Day 22: Missions Fair Update

Well, the Missions Fair at my church was a great success! The missions admin team had the church divided up into different missions areas, such as Orphan Care (where my booth was located), Prayer Ministry, preview of 2014 mission trips, church planting, and others.

I had quite a few people stop by my booth. Most of them were already sponsors, either through Compassion or World Vision. Some had questions. There were a few new sponsors who wanted to know when to send Christmas packages, how to send a financial gift, and other things. And, I did have one person take a child packet.

Seeds were indeed planted. This was really just the first step in bringing awareness. More great things are in store! Now, to start planning for 2014 Compassion Sunday!

In His peace,

Sharon

Day 20: Missions Fair

Today is an exciting day for me! As an advocate, I haven't really done a lot with this ministry for reasons I mentioned in a previous post. But, it's starting to take off now, and I'm totally excited about the opportunities that are coming my way.

One such opportunity is to participate in my church's Missions Fair 2013. I'll have a Compassion booth set up, which will be my first time to do something like this with the ministry. I'm hoping that I get a good response, and maybe plant some seeds. I also hope that I can find ways to get people engaged who are already sponsors. This is a good first step.

Prayers appreciated!

In His peace,

Sharon

Day 1: Called to serve

When we started sponsoring our girl Beatriz in 2011, I had no idea at that time that God would soon ask me to serve as a Compassion advocate. I wasn't even aware that they even had advocates for this ministry until months later. While perusing another blog, I came across a post about how to become a Compassion advocate. It intrigued me, and I felt a little tug on my heart, like God was whispering in my ear, starting me on a path. The months went by, and after several more very clear confirmations from the Lord, I found myself filling out that advocate application and going through the training.

While I'm just now stepping up to really focus on my advocacy, all along I've felt that God was calling me to this position. He's made it clear time and time again that this is one way that He wants me to serve.

"Called to serve"...What exactly does that mean? In Galatians 5:13, we read "For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another." If we look at this same scripture in the Message version of the bible, it says that it is absolutely clear that God has called us to a free life ("liberty"). Just make sure that we don't use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever we want to do and destroy our freedom. Rather, we should use our freedom to seve one another in love.

I can't think of a better way to serve one another in love than sponsoring a child, or advocating on behalf of children who are hurting, hungry, feeling unloved and unwanted.

Has God called you to serve somewhere? Have you obeyed? I've learned time and time again that if I try to follow my own plan, something happens to disrupt it, or it just doesn't work out. But, if I follow God's plan, and obey and serve the way He wants me to, it will work out!

In His peaceful presence,


Sharon

Catching up...again

Well, it's that time again...catching up on posts, and trying to get back into the swing of this. It's been a busy year for me. When I became a Compassion advocate, I really didn't have any direction as to how that might look for me personally. At my church, there was already someone who was "the Compassion person", and she only did Compassion Sunday, one day each year. After that, there was no mention of Compassion at all, from anyone, throughout the year. So, I haven't done a lot with my advocacy, but things have changed. The person has moved to another state, which means there is no-one to take over this area. I've felt the Lord calling me to step up to the plate, and so I met with one of the pastors at church who is in charge of missions and mobilization. It was a good meeting, and steps are being taken to bring more awareness for Compassion at our church. It's coming under the umbrella of a brand new orphan ministry, so we'll see what happens!

I'm excited about this opportunity, and I'm looking forward to what the future holds. Now, I need to start making plans to update this blog more often and come up with ways to promote Compassion within our church and community.

In response to the Great Commission, Compassion International exists as an advocate for children to release them from their spiritual, economic, social and physical poverty, and enable them to become responsible and fulfilled Christian adults.

Become a sponsor and change the world for one child!

In His peaceful presence,

Sharon

Sharon Landers
Compassion Advocate

The first two!

Compassion sends each new advocate a package of materials to help them get started with their ministry. Included in that package are two child packets. My first two! It's a little overwhelming to think that I am now responsible to try to find sponsors for these two precious children. How in the world do I do that?!? That's the question that runs through my mind as I look at their sweet faces and read their information. Well, the only way to get started in this ministry is to...well,...start! So, the journey begins.

Compassion Advocate

Advocate…one who pleads the cause of another. That’s the official definition. In essence, what it means to be an advocate for Compassion International is simply this: to plead the cause of impoverished children around the world in the name of Jesus. Quoting directly from Compassion’s website about what it means to be an advocate, we are to:

• Educate Christians concerning the biblical mandate to love the poor.
• Share Compassion as one solution to those needs that provides a way for people to respond to the biblical mandate.
• Increase awareness of the needs of impoverished children around the world.

My Advocate journey started in the fall of 2011. That’s when I first felt a tug on my heart to do more than just be a sponsor, although that is a very worthy position by itself. My husband and I sponsored our first Compassion child, a little girl in Brazil, in April 2011.

In the fall of 2011, I started wondering what more I could do on behalf of Compassion. At the time, I was taking a women’s bible study (“James”, by Beth Moore). This study is the thing that took it over the top for me. There was one session in particular that God used to tell me, without any doubts, that this was something I needed to do. If you’ve ever studied the book of James in the bible, you’re probably familiar with James 1:27: “Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.” James 15-16 also tells us to take care of those in need and if we don’t, ‘what does it profit?’. In other words, what good is our faith if we don’t live it out?

As I write this, I’m a brand new advocate, so I’ve just gotten started on this journey. If you’re wondering what it’s all about, and how to become an advocate yourself, here is how the process works.

First, I went to the Advocate’s area of the Compassion website. This is where you’ll find a complete Advocate Position Description as well as the application. Compassion makes every effort to make you aware of what an advocate’s responsibilities are even before you commit to it. This is one thing that I like about it because I’m a planner through and through. I want to know ahead of time what I’m getting into, what will happen, and how I can prepare for it.

Once you read the information on the website, you’ll fill out the application. This covers your basic contact information, your history with the Compassion ministry, some information about your interests and activities, how you’re involved at your church, and a statement of faith. You will also be asked to agree to a minor background check. Then, you click submit and it’s done. After that, you’ll wait to hear from Compassion about setting up a phone interview.

I had heard that it may take several weeks before Compassion would contact me about the next steps. I finally received an email from a Compassion staff member to set up my phone interview. He explained that it will take about 45 minutes. We scheduled it for the following week, and I’ll admit that I was a little bit nervous about it. In the end, though, it was an interesting call. In the beginning, he asked me some questions, which I answered easily (just a few things about myself, my testimony about becoming a Christian, and why I wanted to become an advocate). He then started telling me all about what is involved in being an advocate, what kind of training I’ll receive, what the next steps are, and other information. One thing about it is that they’re very flexible about this call. They’ll work with you for whatever day and time suits your schedule.

After the phone call, he sent me an email with a link to the online training at the website. It’s formatted like a powerpoint presentation, and is extremely informative (but, really easy to understand). I learned so much about Compassion that I wasn’t aware of before. I went through the training in one sitting, but it’s set up so that you can go through it as your time permits. If you only have 10 minutes to devote to it, then you can go through it for 10 minutes, and you just pick up where you left off when you have some more free time!

There were links to other online training tools as well as some great information about resources. Once I completed the training, I was an official Compassion Advocate!

You will be sent information with contacts in your region, such as your Regional Advocate Manager. I’ve already connected with several of my contacts and have even joined the Facebook advocates group for my region.

So, what happens now? What form will my ministry take and what form will your advocate ministry take? Well, the answer is any form that we want it to take! Compassion is very flexible and encouraging to advocates to work with their ministry, using our particular talents and gifts. Your advocacy may include things such as speaking at church, working tables at Compassion sponsored events (even concerts!), or sharing about Compassion with your family, friends and co-workers. I blog, so one form my ministry will take is to blog about Compassion on a regular basis.

I’ve been told that there are some opportunities to attend regional and national Advocates conferences. It will probably be a while before I can do that, but I’m looking forward to it when the opportunity comes my way. Perhaps there will be a local or regional event that I can attend in the near future. I’ve already connected with a local advocate on Facebook, and I’m hoping that we can meet for coffee and brainstorming sometime soon.

Have you thought about becoming an advocate? Would you like to find out more? Click here to read more about becoming an advocate. I’m so looking forward to this new journey I’m on, and I just know that the Lord will bless me for being obedient to His calling.

In His grace,

Sharon

New Advocate!

Wow, the past few days have been a whirlwind of information. I had my phone interview, which went very well, I think. I've gone through the initial training, and so now, I am officially a Compassion Advocate! It's exciting to start on this journey and I'm so looking forward to seeing what the Lord will do with me and this ministry.


Last night, I had a chance to share my story about how I felt led to become an advocate. It was an unexpected opportunity at the end of a bible study class that I'm doing. So, that's a start!


In His grace,


Sharon

It's a done deal!

Last month (April 2012), I submitted my application to become an advocate. I was told that it would be 6-8 weeks before I heard anything. It was hard waiting to hear because patience is not one of the things that I’ve been blessed with. I’m more patient now than when I was younger, but still…I was anxious and eager to hear something. Well, I finally did! I’ve gone through the online training and learned so much more about Compassion than I knew before. It was very interesting to me. I also have a phone interview scheduled for next week. Praying that it goes well and I can move forward on my way to becoming an advocate.

In His grace,

Sharon