Why I believe in Compassion (International)

Compassion International seems as much a part of my childhood as Lite Brite and Mr. Potato Head. (Those were great days.) My mother was the Compassion advocate at our church for years. She facilitated Compassion Sunday and, as the director of the preschool and elementary ministry, led the children in the corporate sponsorship of a Compassion child.

Sponsorship is simply something the Widmarks do. The last several years of my life have been highlighted by letters to my mother from beautiful little Grecia in South America.

Even though I have lived in Colorado Springs--headquarters to dozens of national and international ministries--for over a year, I am still particularly excited to pass the Compassion building on the way to the park or coffee shop. I shall soon be living less than five minutes from the office complex, and I relish the opportunity to be reminded in my daily passing that hope and life are yet to be ministered to hundreds and thousands of precious children around the world.

Because I pass the building so often--reading and rereading the sign that insists on "Releasing children from poverty in Jesus' name"--I have been contemplating Compassion International quite a bit of late. I asked myself, "Why exactly do I believe in Compassion?"

I believe in Compassion because I believe in the local church. The local church is truly the hope of the world. Bands of faithful disciples fostering community, contending for sanctification and mercy, are what have and ever will advance the kingdom of God--city by city, neighborhood by neighborhood, and heart by heart.

The local church is relational. It can be messy and difficult, because people are messy and difficult. One of the most simple ways our enemy can keep us from activating justice in our lives is by discouraging us with the clamor of this kingdom. It may be cliche to mention this, but we do often say within ourselves, "Ah, but I am only one person."

The beautiful reality is that being the only one of whoever you are is the human experience. It is as true of you as it has been of every other individual who has ever inhaled in this atmosphere.

But though there is only one Mama Widmark, there is also only one little Grecia. And if my mother commits herself to pouring her resources and prayers into Grecia's life, then poverty, need, and injustice can be forever ended in Grecia's world. It is absolutely possible for us to end poverty on the earth, and we do it by ending poverty one little world at a time.

This is why my heart smiles at the thought of Compassion. For years, faith in the one-to-one dynamic of the Church has spurred men and women to faithfully advocate the systematic overturn of impoverishment among the children of the planet. As heartbreaking and unjust as it is to see the hundreds and thousands who have been coerced into human trafficking, enslaved to addictions, or exterminated by disease and hunger, only Heaven can fully comprehend the number of children who have been rescued from these fates by gatherings of the citizens of eternity who resolutely speak out, "No more," to affliction.

This kingdom is advancing. One child at a time.

Have you sponsored a child through an organization like Compassion? Why do you do it? What have you learned?

A genesis.

Tomorrow, I shall undertake my fourth move in just over a year. I hear your murmurs of discontent at the mention of moving, but I find the process refreshing and invigorating--though I pack now with full awareness that my new "bed" room is actually a room in want of a bed. As I encounter the mixture of nostalgia and anticipation inevitable to the process of a small re-nesting, my heart is glad to be beating.

This will be the first time since I left little Clinton, Utah, that I room alone. The opportunity to imbue a space with a bit of my own personality and character is welcome. It will be nice to give my sky blue typewriter and cheerful new French art print a proper home. (I still have qualms about the cooler colour scheme that has supplanted my customary mustard yellow and brown environs. Necessity takes precedence over habit, however; I refuse to replace my meager collection of happy tchotchkes over the issue of hue.)

Throughout this relocation process, I have been struck by my unspeakable affluence. In our western micro-cosmos, it seems plain fact that an eighteen-year-old might have a closet bulging with clothing and several boxes of dog-eared publications, a shiny silver laptop and a Russian deadstock camera, a menorah and two lovely vintage suitcases, a picnic basket and a collection of loose-leaf tea and... The inventory seems endless.

I stopped at the library while driving Chandler (the golden Toyota friend) home from work. Entering the doors, I walked straight to a shelf where two volumes marked with my name awaited retrieval. I flipped through dozens of films on several shelves to find my viewing selections for the weekend. It was preposterous, really, that information and art would be literally at my fingertips after so much of history has perceived such access to be rare.

My Saturday film a few weeks ago was a 2006 documentary by the name of "God Grew Tired of Us," which follows three of the displaced Lost Boys of Sudan as they establish themselves in the United States. I confess that I have been rambling about the implications of the film ever since. I had the chance to run about Colorado Springs with my beautiful friend and colleague Ellen today, and as we were sitting over salads on our lunch break, we began to speak about the high standard of privilege with which we live.

I tend to think of other nations as "America lite." My overseas experience has been in countries like Germany--western nations whose culture more or less resembles my own. Though I understand that people in many parts of the world do not live "American" physically, I perceive them have a familiar conceptual experience of life. I assume that everyone is at least aware of refrigerators and toilets and running water, whether or not they personally have access to such commodities. Watching the young men in the film quietly deconstructed my assumptions.

I realized that, in fact, many individuals walking the face of this revolving rock live in ignorance of what I would call "creature comforts." More than that, I mentally blushed to recognize that I had the audacity to believe that this specific ignorance signified lamentable naivety. Technology and the cultural environment will never be appropriate standards by which to measure the loveliness of a soul.

Over the past several weeks and months, the Lord has unveiled my eyes to these basic truths. I invite you now to enter a conversation with me, that my exploration of justice and compassion and the rest might--in some small way--become our exploration. The words may be far from eloquent, and the insights hardly novel, but if you will take me where and as I am, I would be delighted to hold this dialogue with you.

(Not everything said here will be in such a bemused tone, I assure you. I really am in the midst of packing.)

Adieu for now, dear hearts.

Jay