Friday I received a letter from my Compassion child Walkiris who lives in the Dominican Republic.  It is always an exciting day when I receive a letter and it just so happened that day I had picked my granddaughter up from school so she was with me when I checked the mail.   I had the blessing of reading the letter together with her.

My granddaughter Bre is 8 years old.   Bre I have talked about Compassion children in the past, but this particular day she seemed more interested than she had before.  I think maybe she was more interested because she is getting older and understands more, she and Walkiris are almost the same age.

Today was the first time Walkiris was able to write her own letter which was very exciting to me!   It was a blessing to see that she is moving along in school and finally learning to how to read and write.   After Bre and I read the letter we started talking.  She had a lot of questions for me about Walkiris’s life so I got out my sponsorship packet that Compassion had sent me when I first sponsored Walkiris.  The packet contains pictures and information about the way of life in her area.

In the pictures it shows typical homes and schools for each child’s region.  My granddaughter seamed very shocked at the living conditions and we discussed how things are a lot different there than they are in our home .   We looked at a picture of a  home that was dark with dirt floors, no running water or electricity.  We talked about how many children go hungry and can not go to school because they can not afford it.   I explained to her that Walkiris and the other children in the Compassion program get meals each day, healthcare and are able to go to school.

Then I showed her the Compassion Christmas catalog…. in her child eyes she saw a difference that I had known about all along but today I saw differently than I had ever seen it before.   Today I saw that catalog through the eyes my granddaughter, through the eyes of a child.   My granddaughter immediately saw the difference between a Compassion Child’s Christmas catalog and her own Christmas catalog ….”where are the toys?’ she asked.

Wow! I had seen that Christmas catalog many times, but I had never seen it in the way I was seeing it at that moment!   In my grandchild’s world children ask for toys for Christmas, in some children’s worlds they ask for things like safe drinking water, livestock, medical care and food.

My own children used to believe in Santa Claus and that he would provide them with toys, these children believe in God and that he will provide them with what they need.  They do not expect elaborate gifts, they just hope for things that in my life I take for granted.  I flush clean drinking water down the toilet and they don’t even have running or clean water. I throw away leftover food and some children go hungry, I dislike going to the doctor and some children do not even have a doctor.  Try explaining that to an 8 year old.

Try explaining to an 8 year old child why Santa covers her so lavishly in toys yet other children in the world want food, water and chickens for Christmas.  I am not trying to start a whole ‘should we tell our children there is or is not a Santa Claus discussion’ here but gosh it seems really unfair when I think about it and I will admit I did not take that opportunity to tell my granddaughter there is not a Santa Claus.   Instead I decided to take the opportunity to tell her what I do believe.

What I do believe is this…God loves us all and He loves us all the same.  We are all His children and sometimes things may seem unfair to us.  I could not even begin to explain to her why some people have more things than others.  In the Bible it says we are to share what God has given us with others and I do know we can make a difference one person at a time, one child at a time.   We talked about how when we have Jesus we are blessed. Having a bunch of stuff is not always a blessing, having God’s love inside us is the blessing, we are blessed by love.  God loved us so much he sent us a savior.  He loved us first and now we are to love others by sharing his love.

After our talk my granddaughter drew my sponsored child a picture of Jesus and Heaven, to me that is really what Christmas is all about, It is about Jesus, He is the reason and sharing Jesus is the greatest gift of all.

Thank you for reading and Merry Christmas!!

If you would like to give a one time gift to help an unsponsored child you can click the catalog below.

 Or you can give a child the gift of your sponsorship this Christmas and tell him about Jesus

Matthew 25:44-45 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’  “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

#itsaboutgiving