Compassion, part 2

Well, I tried writing out my Compassion story, but Nick read it and said I left out way too much stuff (but it was already way too long). So it looks like I'll be logging this one in sessions.  I have other things to blog, but in the coming days I'll sprinkle my story throughout the other random wife/mom/singer/songwriter blurbs.

So it all began my senior year in college. I had just started dating Nick, and I had just gone to a concert where Compassion was introduced to me. The lead singer shared his story, showed pictures, and made the starving-kids-on-tv stereotypes crumble under a real-life testimony that sponsoring children really does save their lives.  I was moved to help. I couldn't go back to my college dorm and call myself "poor" anymore. But I was a full-time student, working only 10 hours a week at minimum wage, and to sponsor a child through Compassion, I had needed to give $24 a month. So, I asked my boyfriend Nick if he wanted to have a child with me. (snicker, snicker, ha, ha.)  I told him about the Compassion ministry and he was totally on board. We got online and picked out our child.    Soon after, we received a message that this child was already sponsored, but would we consider a girl from Tanzania? We said sure, and Sarah Naftal became our new daughter.  So every month we'd pool $24 to invest in Sarah's life, and she would receive enrollment in the Compassion program, which provides education, health care, social skills development, and Christian training.

We received two letters from her in the next few months. She was nine years old, so a teacher at the Compassion school would write out what Sarah dictated. She would tell us about her sisters and brothers, her mother (a father was never mentioned), and would always say "thank you" about ten times throughout the message.   Sarah sent pictures she had drawn, and a photo of herself in a beautiful red dress that our money had provided for her at Christmas time.

Back on campus, I was nearing my last month of college, where we had "May Term." Many courses were offered abroad, and when I found out I had scholarship money just sitting in my file, I decided to use it to go to Africa.  The course I signed up for was a study in the Church's impact on healthcare in Tanzania.  We would be studying and visiting the mobile health units dispersed by the Lutheran synod in that country, as well as doing plenty of culture immersion and sight-seeing.  I was so wrapped up in the prospects of safaris and climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro that it barely occurred to me that I could inquire about meeting Sarah.  I just thought it was neat enough to be in the same country as she was.  So I procrastinated, and the trip time came, and I just kept it in the back of my head to keep an eye out for her. :)  Never mind that I didn't know what city she lived in-- just the country of Tanzania (population 38 million).

After a very long flight, I arrived with my 21 classmates and 1 professor in Kenya, Africa. We'd soon arrive in Tanzania, where we'd stay for a month. Every day was scheduled for my Church/Healthcare class, and no one knew about my connection with Sarah.  But with my sandaled feet standing in the red African dirt, I felt an urgency to take advantage of being within reach -- whether miles or countries away -- of our child. After all, I was at least on the same continent now! I began to pray that God would make a way for me to meet Sarah face to face.  

More later...