Have you ever heard about Com­pas­sion Inter­na­tional? If you have attended many Chris­t­ian music con­certs, there’s a good chance, you have. There’s also a good chance that I’ve talked a lit­tle about Com­pas­sion to you if I talk to you on a reg­u­lar basis.

Our fam­ily spon­sors a child through Com­pas­sion. Her name is Daniela, and she lives in Hon­duras. She is 13, and she and I share the same birth­day. That’s actu­ally how I decided which child to pick at that Bebo Nor­man con­cert in 2004. Choos­ing to spon­sor a child had been some­thing I had been think­ing about doing for a while. In Octo­ber of 2004, Jason and I went to a Bebo Nor­man con­cert as part of my birth­day present. Dur­ing the inter­mis­sion, I decided to go look at the Com­pas­sion table. I told Jason, “How about this? If I see one and one of the kids shares my birth­day, that’s how we’ll decide if we spon­sor some­one or not.” Very nice, huh? So, we walked back to the tables where they dis­play the pro­files of the chil­dren who need spon­sors. I looked down, and what do you think hap­pened? The very first pro­file I looked at was Daniela’s. She and I share a birth­day, too! My deci­sion was pretty easy.

Since then, we’ve been sup­port­ing her with a monthly con­tri­bu­tion. We also try to send a lit­tle some­thing extra for birth­days and Christ­mas. When I can get my act together, I also send her pic­tures. She writes to us. She usu­ally sends a pic­ture that she has drawn or col­ored for the boys (and me, too, I sup­pose). We share prayer requests, and we get to know each other. It’s easy for me to become com­pla­cent about my spon­sor­ship. I just put it on the Amer­i­can Express and let the auto with­drawl take care of itself, right?

That’s sort of how things were going. Then, I started read­ing, yes, you guessed it 5 Min­utes for Mom. One of their edi­tors, Jen­nifer, is on a Com­pas­sion trip right now. She is in the Domini­can Repub­lic, and she has been blog­ging about her expe­ri­ences along with a few other blog­gers. Read­ing her expe­ri­ences and the expe­ri­ences of the other blog­gers has reminded me what a respon­si­bil­ity I have. Yes, my $32/month is good. Yes, it does help Daniela in a way that is so vitally impor­tant, but I need to do more than that. I need to be reg­u­larly pray­ing for her and her fam­ily. I also need to be an active par­tic­i­pant in our cor­re­spon­dence. I’m pretty sure that God didn’t want me to spon­sor Daniela solely for the money. He could have found that money from a few dif­fer­ent places if that had been the goal. I’m more than a lit­tle sure that there’s some­thing to be learned from this expe­ri­ence both for Daniela and myself.

Hav­ing read some of these per­sonal expe­ri­ences this week has brought back to me the bless­ings I have been giv­ing, and it has also pointed out to me the respon­si­bil­ity I have cho­sen to take upon myself. Maybe you are in the same place I was 4 years ago. Have you thought about it but never done it? Lately in the car, I’ve been hear­ing this com­mer­cial on the radio. It says some­thing like, “You saw a home­less fam­ily on the street today. You almost stopped to see if they needed some help. You got a let­ter in the mail today from a local char­ity. You almost sent them a dona­tion…” There’s more, but I can’t remem­ber it. Then, at the end, it says, “Don’t almost give.” That line always gets me. There are so many times when I almost. I almost call some­one when I think they might be down. I almost give the last cash I have when I see some­one who might need it. I almost send a card. I almost say some­thing. I almost do it. Don’t stop there. Do it! Make some­one else’s life a lit­tle better.