Last week I shared with you that two of my daughters and I had gone to a retreat where we were challenged to get involved in expressing God’s love to children in poverty. We went home and shared our growing burden with the rest of our family and decided we needed to start somewhere…do something…take a small step towards putting feet to our faith. We decided that we would take half the money we normally spend on gifts for each other and use it to help meet the needs of poor kids who don’t even have the basic necessities for a healthy life.
Monday night we jumped on the computer, went to Compassion International, and found a large number of children that you can support for $32 a month. So we are supporting a three year old from Ghana, Patrick, for the next year! He lives with his mom, but they have very little and are not able to provide for themselves without help. In the next few days, we will be receiving an information packet with more details about our sponsorship that will allow us to:
- Exchange letter, photos, prayers
- Become a friend
- Provide opportunities for education, health, and personal development
- Most importanly, our child will lear about Jesus in a church-based program in his neighborhood
The needs of children and people around the world, in the USA, and in our community are great; sometimes we don’t think we can really make a difference. But we can if we …start somewhere. Maybe you, your family, or your Small Group can sponsor a child—it doesn’t have to be through Compassion International, there are many good Christian organizations helping people…maybe participate in food drives or other collections at church, using your own money…maybe begin to pray for people’s needs and asking God what you can do…maybe volunteer at a local church or organization...maybe visit a widow from our church or a local nursing home…maybe take some cookies to a neighbor. True ministry is simply meeting needs with love…so look around and see what people’s needs are and…start somewhere.
People need to know that God loves them and can meet their physical needs and their spiritual need to be restored to Him. And God can use you and me to show them!
God has given gifts to each of you from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Manage them well so that God's generosity can flow through you. 1 Peter 4:11
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