Brandi and I have sponsored Samvasiva Rao Kokkitegodda (we call him Sammy) for the last six months.  Sammy is from the coastal community of Penumudi, India and unfortunately couldn’t make it to Calcutta because of the distance of travel.  Several of the kids traveled by train for up to 48 hours just to meet their sponsor!

Angie and Melissa each had two children and since Angie was so rotten to me in her post yesterday I chose to help Melissa out instead. I was secretly hoping Angie’s kids would run her ragged.

We visited an adventure science museum which randomly had a gondola (more on that later) and then took the kids out to eat. For all of our sponsor children this was the first time they had ever done anything quite like this. It was amazing to watch them walk around just soaking it up every aspect of the visit.

As the kids were leaving this afternoon one of the English speaking employees of the science museum who had been observing us interact with the kids, stopped me and asked “Why?”

I responded, “Excuse me?”

He said, “Why did you guys come all this way to do this?”

I smiled at him and simply responded with the first word that came to my mind, “Jesus. We do this because we are Christians and this is one of the ways we follow our God by serving others.”

He eagerly smiled back.

But I’m still thinking about his question. Why do we do this? Why have so many of us sponsored children? Surely there has to be a better answer than “because we can.”

For my family I think there are two reasons we sponsor Sammy.

First, our faith compels us to. In Luke 4 Jesus reminded us…

“The Lord has put his Spirit in me, because he appointed me to tell the Good News to the poor. He has sent me to tell the captives they are free and to tell the blind that they can see again. God sent me to free those who have been treated unfairly and to announce the time when the Lord will show his kindness.”

Secondly, we want our kids to know just how blessed they are. We want our kids at an early age to develop a compassionate heart, a spirit of empathy.  My kids are growing up in a situation where they pretty much can get everything they want or could ever need. They’re trained in very subtle ways by our culture that there are those who matter and those who don’t.

John Berger said…

The poverty of our century is unlike that of any other. It is not, as poverty was before, the result of natural scarcity, but of a set of priorities imposed upon the rest of the world by the rich. Consequently, the modern poor are not pitied…but written off as trash. The twentieth-century consumer economy has produced the first culture for which a beggar is a reminder of nothing.

To fight this we allow “Sammy” to be a constant reminder of our blessings and calling. Sammy is on our fridge. Sammy gets prayed for every evening at dinner. Sammy gets letters written to him all the time. We refuse to let the poor be “a reminder of nothing” to our children.

Here’s a picture of Brandi and the boys from earlier this week holding up our latest letter from Sammy. Just look a their excitement.

I’m so thankful for so many of you who sponsored kids this week. Your generosity has floored me and restored a new hope within.  For those of you who have been thinking about it….why not now?

CLICK HERE and make a difference.

P.S.  I took a little video of our gondola ride. Thought you might enjoy it. And just in case Beth Moore ever reads this… Mrs. Moore I want you to know I had absolutely nothing to do with your daughter being on this contraption. However she does need to start “Breaking Free” from some of her fears.

Revelation 3:17 “You say, “I am rich, and I have become wealthy and do not need anything. But you do not know that you are really miserable, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked.”

Less than two hours later I met this young man at the Kestopur project here in India.

As I heard him sing I felt God’s convicting spirit rush through my body. “Pete, who do you think you are? You think you’re here to simply write about poverty and child sponsorship, and you are, but there is more. I want to remind you that you’re the one  poverty stricken. Pete, you’re spiritually poor.”

In the midst of everything I’ve been blessed with I’ve started to live with a delusional sense of self-sufficiency. Somehow, I’ve  missed what this 7 year-old boy could fully grasp. This is the day. This is the day I should rejoice in Him.

Not because I’m rich.

Not because my relationships are going well.

Not because I’m enjoying a season of success.

Not because I have a secure job.

Because, this is the day. This day. With all of it’s potential troubles and unexpected crisis and interruptions is the day for me to be spiritually rich.

You and I can do a lot to change the lives of these kids (and I believe we should), but we could never replace the richness they’re finding in Christ. Just one more reason I’m such a fan of what Compassion and so many other great organizations are doing to take a bright light into a dark world.

Anyone else need a reminder that “This is the Day”?

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