As a family, we recently started to sponsor a young girl from Indonesia through the Compassion International organisation.

It’s something that we should have done a long time ago, but we finally did the right thing and we are rapt that we did.

Organisations like World Vision, Compassion and others do an outstanding job of making a difference in the lives of thousands of children through their child sponsorship programs and I highly recommend what they do.

Here are 7 reasons why I believe everyone should sponsor a child from a developing country:

  1. It’s affordable.  For the cost of less than a coffee a day, you can sponsor a child.  If you can afford a coffee, you can afford to do this.
  2. It makes a massive difference.  For this price, you are providing educational opportunities, food, clothing, access to clean water and housing.
  3. It doesn’t just impact one child.  Even though you’re sponsoring one child, there are often wider community benefits as well.  This is especially true with increased access to clean drinking water, with wells being drilled that the entire village can use.  Child sponsorship also benefits future generations, as any child who is removed from abject poverty is able to better provide for their own children when the time comes.
  4. You don’t just give money, you give hope.  The money makes a difference, but I suspect that the knowledge that there’s someone who cares enough to invest in them means a lot to a child.  In the harshest of living conditions, such hope makes a difference.
  5. It gives your children a different perspective.  I don’t want my children growing up unaware of how other children live.  Sponsoring a child as a family gives them the chance to learn more about the conditions of other countries and hopefully will assist in developing them into people who want to make a positive contribution to those less fortunate than themselves when they grow up.
  6. It’s something.  Sometimes, the statistics of world poverty are daunting and with over a billion people living in appalling conditions, it’s difficult to see how we can make a difference.  Just like the boy who returned starfish to the ocean, sponsoring a child makes a difference in that life at least.
  7. It feels good.  Doing things just because they feel good is rarely a sufficient reason to do them, but in this case, it’s quite justified.  It does feel satisfying to sponsor a child in a developing country and that’s nothing to be ashamed of.
  8. It’s a Christian responsibility.  If you’re a Christian, it’s hard to go past Jesus’ words in Matthew 25:40, when in the context of looking after the hungry, the thirsty, the lonely, the naked, the sick and the imprisoned, He says, “Whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”  If you’re not a Christian, it’s still a nice thing to do.

I hope that this encourages you to take action on an important global issue.  If you found the information in this post helpful, feel free to share it with your friends.

Together, we can make a difference!

Do you sponsor a child?

If so, what organisation do you use and what country is your child from?

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