meet viviana

over the years, as tommy and i prayed and came to realize that we were going to be a one child family, we also prayed about how we could help another child.

last weekend, i went with some other ladies from our church to the extraordinary women's conference at first baptist church. it was amazing. we had talks with inspirational women friday night and saturday. it was loud, crazy, quiet, and worshipful. about 25 women from our church went. even just the van ride from the church to first baptist was too much fun!

anyway - one of the partners of ewomen is compassion international. on saturday, a man named jimmy spoke for compassion. born in kenya, his mom fell gravely ill when he was young. at the time, he had 2 sisters - one of which was only 8 months old....and still nursing. when his mother got sick, she quit producing milk and his little sister ended up starving to death.

i don't remember the rest of the story of his family - when his mom passed away, etc., but i do know that he said he was sponsored through compassion when he was 8 years old. a 20 year old man from canada named mark was at a conference and picked up jimmy's packet and was his now his sponsor.

my eyes teared up as jimmy read from one of mark's letters. he went on to tell about what he is doing now - finishing up his studies at a Bible college and planning to go back and share the Good News with his home country of Kenya! i could feel God tugging at my heart and reminding me that tommy and i said we would do something like this. i sat looking at the pictures on the screen. the eyes of little children who are not asking for much - just a chance!

at the break, i went downstairs and walked directly to the compassion table. on the way down, thoughts were swirling. how can i fit this into the budget? do we want to pick a girl or a boy? i wonder if i can find a child with mary peyton's birthday? or our anniversary? will i just "know" who we are supposed to sponsor?

when i got downstairs, the table was surrounded. i finally got to it to see packets upon packets of children needing support. as i picked up one after another, i noticed some had a red sticker that said "PRIORITY CHILD Needs immediate sponsor". i asked the representative exactly what that meant. obviously i know the meaning of "immediate", but what made THESE children immediate and the others not?

she said that the ones with the stickers had been on the list the longest and needed to be sponsored.

great. just great. now my heart was tearing. i wanted to grab all of the priority children and fill out paperwork right and left. but i didn't. instead, i glanced down to one of the most precious faces and knew. it just felt right.

i grabbed the packet and looked at the face. i read her story. i teared up. viviana is 3 months younger than mary peyton. she lives with her parents and 5 siblings in a village of about 1500 people in ecuador. because we are sponsoring her, her life will by no means be easy, but she will have a few things that she otherwise might not (ok probably would not) have. she will have new opportunities to grow and learn - physically, mentally, and spiritually. for her birthday, compassion will make sure she has a gift.

our prayer is that she will come to know Jesus through this process. here is viviana:

mary peyton has already been telling people that she has a little sister that she will never know. i hope and pray that through viviana, mary peyton will come to understand how important it is to love everyone - and that there are children out there who need our help!

i will let you know when we hear from viviana - i can't wait!

here are a few other pictures from the conference (with a comment under each one)...

me with stormie omartian. if you aren't familiar with her, she is the author of "power of a praying ______" (mom, parent, wife, etc., etc.).

me with our "old lady" (as tommy calls her). debbie campbell is such a sweet friend! i thought this turned out pretty good to be a "hold out and snap of yourself" picture taken with my iphone!

me with mandisa. oh my goodness. she was awesome! she literally did not stop moving at all once she started performing!