Last month, I had a really unique experience.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve seen sponsorship organizations advertising for kids around the world who are in need of financial support in order to afford food, health care, and education. They show pictures and share mini-bios of these children in need, hoping that someone in the states will donate 35 bucks a month for the next few years to support them. This isn’t anything new, there are probably thousands of organizations that have sponsorship programs. Most people are probably familiar with organizations like Compassion International, for example.
Personally, I’ve always been drawn to these types of programs. A few years ago I actually ‘adopted’ a Compassion International child from Burkina Faso, Africa (Her name is Jeane and she is turning 13 in a few months!!).
But even while having a great experience with Compassion International’s sponsorship program, I know that some people raise questions about the legitimacy of sponsorship programs and the good that they do. Last month I got to be on the other side of that interaction. My team and I got to go house to house, hear families stories, and collect pictures and bios of children hoping to find sponsors.
We got to walk into communities and into families homes, and pray with them. When we asked each family for prayer requests, there were two things that came up over and over again:
A sponsor, and rain.
The communities that we were working in depend on agriculture for both food and for jobs, but as we walked through the community we just saw field after field of failed crops. This is the rainy season, and yet there hasn’t been any rain, crops haven’t come in and consequently there hasn’t been any work, which means no income to pay for food, clothes, or school. For many families this has become a huge problem, and some parents have been forced to travel to neighboring cities or countries to find work in hopes of sending some money back home.
I cannot describe how this has all made me feel. Honestly it was beyond words. It’s given a new perspective and meaning to sponsorship programs for me and a seriousness and an urgency that I haven’t had before. Right now there are children around the world whose basic needs aren’t being met. How do I come to terms with that? Such sobering experience.
My team prayed with every family, collected all of the information that we needed, and moved onto the next house. As we made our way through one specific community, some of the kids followed us along to their friends houses and at the end of everyday we had a little group of buddies to say goodbye to.
I went home that first night and did a lot of thinking about everything that I had seen. Asking God why them and why not me. Asking why hadn’t He provided for them, in these very practical ways. Why did He feel so absent? I don’t think I walked away that night with a lot of answer, but do you know what happened that next day?
It rained.
And not just any rain, torrential rain. It rained so hard that it knocked our power out for a few hours. It rained and rained and rained.
It rained enough that people began to replant their fields
It rained every day after that for the rest of my team’s time in Nicaragua, and from what I hear, that area is still getting good rain even now. Praise God! Before we left, we even began to see crops beginning to sprout.
God answered our prayers for rain, and I believe that He also answered some of my questions too:
Why them and not me?
We are never going to truly understand the workings of the Lord. He is too vast for us. The people in these communities didn’t do anything to earn their poverty, it isn’t a punishment. Similarly, I didn’t do anything to earn being born in the States, or to earn my food or wealth, it isn’t a reward. So when I think ‘Why do I have all that I have, and they seem to have so little’, I’m asking the wrong question. I should be asking ‘God why do I treat all of this wealth like it’s mine and not yours?’ Why is my heart not pulled towards compassion and generosity like the church in Acts?
God teach me what true humility is and give me open hands to be generous with all that you have given me.
Why is God absent? Why isn’t he providing?
God is never absent, and He is providing. The Lord is present in the midst of hardships. The bible says that hardships and difficulties grow us and create in us a dependence on the Lord. How beautiful. God wasn’t absent. He was working and moving through the hands and feet of his people, through the local churches that are helping families and through the organization that my team got to partner with. He has given them a spiritual abundance to endure this physical hardship, and He is preparing a way to provide in that physical hardship through rain, and through these future sponsorships.
Lord remind me that you are always at work, that you are always moving, that you are always seeking good and provision for your people.
At the end of our time in Nicaragua the girls on my team and I got to sponsor some of the kids that we visited. What a wonderful gift to come alongside of someone you actually know and love them in such a practical way!
The Lord used this experience to plant His love for His children deeper in my heart. It’s one thing to know that these situations exist in the world, it’s another thing to be confronted by it and to see it with your own eyes. I want to be a champion of children and of education. I believe that the Lord has a plan and a purpose for this community, and other communities like it. This wasn’t an easy, really fun day of ministry, it was hard and heavy but good and powerful. I’m thankful that my God is a powerful God. He controls the weather and knows our hearts. What a blessing it is to serve Him.
(For anyone wondering- This sponsorship program helps to pays for kids to go to school. While school is free in Nicaragua, school supplies and clothes are not and it can be a huge financial burden on families and often keeps kids from being able to go to school, which in turn, keeps them stuck in the cycle of poverty.
There are still so many kids from the communities that we worked in that my team wasn’t able to sponsor, but I believe the Lord is going to provide for them in that way. If you are interested in sponsoring one of the children that I was able to meet and pray for, please let me know. I have attached some photos of unsponsored children below. Also, if the Lord has placed a desire in your heart to provide for children in this way, consider sponsoring through Compassion International)
Much Love,
Morgan
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