douglas.

hey check out that cute little banner in the upper left corner.

i'm a Compassion sponsor. i sponsor a boy in brazil named douglas.

in honor of my new banner, i'm going to tell my story about douglas. because he's so cool.

belmont has a "spiritual emphasis week" every year. one night during my sophomore year, after the worship gathering, i stopped by the compassion table. i don't even know why. no one had plugged compassion, i don't think. it was just...there. and usually i avoid "those types of things." people begging for money for children with sad faces. i don't like being manipulated, you know. but you know God, He's always up to something. somehow i ended up at the table, browsing through the child packets.

let me pause to note how ridiculous that sounds. browsing through children.

anyway, i found a picture i liked. it was a little girl named priscila. she was standing with her hand on her hip, so i picked her because i liked her attitude. i went back to my dorm room, and told my roommates. they thought it would be fun if we sponsored her together.

we had a lot of fun writing her letters, and sending her pictures. she even sent us some crafts that she made at the compassion center! i can't explain how much joy something like that brings. it's not the "i feel so good about myself, i helped someone in need" feeling. it's the "i can't believe i have a relationship with such a precious child in another country" feeling. a real relationship. because of the relationship, we kind of forgot about the sending money part. i mean, we sent the money. but it didn't seem like a big deal. we just really liked writing letters back and forth.

then one of those roommates got married, so she couldn't really be a part of the fun anymore. so it was just me and ashley. then one day we got a really sad letter. it said that pricila's mom stopped taking her to the center and they didn't know why. they offered to pick her up and drop her off, but her mom didn't want her to go anymore.

i was mad.

but i decided...well, maybe this is the perfect time to cease sponsorship. i'm in college, i don't have a lot of money. even paying for half of the sponsorship seemed like a lot to me.

and then i pulled out the rest of the letter.

a picture of douglas, and his packet of information. i couldn't say no! it wasn't guilt, it was the joy of knowing another little person.

i am blown away by this "little person." he's actually about to turn 13, and they sent me updated pictures of him a few months ago. it's time to stop thinking of him as a "little person." he could probably beat me up.

anyway, he's awesome. he offers to pray for ME, and one time he sent ME a Bible verse to memorize. how many teenage boys do you know like that?

eventually we graduated and ashley got married too, so now it's just me and douglas.

every now and then when i review my budget trying to find things to give up, so i can save more money...it's never even a temptation to cut out this "expense." thirty-two dollars a month. that's actually a lot of money for me, but i never even feel it. i care about him so much. the money part is so insignificant. not because i'm so loaded, or because there aren't other things i could do with that money. but being a compassion sponsor is so much more than just handing over money every month! i'm part of his life, and he's part of mine.

i really liked the fact that me and my two roommates could sponsor together when we were in college. families do it, youth groups do it. that money can be divided up over any number of people who want to sponsor together. that's how i was able to afford it in college.

so, to sum up...

douglas is better than netflix. you should get one.

ask me if you have questions. i worked at a concert once selling children (there's probably a better way to say that), so i still have the info.