how happy their home is because they have Jesus.

P and I were in ministry for over ten years in a fairly wealthy community. We essentially ministered to kids that had everything they could want materially, yet there were some who were so lost and so miserable that it didn’t matter. They had no joy. They had no hope, in spite of their BMW’s and designer handbags, because they didn’t know what they were living for.

But what I saw today was real. Real hope. Real joy.

Yes, there was poverty everywhere. There wasn’t really much to speak of in the way of indoor plumbing. There was very little hope there to the external eye.

But on the inside there was hope.

Our leader Brian Seay asked Rosario what her dreams were for herself and her kids. She told us that thanks to the CSP, she is going to college to get a degree in education because she wants to be a teacher.

She told us that her dreams for her kids were that they be good people and get a good education. Thanks to Compassion, Rosario has hope that those dreams will be realized for her children.

And the biggest hope of all is the hope they have in knowing Jesus Christ.

When you sponsor a child from Compassion, you are quite literally becoming the hands and feet of Jesus.

I saw it today and I’ll never forget it.

“’For I know the plans I have for you’ declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” Jeremiah 29:11

If you’d like the opportunity to sponsor a child through Compassion, you can click on the graphic below or in my sidebar. You have the chance to give a child hope for just $32.00 a month, also known as four trips to Starbucks.