[...]A Father To The Fatherless | Brad Ruggles[...]…

[...]A Father To The Fatherless | Brad Ruggles[...]…

To do what she suggest for the plethora of the world’s poor, the monthly amount would have to be several hundred at least. Then the number of sponsors would drop dramatically until just a few were being helped in the end.

I presently live in a country that is poor among the poor, and many people live a full and fulfilling life with hardly any of the luxuries we in the US have come to think of as necessities.

If we in the US have to downgrade to a smaller flatpanel TV we feel deprived. For all we have, we seldom feel content or blessed, we are becoming a demanding and ungrateful people.

The poor of the world have much to teach us. I think we would be doing them as big a diservice as we have done to ourselves, if we elevated them to our obscenely high standard of living, which I gladly left behind.

As for Gigi’s concerns… I used to think that people in poverty would want out of their situation, at any cost, but it’s so not true. I work with another organization who ministers to girls and their families living in a dump in Nicaragua. They currently have 24 girls that have moved out of the dump into the Villa. It is hard for them to be away from their families. They still go home, for visits and daily for school. But they miss their families very much. It is of great sacrifice when they move.

I once had someone tell me that I was a hero for sponsoring kids in this situation, but I set them straight. I am not the hero in this story. God is. And right below him, the children I sponsor. I only have to send a check, they have to live the life. <3

I have sponsored a girl in Ethiopia for 5 years, and though her situation is not as extreme as Eliud’s (she lives with her mother, who is only occasionally employed, and younger brother, and her father is mentally ill so not with the family), something that I have come to realize about the Compassion program is that the acceptance of the past and present circumstances of the children is crucial to their feeling truly loved. Removing Eliud from the home he shared with his family would not be a gift to him, for it would be saying that what his family was able to provide was not good enough, and, more importantly, it would be removing him from his last physical connection to them. When Eliud is able to do that himself, then will be the time to leave his home. As awful as it seems to you and to me, it IS his home, and I am certain that he must know people there, neighbors, and very likely another boy with whom he grew up and with whom he has shared many experiences – both happy and sad – and having people like that in his life as he grows is part of knowing himself. I have thought about that particular issue – removing children from their homes of origin – since I watched the news about the children being removed from Haiti to be adopted by well-meaning people in the U.S. Removing a child from his or her own culture – however bereft of what seem to be necessities to us – is not compassionate; it is a form or arrogance, a form of judgement, and if I have learned anything on my journey of 63 years in this world, it is that we are not here to judge. Peace.

As to where the sponsorship-money is going, well, I sponsor myself through Compassion. I have another set of friends who visited the Philippines and saw one boiled egg shared between seven people, so if we take a sponsored child of mine as an example, I find it good to know she can go to a Compassion-project and get a nutritious meal every day – giving her family (of parents, sister and two brothers) one less mouth to feed. I also know some of the money is used to give the children regular medical checks, I like the fact my child can go on trips their family wouldn’t otherwise afford, and after Christmas and birthdays, I do get letters telling me they bought a dress, underwear etc. Once I had a letter from Jennylyn’s mum, saying they bought a table where she could study for her assignments. Just a table to sit and do her homework was a luxury!

One other small thing is, you accuse Compassion of funding ‘Vacations’ to Kenya etc. This is not the case where I come from. When people go with Compassion, they have to fund the trip, although if they’re already sponsors, Compassion may give them something towards it.

I hope this helps. I’ve never asked Compassion to give me an account of every bit of my money they spend, but I’m convinced if I visited my child’s country-office, the Compassion-staff would have it all in their records.