New Life, Africa style

When I was a sophomore in high school I went to a Third Day concert with my friends from youth group. Our youth leader drove us there and we totally rocked it out. Yes. That is what happened. At some point during the concert Third Day guy stopped singing and started talking about sponsoring a kid through Compassion International. He really sold it. So much so that a couple of my friends and I went in together and sponsored a kid. That was my first ever experience with sponsorship.

I don't quite think my friends and I were Third Day guy's target demographic that night. Or Compassion's for that matter. We never wrote our kid, or sent care packages, and I'm pretty sure we missed sending in our check some months. We were high school kids after all. But that early exposure to sponsoring a child has stuck with me.

And now I have the joy of getting to sponsor a child through the BEST organization out there. Hands down. Africa New Life, while not the biggest or the best known (but we're going to fix that!), is growing and giving the children of Rwanda a new future. They are doing it through national leadership, education, the gospel, health care, community development, food, and you and me.

When you sponsor a child you completely change the trajectory of that child's life forever. When you sponsor a child through Africa New Life, you give her access to the BEST school in Rwanda, you give her government medical coverage, regular meals every day, spiritual mentorship, and best of all, she gets to stay in her home country, with her family, so when she grows up she can become one of its educated future leaders.

Sponsorship is an amazing way to carry out God's heart for caring for the fatherless. Many of the children in the sponsorship program live in extended family or single parent households. For most, sponsorship is their only hope for education. I love that the little boy we sponsor wants to be the president of Rwanda when he grows up. I LOVE that he dreams big!

I am dreaming big right along with him. Dreaming big dreams for Rwanda, a country I love so much. Dreaming big dreams for Africa New Life, an organization that has already done so much in that country and that will surely do so much more.

This video shows you more than I could ever tell you how much sponsorship means to a child. It captures the moment that Grace was told she was getting a sponsor. I dare you not to cry...