Me, The Very Worst [Compassion] Blogger

As you've probably heard from other bloggers who are way more on top of things than I am, September is Compassion Blog Moth.

I'm part of a network of bloggers who support Compassion International. This is our second year doing blog month - with the goal of getting 3160 children sponsored.

Basically, this is the biggest month of the year the Compassion Bloggers Network.

And here my blog quietly sits. Ha.

However - better late then never? Because blog month is so happening here.

And we start today with the [fictional] story behind a photo. Come with me to Kenya. :)

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The Lost Bible

source: @compassion

“I can’t find it,” you remember crying to your mom.

“Check again.” She had said. With only a two hour layover in the middle of that journey from Kenya to home, she’d had little time to deal with lost items.

Even if it was your favourite Bible.

You remember digging through your backpack once more, but you knew it was really gone. You’d sighed halfway through and given up. It was no use. 

You’d loved that Bible. Underlined your favourite verses, scribbled in the margins. Even though your friends at youth group had always said it looked like an old person’s Bible, with the fake leather cover and fading gold around the pages’ edges, you’d loved it because your Grandma had given it to you.

That Bible had held many memories from your fifteen years, from summer camp to youth group retreats, to that time your mom got mad at you when you were 5, for taking red pen to the bottom of the Bible and scrawling “God is Good” in your kindergarten printing during Sunday School. You hadn’t seen why she was so upset. You still don’t, in fact. After all, what you’d written was the truth. Maybe she was just mad that you hadn’t been paying attention. 

Funny how Bibles so often hold sentimental value. 

And now you had one more memory attached to that Bible - your day at one of the Compassion International Child Development Centres in Kenya, and how right there, in the middle of the day’s musical worship time, you’d sat down and opened to Matthew 5:3 and underlined it.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Because you’d finally figured out what it meant.

After your day amongst the poor, visiting your family’s 5-year-old sponsored child, you’d finally figured out that verse that had confused you all your life. The joy and hope you’d seen that day told you this: poor in spirit, with nothing of this world taking your soul’s attention, was the only state in which you could fully grasp the richness of Christ.

These people with nothing - they’d figured out how to let Jesus be their everything.

“Mom. It’s gone.” you remember looking up at her with a deep frown on your face. “I left it at the church.”

“Well honey, I’m sure someone else will love it as much as you.”

You were at that same airport again this week, off to visit that same 5-year-old, now 15.

And now? Now, ten years later, you’re sitting in that same Child Development Centre. You’re sitting in the same chapel, which now doubles as a classroom because of the growing number of kids in the program.

And you can’t believe what you’re holding.

Your Bible.

It’s more well-loved than you remember. The pages are curling now, and the cover is creased and folded at the edges.

“God is Good” is still scrawled across the bottom, but you can tell it’s been rewritten a few times. You turn to Matthew 5, the last verse you’d read in that Bible, and smile. Still underlined, and now boxed around and highlighted.

You flip through more pages, trying to remember what you’d underlined and written and what was new.

“Excuse me?” You look up and meet the chocolate brown eyes of a seven-year-old girl. “That’s my Bible. I’d let you borrow it, but I’m going home and my family and I read it every night.”

“Oh,” you say. Your heart smiles wide. “Of course. Here.”

You pause a moment. “Actually, do you mind if I quickly take a photo of it before I leave?” You want this memory forever.

“Of course.” She says. You set down the Bible and pull out your camera and snap the shot, then send the little girl on her way.

And when you find out later that she’s unsponsored?

You sponsor her and write her a letter about the Bible you lost when you were fifteen.

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Through sponsorship with Compassion International, children living in poverty have access to education, healthcare, nutritious meals and constant care from the staff at their Child Development Centre. But most importantly, and what I love most about Compassion International, they have the opportunity to learn of the hope and freedom found in Jesus. And often times (like in the case of many of our sponsored children), their families begin to learn of this hope and freedom as well.

Would you like to sponsor a child? Yes? Great. HERE for Canadian readers and HERE for Americans.

Oh - and stayed tuned for more Compassion blog month this week. 'Cause like I said... Compassion blog month is ON around here! If you'd like to join us (I'm a living example of better-late-than-never) check out the Compassion Bloggers website to sign up.