My orphan Angel from India - her remarkable story!

Now, I could write excerpts from the many letters I have received this week from my Compassion sponsored kids, but I'm not going to do that. Instead, I am going to share the heart-wrenching (and heartwarming) story of my dear 7 year old orphan girl Angel who attends project IN308. I can't think of a more perfect name for her, as she is definitely an Angel sent from Heaven to this world. And there is no doubt in my mind that I'll be paying her a lot of extra-special attention when I go to India next March!! She will also be turning 8 years old one week before I leave for India, so she will definitely be spoiled on the Child Visit day!!

I am still trying to process the first letter I received from my sweet Angel (written on her behalf by Celine, the project IN308 accountant). I could not finish it without grabbing a couple of tissues:

"Dear sponsor Judy, greetings to you in the precious name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. My name is Mrs. Celine, working as Accountant writing this letter on behalf of Angel. By God's grace she is keeping fine and doing well in her studies. She is now studying in 1st grade. And regarding her parents, she is the foster child of her present parents. She was found in the drainage ditch when she was a few days old child. The whereabouts of her natural parents are unknown. She is now registered in L.R. Nagar CDC IN308. The project is a school-based project. The project involves the child in holistic development in all the four areas, namely physical, spiritual, education and socio-emotional development. The project follows the curriculum given by Compassion.

The community is situated in an urban slum [southeast of Bangalore]. The area is over-populated. The people here live below the poverty line without proper shelter. Most of the male parents here are unemployed and alcoholic. People here live in an unhygenic environment where the city's wastage water flows. The child and the foster parents are very grateful to you for supporting this very precious child. We, the project staff, are also very grateful to you for the kind support towards this needy child. The child sends her love and kisses to you. Thanking you, yours in Christ, Celine [Accountant]."

My heart was wrenched out of my chest when I read that she was found abandoned in a drainage ditch when only a few days old! But then it was filled with grateful joy that God had His eye on her the whole time, providing her with loving foster parents till this day!! And He brought her to Compassion, praise God!! He has very special plans for His precious Angel, and I feel honoured and blessed that He would use me to encourage her and speak His Word and truth into her life.

If you would like more information on how to sponsor your own "Angel" child through Compassion Canada, please click on:  http://www.compassion.ca/advocate/judymyers 

A "Blaise" of blessings from Rwanda!

So excited to present one of the newer additions to my Compassion family - please meet Blaise Tuyisenge from Compassion project RW340. As I'll be spending a month in Rwanda in 2017 to see my sponsored kids who live there, I will now have the honour and pleasure of meeting him as well! Blaise is turning 12 on August 17th. 

For more information about sponsoring a child through Compassion, please click on the following link: http://www.compassion.ca/advocate/judymyers.  Your life will forever be changed for the better!!

Blessings from Honduras!

I got an awesome surprise when I opened up Facebook after church last night - a wonderful photo of my 15 year old sponsored son Rony in Honduras!  A dear friend of mine was visiting his Compassion project yesterday and was able to personally give him my gift and take a pic of him holding my photo and his soccer ball.  What a handsome young man he is!!  I am feeling like a very blessed sponsor momma!  Now I'm praying for the opportunity to meet him myself in person one day soon!  If only I had unlimited time and money!!

I am beyond overjoyed!!

I received the most wonderful answer to prayer tonight! My very first Compassion sponsored child, my sweet daughter Yirlis from Colombia, just replied to my Facebook message confirming that she is indeed the same girl I talked about in my message. I had found her name on Facebook (but her profile had no photo). I had asked her if she was born in Aug 1991 and if she remembers having a Canadian sponsor named Judy, and she said "yes"!! I had sponsored her for almost 5 years, and she had to leave the Compassion program when she became a teenager as her family moved too far away from another Compassion project. So you can only imagine my joy when she told me that she's kept my letters all these years (as I have kept hers)! We both expressed how sad we were when she had to leave Compassion, as we had shared many wonderful letters! She'll be 22 years old next month and has become such a beautiful young lady (but she has ALWAYS been beautiful)!!!  I'm posting her last Compassion photo I received, and her most recent photo!!

Reweaving our broken world into wholeness

It's been awhile since I've written a post on my blog, almost a month in fact. I needed the time to collect my thoughts into something cohesive, as God has been working even deeper in my heart and in my life, slowly but surely breaking my heart even more for what breaks His!! 

Now you might be asking yourself, what does it mean to "reweave our broken world into wholeness"? I have been reading the blog of a fellow Compassion Canada Advocate, Ann Voskamp, who is currently in Uganda, Africa doing a photo-blog of Compassion's work in that country. In her blog dated June 28, 2013, she talks about disadvantaging ourselves if we are ever going to help the disadvantaged. She goes on to say that "the only way to reweave this world into wholeness is to let your Christ-life be broken for others .... The strong must disadvantage themselves for the weak, the majority for the minority or the community frays and the fabric breaks."  Wow, I could not finish reading her blog without tears streaming down my face!  

"Your life only becomes a tapestry if it ties itself to other lives" - Ann Voskamp

Now I ask you the most important of questions. What do you want to be remembered for at the end of your life?  Having the biggest house on the block, the latest model sports car in your driveway, temporal things that you cannot take with you from this world? Or would you like to be remembered for sowing the seeds of Christ's love for the lost into the lives of precious children whose only reason for living in poverty is being born into it through no fault of their own?  It could have just as easily been us being born into poverty and them being born into privilege, so we MUST CHANGE our way of thinking and follow God's command to care for the widows and orphans of this world!! 

"Sow up for yourselves treasures in Heaven, where moth and dust do not corrupt."

- The Bible

If you're not sure how to go about getting started and taking action to help one of the "least of these", please click on the link below and sponsor a child through Compassion Canada, releasing them from poverty "in Jesus' name"!! Your life will forever be changed for the better, as mine has been countless times over!! 

http://www.compassion.ca/advocate/judymyers 

My prayers have been answered!

For those of you who read my Compassion Bolivia trip report a short couple of months ago, I had mentioned about a little girl named Nicol who caught my eye at project BO706. Here's the excerpt from my earlier post:

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"A little girl caught my eye in the class we were sitting in on, such a sweet face, that I decided to inquire if she had a sponsor yet, and was pleased to find out that she did not. I then asked our trip co-leader Sharon to inquire on how to go about sponsoring her. It turned out that little Nicol was Pastor Benjamin’s youngest daughter! And the older girl who was looking after Nicol during the day was actually her older sister Jasmine, so therefore the reason why the whole family came to meet me and take a picture with me. Even if it’s not official yet, they are already thinking of me as Nicol’s sponsor!"

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An update - it seems that when we tried to find Nicol in the Compassion system, she did not exist!!  Apparently, as she already attended the project as she was the project pastor's daughter, they must have thought that she was automatically registered, but the reality was that no registration paperwork had been filled out yet (good for me)!!  But that meant I had to be patient while they got her registered at the field level, then paperwork transferred to Compassion International's office in Colorado Springs, USA, then up to Canada.  Well, after a long two-month wait, I finally got a call from Compassion Canada yesterday morning with the wonderful news that Nicol's paperwork had arrived in the Canadian office and that they had added Nicol to my sponsor account!!!  I also found out that her birthday is on January 8th, only one day before mine!!

So, with no further ado, I present to you my precious 3-year old Nicol (in the first photo, I'm with her and her older sister Jasmine, and the second photo shows Nicol blowing me a good-bye kiss as our bus was getting ready to leave)!

Should you wish to be blessed by sponsoring a precious child just like Nicol, please click on:

http://www.compassion.ca/advocate/judymyers

Showers of blessing from Kenya!

Now, I rarely share the content of my sponsored kids' letters, but I could not resist sharing the letter I received last week from Ruth, my precious, happy child in Kenya! She has brought so much joy into my life and the love of our Lord Jesus shines through her infectious smile. She writes by herself in almost perfect English (although she's only 9 years old). 

Here is her letter - get ready for a few chuckles!!

"How are you? I hope you are fine. I love you so much. I am as happy as a king living in a palace. I learn at Blessed Kids School. I am in standard seven and we did exams and I was number one with three hundred seventy-nine marks. My heart had ripples of joy. When I received your photos, activity book and stickers, the joy I had knew no bound. In Christmas I received the clothes. When I received the gifts, my heart was about to come out of my skinny body.

I like playing hide and seek. We have planted maize, beans, green grams and peas. On Saturday we play football and we eat rice and beans. I go to school everyday. Before Christmas I was very happy because I knew I would be celebrating with friends and family.

I want to thank God because he has given me life without me paying him. I love you because you are a good friend."

She then proceeded to draw and color me a tree, a table, a girl, a house, a church, a cup, a chair and a ball -