Two years ago, Shannon went to Africa with Compassion International. I followed along with her journey and was forever changed. (Please stop right now and go read her posts if you haven’t already.)
My husband was unemployed at the time and we were really struggling. But after reading her posts, we realized how much we truly had. We had plenty to eat, clean clothes to wear, a roof over our heads… while it seemed like money was tight for us, we didn’t really know the first thing about true poverty.
Even though we had little wiggle room in our budget, we committed to sponsor two children. Until our income increased, we gave up our small Eating Out budget for a few months in order to sponsor these children. Compared to the circumstances they were living in, it was the least we could do.
You know what? We’ve been so blessed in stepping out and giving, even when it meant some small sacrifices on our part. And we’ve learned that the more you freely and generously give, the more you receive — not necessarily always in the form of financial blessings, but in many other ways. Truly, it is “more blessed to give than to receive”.
One of the most exciting things about the growth of this blog is that it’s given us more resources to be able to give. Since the beginning of this year, we committed to give all of the proceeds from private ad sales on this blog to Compassion International. So when you visit here, you’re actually impacting lives of little children in other countries who are living in extreme poverty. It gives me goosebumps to think that God is using this blog to feed and clothe the needy!
As we see it, all our money and resources are God’s anyway; He’s just entrusted it to us to manage. We always want to keep an open hand. There’s so much more fulfillment and blessing in that than in a clenched fist.
I don’t share this to gloat, but to encourage you to step out and be a giver. I know some of you are in very difficult financial circumstances right now and you’re barely squeaking by. If that’s you, maybe you can’t afford to sponsor a child through Compassion or World Vision, but you can do something: give a smile, do an act of service for someone in need, share some of your free groceries or consider splitting sponsorship of a child with another family.
We all can do something. And our combined generosity can make a powerful difference — in the lives of those in our own community and in far away countries!
My friends, Briana and Andrea are in the Dominican Republic right now on a blogging trip with World Vision. Their posts and emails inspired this post. Go read QuatroMama’s post for some of the highlights of the trip. And don’t miss Andrea’s touching story here.