Hope

This Sunday at church we had the honor of learning more about Compassion International. We've been sponsoring a young girl from Haiti for 10 years but we've never heard directly from someone who has been through the program. A young man who was raised in Africa and had a sponsor from Austin, TX shared his life journey. When the pastor asked him what his hopes were as a young boy in Africa he shared "I grew up in a place with no hopes, no dreams". He shared he first had hope when he was accepted in the local Compassion program and when he received letters from his sponsors. He shared that he had great joy when they remembered his birthday. He now is a phd student in the US and his family now supports 5 Compassion children!

That afternoon we went through the Compassion experience. It is a mobile experience that is touring the US. It gave us the opportunity to step into another world. We took Ains and when we were explaining this to her she said "I know, I'll give them some of my toys!!".  I hope her sweet heart keeps growing.

She fell asleep on the drive!

The experience was very powerful-the sounds made you feel as if you were there. 

This was an example of the Compassion classroom.

It felt hopeful. The kids in the program get an education, medical care, food and support for their family.  In addition to your monthly support you can send a family gift ($20) a couple times a year and it is significant since $50 is a common monthly wage in Haiti. 

After we heard the speaker on Sunday we decided to sponsor another little girl who is 4 and lives in Haiti. We thought it would be helpful for us to encourage her with letters since we now have a 4 year old. 

We then went to walk around a new store in Waco-Ains called these her pets!

We are trying to take walks every night as a family and Ains picked out this outfit for tonight's walk :)!

Random-Ains is learning about space in school and wants her bed to be a golden rocket ship to take her to space. Every morning she tells us it didn't work.  This was her counting 3,2,1 blast off!

A couple more party pics from my phone :).