I added a new banner tonight for Compassion. I can honestly say that I have heard repeated words about needs around the world in the past many, many times. This summer was different when I listened to Ann Voskamp speak about the least of these. Without much thought, I found myself in the lobby choosing a boy who needed a sponsor.
I came home, told Joe and stuck his little face on the fridge. The first month was pretty easy, the next okay but by the 3rd I was thinking …$38 forever?! We in the Gallamore house are more committed than ever to the cleaning up of our mess from years of getting ahead of our means and honestly, $38…not spent on me.
I say it’s not much until I think about a new whatever or ordering pizza on a busy night. It’s just enough to feel like an actual something for me and yet it is everything to a child with nothing; and my selfishness shows through strong.
It’s am embarrassing thought isn’t it? To think I sit in my warm house with overflowing cupboards and wonder if I want to continue this sponsor thing. It’s embarrassing because everyone is in favor of charity until it comes from our hand; yet we know charity is the right answer. By the 4th month it’s normal, a part of the budget. And that’s an interesting thing about the whole middle class lifestyle – we make lists of how we will spend money we know is coming – money we expect. And from that expectation we sort out some for this and some for that and think of all the ways we will spend that which feels like a sure thing for us. We plan our money, assume our money, call it our money.
When really, it isn’t ours. Not really, especially as it relates to the coming in and the going out. Especially as it relates to how we use it. Especially to the whole idea…it isn’t just ours.
I think for me generosity has been easier when I could look in the face, get the thanks and control the giving. To see a little face only on the refrigerator is more abstract, less hands on and for sure less immediately gratifying. I like the kind of generosity that makes me feel good in the moment and which might not be quite as evident as generosity. It might look more like the exchange of my something for someone of equal affluence’ something.
It feels good to pick up the lunch tab and how many of those in a month add up to a compassion sponsorship with far more value. These are the questions I am asking myself. In this season of gluttony and giving, I want to look outside my windows and think outside my house.
What about you, have you ever considered sponsoring a child?
Read others as well:
Ann Voskamp’s current compassion trip to Ecuador is described here in this amazing story.
Perspective from Aaron about the work done in Haiti among women and babies that will rattle your thinking if you read far.
Compassion, the effort we chose to sponsor through and a wealth of information.
World Vision, a second amazing way to change the world through relief to children.
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