We sponsor Teresiah Njeri through Compassion International, and the photo is of me performing my 1-man play about Jonah for her and her friends because she told us in a letter that Jonah is her favorite story from the Bible. She got tickled and was sharing her joy with one of her friends on the pew behind her. I was translated into Kikuyu, which is the language my mom was learning when she was Teresiah Njeri's age. We picked her because of that, and because her Kikuyu name is the same as the woman who helped raise Mom.
Joyce and I have sponsored five children through Compassion: Carlos and Riquelmys in the Dominican Republic, Roxanita in Bolivia, Wendy in Honduras, and now Teresiah Njeri in Kenya.
The sponsorship process has been delightful! We know we're impacting their lives in a significant way by the letters, drawings and pictures we receive from them. And those letters, drawings and pictures (not to mention their prayers!) impact our lives as well.
I've travelled with Compassion to Bolivia, Honduras, and Guatemala so I've seen first hand that sponsorship money is being used wisely. In fact they were on the The American Institute of Philanthropy's list of Top Rated Charities. Most of the folks we met who work with the children were sponsored as children themselves, so they really have a heart for this work.
Compassion is the world's largest holistic child development organization. They received the highest honor for 11 consecutive years that is bestowed on nonprofits by the watchdog group Charity Navigators. Compassion was also named the number one Christian charity by Worth Magazine in terms of fiscal responsibility. Compassion continues to pride itself on being completely transparent in nature and has one mission only, to release children from poverty in the name of Jesus.
You can read my Honduran Journal with pictures, and watch a video from that trip:
