We went in skeptical to say the least. We’ve already come to question the pictures
of little black babies looking up at the camera with “sad eyes” and no hint of
a smiles. Or videos of children
wandering around on trash piles “looking for food” (when more often they’re
looking for cans to make toy cars out of or something to kill with a slingshot). You always hear the rumors of hardly any of
the money actually getting to the kids and their families and “who knows where
it all goes.” People complaining about
why they would spend so much money on the colored letter forms, printed
pictures, and all those letters in the mail (but let’s face it, would we be as
interested without them?) - and the list goes on and on.
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| Waiting for the car with our gifts |
For us, this trip was not ony to see our two kids, but to see what Compassion International
was really all about.
And I’ll tell you what…it was SO worth it.
We got up the first morning, packed our gifts for the family
and headed out with Desire – our “guide.”
We drove 120 km to Kaya, a town of about 700,000 people. We got to the center (an Assemblies of God
church) and were surrounded by giggles as all the kids greeted us “Bonjour
Tantie, Bonjour Tonton” (Good Moring Auntie, Good Morning Uncle). Thursdays are the days where all of the kids
in the program come for breakfast and lunch and to learn a variety of
things. All of the children were divided
by age (3-5, 6-10, 11-14) and were in the middle of classes. We stopped and asked what they were learning –
some were doing Bible lessons, some were learning about health, and others
about helping your friends and family in the community. We got to the second class where Abdou, our
10 year old child, was learning about friendship.
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| All the children at the center |
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| Abdou giving us our gifts |
He was a shy little boy tucked away in the back. He nervously came and greeted us, but wouldn’t
look us in the eye – which makes sense in a culture where being picked out of a
crowd is not usually something to be proud of.
He warmed up to us a little as the day went on. After that, the kids all got into the church
and sang a welcome song for us and we were introduced as Abdou’s parents – not
having any kids, this was the first time we were able to be proud parents. We found out that we were the FIRST parents
to visit this center, so it was a party!
The rest of the day was spent visiting his family and eating
together. His family was so grateful and
couldn’t stop thanking us the whole time.
Many in the neighborhood came by to thank us and to shake our hands –
this is a community blessing, not just for the family. We exchanged gifts – we brought some material
for clothes, soap, notebooks, and candy and they gave us some grain from their
farm and a purse – then went back to the center to eat…I don’t think Abdou has
ever had such a feast – he was like a king.
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| King Abdou at lunch |
Compassion partners with local churches to run their
programs (the first thing we LOVED about it).
The pastor chooses a director for the center, who then chooses those who
will do the administration, home visits, distribution, and then they go and
chose those who will teach each of the classes (divided into three sections by
age). This center has about 250 students
from the community that come every Thursday.
All of these kids are in school (that in and of itself makes the program
worth it, as many of them are girls who would not have a chance to go to
school) and have a “plan for success” talking about what they want to be when
they grow up, how they’re going to accomplish it, and what other goals they
have (physically, spiritually, and educationally).
We were also impressed at how they treat this as a
family/community help, it’s not just for the individual child. Realizing that this is a communal society, it
would not be right to help one child without helping his siblings and
family. While the siblings of each
family don’t get ALL the same things as the sponsored child who does the
program (such as tutors or maybe even Christmas gifts), the family does receive
help as a whole – they will receive food, clothes, and even (in the case of
Abdou) a house when their other house fell down in the strong winds and rains
that happened in September.
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| Looking over Yasmine's goals and grades |
Our visit with Yasmine was a bit different because it was on
a Friday, so it was just us, her, and the staff at the center (at a Christian Alliance Church). She was so excited right away. She smiled so much - she’s such a beautiful little girl with an
amazing spirit. She just kept peeking at
us as if to say “is this real?”
We got to see some information about the center – about the
same amount of students and the same program happening – this program has had sponsors
visit before, but only about once a year.
We got to see all of Yasmine’s papers – she wants to be a nurse and has
really good grades – and then we got to visit her mom.
She and her mom are Catholic and go to church
regularly. She bikes to school every
day and to the center, which is a ways from her home. She asks lots of questions and reads the
Bible in front of her class. Her mom
sells fish at the market and we got to see those and where she sells – this is
priceless stuff that we would have never learned if we hadn’t visited.
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| Yasmine's house and family |
We had a great visit with them and headed back. It went way too fast and we just wanted to stay
longer and hug on her and tell her how proud we were that she’s doing so good
in school and that with God all things are possible.
We left with smiles on our faces and “see you next times”
exchanged.
So, we’ve said a lot and not even said anything at all, so
we’ll leave you with why we love this program:
It’s an outreach – the children do not have to be Christians or members of the church to be in the program, which allow outreach to many non-Christian families. So often these ministries are just for the church, which lacks the evangelistic aspect of it all.
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| Giving and recieving gifts |
It’s local – from the main office to those who work directly with the children, we didn’t see one white face the whole time (nothing against international workers, it's just very rare to see). All the
translation, letter distribution, gifts, and organization is done by
locals. Besides creating jobs, it helps
cut down on the cultural faux-pas that might happen with too much western involvement.
Family accountability – as far as we can see, they did great job at helping the families where they actually need help while not taking the responsibility away from the family (not just throwing money at families to “help” them). The home visits from the workers (who are also part of the community) really help assess what the real needs are in the family.
With 175 centers and over 42,000 children in the programs
JUST in Burkina Faso, this program is a lot of work. The people at Compassion have done a great
job organizing and encouraging local churches to take responsibility for the
poor and needy in their communities – something that West Africans are very
good at naturally, but sometimes lack the means to really give.
We’re impressed.
Instead of coming back skeptical about what our money is
going to, we came back wanting to give more, wanting to help where we can, and
wanting to encourage Compassion to keep doing what they’re doing!
There are still about 8,000 kids in Burkina that are not sponsored…would
you consider sponsoring a child? Visit www.compassion.com for more information!
No, Compassion did not pay us to write this - they didn't even encourage it...we have definitely found something that we really believe in! God is working through this program.
