I am in India with Compassion International, visiting church partners who are serving their communities. Compassion’s philosophy inspires me partially because of how much sense it makes. Bob and Carol Lenz are on the same trip. Below is a short account of a gift they brought to the kids at one of Compassion’s church partners.
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Bob and Carol Lenz had brought along a bag full of small gifts to give to the kids, each gift identical to the others. There were nearly 300 kids packed into the small room. The gift required a small bit of explanation for use and so Bob began to walk through the steps, aided by a translator. But the more Bob explained the details, the more the kids and the translator looked puzzled.
“We do not understand.” explained the Compassion staffer. “These words are difficult to translate.” You see, not only does English not smoothly translate into Hindi (India’s legally-established, national language), not all Indian’s speak Hindi. In fact, only Indian’s from the Northern regions speak Hindi. Indian’s in the Southern regions mostly refuse to accept Hindi as the national language on political grounds and won’t even attempt to learn it. More often than not, Indians in rural areas use regional, tribal dialects to communicate.
So, in order to rightly offer the gift Bob and Carol brought, we were each going to have to show each child how to unwrap, assemble and use the gift individually. This posed another obstacle: The room was so densely crowded that there was no foot-space between children. Should we try to access the kids in the middle, we would trample other kids on our way.
One of the Compassion staff took a gift from Bob, knelt on the ground in front of one child and showed her how to unwrap it, assemble it and use it. He then handed her another gift, still in the wrapping and gestured her to teach the boy behind her what to do. We followed suit, showing the kids we had access to, the ones directly in front of us, how to unwrap, assemble and use the gift in such a way that they could then turn around and to the same for the child behind them and so on and so on.
There are 1.4 Billion people living in India. That’s one sixth of the world’s population in an area roughly one third the size of the U.S. A large percentage of Indians live in desperate conditions which generally include a lack of education, lack of access to job opportunities and the utter absence of basic medical care. Not only are the particular issues plaguing Indian’s overwhelming, the obstacles for Westerners wanting to help are equally overwhelming.
This is why I am so thankful for the way Compassion International works; partnering with already established local churches to assist their particular work among the particular people in a particular place. Because Compassion works the way it does, our role (yours and mine) does not include wrapping our minds around all the intricacies and complexities of the “Problem” and trying to “Fix It.” Instead, we get the blessed privilege and honor of caring for a particular child and doing so with the hopeful knowledge that kids who learn to read teach their families to read; kids who learn how to avoid water-borne illness teach their families to do the same; kids who discover the love of God in Christ pass that discovery on to their families and friends.
The gift you and I get to offer has deep impact on the lives of kids because of the wonderful benefits child sponsorship affords (education, medical care, community, etc..). But the deeper and more powerful impact is that, in Compassion partner churches, these kids are taught to see themselves as far more than people in need who receive the gifts of generous people. They are taught that they are agents of healing, health, ingenuity and love themselves. They become gift-givers in their own neighborhoods for whom language and access are not obstacles at all.
