Articles by Charlotte Gambill

Compassion

I embarked on a trip that impacted my life in ways I never imagined. Steve and I, together with Paul and Glenda, had agreed to visit a number of projects in Kinango, Kenya, where we partner with the children’s charity, Compassion. Compassion facilitates the individual sponsorship of children in Third World countries, working through church projects in the local community. The children get medical care, education and a church experience – and all for just £21 per month. As a church we have teamed up with Compassion to sponsor children from the same area in Kenya, in the hope that by doing so we can not just change one child’s life but together can impact a whole community. This trip was to go and see the work we had become involved in and meet our 800 sponsored children.

As I sat packing my suitcase the night before we departed, I explained to my four year old that mummy and daddy were going to visit the other members of our family, our Compassion children - all five of them. She wandered off and I wondered if she understood the significance of this trip. A few moments later she reappeared clutching her piggy bank and said. ‘Mummy, this is the money I saved for Eliud, Mary, Sharon, Ariel and Christine. She knew each of the children’s names we sponsored but more than that, she understood that as a family we were blessed to be a blessing. It was at this point the tears started - and they would continue for the next few days.

On arrival in Kenya we met up with my parents, Paul and Glenda, Ian Hamilton the Director of Compassion UK and some of his amazing team. We went straight from the plane to a 4x4 for what was to be a very long and bumpy road trip. After several hours of dirt track we rounded a corner to the sound of singing as hundreds of children sang a welcome for our arrival. Then the tears started again for every single one of us.
Before us was a sea of smiling faces as the children, many of who were seeing a white person for the first time, laughed and ran around our legs excited about the visitors who had interrupted school for the day. We proceeded to the small brick hall, which was where they had their schooling - paid for through the sponsorship we are providing. We listened to the children sing and recite memory verses, and then the local Pastor thanked us. He spoke with overwhelming gratitude about the difference our sponsorship had made to his and the children’s world.

Compassion only work through local churches. So, once they select an area to give aid to, they first spend time finding great men and women of God who they can work with on the ground to help the children. Once a local church willing to be a project base has been found, they get children from the surrounding area to come forward for possible sponsorship. Each child that is sponsored then comes under the care of that local church and the Compassion staff who make sure they are fed, clothed, are properly immunised, educated and spiritually grounded in God.

One local Pastor I spoke to told me that he had hand built the church hall we were standing in, which doubled as the school hall. He was in his 60s. He explained that the surrounding area was 90% Muslim and he had fought for a piece of land to build a home for God’s people. He then took a loan to buy bricks and built the building himself with no sign of anyone even wanting a church! The church started with three members, himself, his wife and her sister.

Then along came Compassion, who believed in his vision for God’s house to reach out and serve that community. They established a project and found children who needed sponsorship. Since then, our church has sponsored 150 kids in that one area alone and because of the sponsorship, the church has grown to over 300 people! As the children have come into the school for sponsorship and church services, so have their brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles, mums and dads. It was amazing to see how our financial seed was not just helping a child, but raising up a church that is impacting the whole community.

We went from there to another project where again we were greeted by singing. Here we got to meet one of our own children, Mary, who is aged 7. We went to her home and met her grandma and great grandma who is 113 years old! They were raising Mary and her siblings as both parents had passed away. As we sat on the dirt floor with the children I looked at the small dark mud hut they were living in. Great Grandma slept on a dirt mound of rocks and boulders, and the five children all slept in one bed on the floor with just a thin mattress separating them from the soil. They proudly showed us the corrugated tin roof and explained that the money we had sent at Christmas had provided that roof. I couldn’t believe that just £20 had paid for a roof for the whole house.

As we sat with the family, their dignity, kindness and strength was overwhelming. How awesome that through the ministry of Compassion we were given the immense privilege of helping families like Mary’s. As we went to leave, Mary took my hand and said, ‘you’re my mummy’. It was like time stopped in that moment and inside my spirit I felt God whisper ‘yes you are’. We are all part of God’s amazing Body, a family that spans the globe. But here this was not just a biblical truth; it was a living reality with a face and a name with feelings and real needs. Mary was indeed my family. How incredible that through the work of Compassion this had been moved from a scriptural truth to a real testimony. We are helping to raise these children and who knows what they will go on to do later in life because the church came alongside and said ‘we believe in you’.
Over the next three days we visited more projects, a new baby clinic and heard more incredible testimonies of lives that were forever changed because of someone’s kindness on the other side of the world. I was moved again by what the true meaning of compassion is. Since my return I have kept thinking about my own life and asking ‘what more can I do?’ I wanted to write this article to you. Wherever this finds you - at home with your family, in your office, on the bus, on your way to a meeting - wherever you are I want to alert you to the whisper of God that says ‘what more can you do?’ We can’t do everything but we can all do just a little more for the sake of others.

God’s blessing and favour hang out in places of brokenness, the Spirit of God is there, waiting and looking for the church to involve and do the work of Jesus. In all our busyness for Him we must constantly make sure we are doing what he actually wants us to do. Don’t be too busy with God’s work that you miss the Samaritan. How many ‘Samaritans’ do we walk by, not because we are bad people but because somehow we feel it’s not our thing or it’s someone else’s calling? I have realised again that there are simply too many ‘Marys’ out there for us to walk by. It is actually all our job, in some way, to make a difference.

I was recently talking to a Canadian lady who has lived and worked in Africa for over twenty years. She told me she believed it was every westerner’s moral responsibility to sponsor a child in the Third World; and after my trip I have to say I agree. To whom much is given, much will be expected. And in what we often call the ‘western world’ or the First World, we have much. As churches we cannot ‘walk on by’ any more, we must reach out and share our blessing. As individuals we must write more people into our journey through life. As parents and leaders to the next generation we must teach the godly priority of being ministers of compassion.