On Gift Giving and Life Changing

Dear friends, 

If there is one thing I'm passionate about it's sponsoring children. For such a small percentage of our monthly income, we rich-beyond-comprehension-Americans can change the life of a child in need. We can supply food, clothing, education and the love of Jesus. HOPE. I began my journey of child sponsorship through Compassion International in 2006, my junior year of college. My husband and I added a second child to our monthly this past December through International Child Care Ministries--a program of the Free Methodist Church. 

Both programs have put out a Christmas Gift catalogs where you can send gifts specifically to your sponsor child or contribute to larger country projects like fresh-water wells, building schools, paying teachers, or offering medical aid. Here's Compassion's Christmas Catalog. 

I am going to focus on Childcare's Catalog because I feel especially connected to the ministry of ICCM as I am an advocate for child sponsorship at our church. If you flip through the pages of the .pdf catalog you will discover incredible ways that your small donations can change lives. 

$100 will pay for one thousand new trees to be planted in the devastated country of Haiti. 

$50 purchases a lifetime supply of clean water for one Haitian household. 

$100 will feed 400 hungry bellies in India. 

$20 sends a goat to a family in Burundi. 

$5 buys a chicken for a family in Malawi

$1,500 pays the way for a student to attend Hope Africa University.

People, are you getting this? Are you kidding me with these costs? We drop $50 on a couple date nights or $100 on a new pair of running shoes like it's no big deal. How much more should we be willing to give and provide for orphans in their distress? 

This Christmas, I challenge you to RETHINK gift-giving in your family. Perhaps you will all sit down together and prayerfully select one large donation option as a family and limit your gift exchanges to one small meaningful item for each family member? Maybe you'll do away with gift exchanges altogether and change the educational structure for children in Haiti? Or you might consider buying gifts for your friends and family from the SEED section of the catalog--where the money you spend on your purchases goes back to the women in 3rd world countries who crafted the items by hand. They can now feed their children--and you'll look super lovely in their handmade jewelry. :) 

Change some lives this holiday, my friends. 

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