It's better to do something...

So today Em and I had the privilege of hanging out with our sponsored child and her mum today. It was kind of surreal - here was this girl that we'd been sponsoring over the past ten months, whose photo is up on the fridge, who was now with us in the flesh. It's hard to describe what it was like actually. It was funny when we first met because I think we were all as nervous as each other. As the day went on all of us became a bit more relaxed.

For the purposes of my blog we'll call our sponsored child Grace. It was great to share a bit of life with Grace and her mum. I love hearing stories. Grace's mum had not worked today because we were visiting. She has three different jobs - cleaning her neighbour's house, doing laundry and selling eggplant at the market. She told us she begins work at 4am and has a small break around 11, and then works until 7pm. Grace's mum has five children and her husband is unable to work at the moment because he is a farmer and the crop he works is not in season.

It was really encouraging for us to see the impact our small contribution can have on a child. When Em and I decided to undertake sponsorship of Grace it said in her bio that she'd been struggling at preschool. Today we learnt that Grace got an award for being third best in her class. Her mum showed us her medals and photos from the presentation, she was very proud.

I can say I'm thoroughly impressed with the Compassion child sponsorship program. I've heard people at times question child sponsorship because supposedly so much money gets sucked up by administration fees. From what Em tells me having worked at Compassion, they as an organisation are very cognisant of this. I also feel that without some of that administration, there is no way we would have been able to have an impact on a little girl half the world away.

So what am I saying? Child sponsorship may not be for you and if it isn't do something else! You're probably reading this from a Western country so therefore you're far, far richer than most of the world. To do nothing, is to be irresponsible with what you have been given. To do nothing, will prevent you from making a positive difference in a person's life and being able to share in that experience. To do nothing, is to be nothing.

Grace (in yellow) and her family in the bamboo hut that is their home