For the past week I followed the Compassion bloggers on their trip to Guatemala. Their messages, beautiful and haunting about children and their families whose home life forces us Americans to rename our poverty, made my body gush tears, wrung me out, stripped me apart and made me think about what part I play in ending this poverty. Then I remembered this line from my “Manhood to Mission Field“: “I never imagined my role in my boys’ manhood training was training for my mission field in the world.” I remembered my focus starts at home, but like the bloggers reported, we can’t just give life at home when the world around us is dying. We must do what we can do.

The bloggers were sent to shed light on the dark poverty of Guatemala and to ask readers to sponsor a child through the Christian ministry Compassion International. Please consider doing so, in Jesus’ name. I didn’t sponsor a child in Guatemala because my family sponsors Daniel in Burkina Faso, Africa, a landlocked country where most adults are unemployed and those who work earn about $30 a month. Daniel doesn’t attend school but helps his mother sell goods in the market. He’s been our child for almost a year, and I have been a negligent second mother. While we send him a monthly allowance and always pray for him, I haven’t taken the time to send him letters. I had Joshua, who was born the same year as Daniel, write a letter, but I never mailed it. Weekly I say I will mail that letter and write another. We received our third letter from Daniel Monday.

He just wants to get to know us, to know that we are praying for him, to know that we care for him beyond our monthly obligation. I do, but Daniel hasn’t gotten any letters from us and my boys haven’t seen me mail any letters to Daniel. They don’t know how important it is for me to excel on my mission field at home so that I—and they—excel on the mission field in the world. So, I will write and I will mail and my sons will see me do these and know the importance, beyond money, of giving life to someone in the grips of death. The bloggers, particularly Ann Voskamp of Holy Experience, and singer/songwriter Shaun Groves, challenged me this week. And now I will do what I know I can do.

Copyright 2010 by Rhonda J. Smith