Our Compassion International Visit

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. 

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.

All the children at the center

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.

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. 

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.

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:

• Partnering with the local church – we love that it’s the pastors and members of the church who are running this program.  They’re checking in with families and are able to look at the ministry from a cultural prospective to best serve their neighbors.

• 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.

• 

  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.