Wow. It was another fabulous day at Catalyst.
The highlight of the day for me was when a graduate from the Compassion program shared his story with the 13,000 people in attendance. He talked about living in extreme poverty in Kenya from the ages of 4-7, including a time in his life when his mother left him with relatives (to be the 8th child at an already meager table) to try and find some hope for him. When she finally returned, she took him on a long train ride to a city with a Compassion project in a local baptist church. At age 8, he was sponsored. Not long after that he received a letter from his sponsor that, as he put it, "altered the course of his life." A letter he had kept for 19 years.
The letter was a simple one. His then 20-year-old sponsor told him that he was glad to have a friend in Kenya, but even more important was the Friend they shared in Jesus. This young man told the 8-year-old boy about how Christ had changed his life. And in doing so, changed someone else's.
After sharing for a bit, the emcee asked the now grown Kenyan man if he had ever met his sponsor. When he said he had not, the next question made us all hold our breath: "Would you like to now?"
Sure enough, a man walked on stage and the audience erupted in applause. What happened next is a blur of tears of joy. It was one of the most moving things I've ever experienced. I've been involved with Compassion for more than 5 years no, but I've never witnessed a sponsor and child meeting for the first time. It was amazing.
We did what Compassion calls a "Packet Pass" where we walk through the crowd handing child packets to anyone interested in sponsoring. In my section I ran out of packets and ran to get more. After the session ended, I went to the Compassion booth to help the (wonderful) mob of people sign up to change a child's life. It was wonderful to be a part of something like this.
I have to e-mail the marketing guy from the event to find out the exact numbers, but for right now I can tell you that somewhere between 500 and 600 children were sponsored at this event. God is good! And God's people show God's goodness and love when they give themselves to the "least of these."
Check out the Compassion widget below for more information about getting involved with this amazing ministry. If you're already a sponsor, you can find out how to help at events or become a Child Advocate to support Compassion even further.
A few other awesome ministries were mentioned today. I'll try to share about them in some upcoming posts.
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