My eyes wander toward the steep slopes and the houses that are perched there.  Small communities shoved together in a makeshift suburbia.  Houses with concrete walls and floors and corrugated tin roofs.  Clothes are on the lines and I think I can hear them flapping in the mountain breeze. 

Families are scattered about.  Men leaning in doorways, ponchos slung across their shoulders.  Mothers shuffling and sweeping, the worn soles of their shoes making a gentle shhh shhh sound as they move.  Children playing happily with strings and sticks in what is meant to be a yard.

I think that I must have known a place like this existed, but I didn’t know it like I know it now.  I had read about the third world and seen pictures of it and parts of me had cringed at the sight.  But today, in the here and now and for forever, this third world and her people are mine.  Her children are mine. 

Sebastian is one of her children. 

He is nine years old and he likes to run in the afternoons.  He goes to school and helps his mother with making beds and because of Compassion International he feels the burden of poverty just a little less. 

Sponsoring a child through Compassion is easy and it’s life changing.  It changes the way you think, the way you see the world, and the way your heart breaks.  Because once you sponsor a child, your family grows. 

But there’s more than just you.   

Sponsoring a child changes the way children in 25 of the world’s poorest countries live.  It gives them letters and pictures and stories from places that they can’t even imagine.  It gives them health care and education and a chance to feel proud of who they are.  It gives them hope that they can cling to and a Jesus that is tangible. 

You can make the difference to a child.  You can change their world a little and I promise, they’ll change yours just like Sebastian is changing mine.

Is today the day that you extend your family?

Click here to sponsor a child that has been waiting over six months for a sponsor.

I avoid people and conversation and wait on the afternoon and a more semi permanent hiding that lies behind my apartment walls. I long for my books and my blanket and some time that is my own. Time to read and to write and to shake this funk from my shoulders. Time to pray and plead and resurrect the most important part of me. Time to spend on my knees letting Jesus peace my heart a bit while He’s piecing it a little more.

It starts today. 40 days of fasting. To change the world. By making needs known. It starts today and I’m excited to be a part of it. I’ll be fasting on July 27th and praying for this home-for-awhile of mine.

Be a part of the change.

Follow the crowd at Inspired to Action or check up on all of the other bloggers as they fast and pray for a place in need.

Pray for Brant today as he fasts for the place where God lives.

I am alone and I let the silence wrap itself around me.  There is a feeling of accomplishment.  A sense of “I did it!”  A sadness in another year gone by. 

But this year was different from the others.  It was more mine, I suppose.  Before, I was surrounded by friends, family and teachers that I knew and adored.  I could run next door and yell for Mink to kill the creepy things on the walls.  I could find a cup of tea on my desk and know that my friend left it for me to warm up the morning.  I could wander the halls and stop by fifty doors and know the hearts of the people behind them. 

This year it was only me– a little girl trapped in a grown up world, living in a far off place, learning grown up things.  And I made it.  I lived the dream.  I saw it through.  The tears were minimal.  The experience was magical.  The year was mine.

In a few short minutes, I’ll push my chair away from my desk and clear away my things.  I’ll climb aboard the bus and fight the nausea as we ride through the mountains.  I’ll think about those twenty-four faces, their hugs, the sweet things they’ve said in the past ten months.  I’ll think about them growing and me growing and how the world is still bright before us.  I’ll be so very proud of how brave they are and how strong they are and how smart they are. 

And I’ll be proud of me, too.  For walking through corridors in a place that I didn’t know with people I’d never met.  For talking to parents unashamedly in broken Spanish.  For going when God said that I should.  I’ll be proud of me for stepping out on faith when all I felt was fear. 

I’d much rather be thankful for another day and happy to just be breathing in it.  Happy that I’m away and learning new things and growing spiritually and figuring out the hard things for myself.  I’d rather be embracing tears, knowing that they’re there because my love for people and home is so great.  I’d rather watch little Colombian angels paint murals and build houses with popsicle sticks and not worry about the clutter, the chaos, or the chatter. 

I’d rather hold onto the joy I have in Jesus and let that be enough. 

By this afternoon there were so many slides that traffic was rerouted and it took nearly an hour to get home. I found myself near tears at the thought of it. The familiarity of that sliding foundation. That moving earth. The need to reroute and find another way.

See, I think that’s how I ended up in Colombia. I’d settled in, like those houses on the mountainside. I’d found my spot, my secure place and built a house on it. It was comfortable with pretty flower beds and a porch swing and the weather promised all sunny skies ahead.

And then it rained, and rained, and rained. And the ground got muddy and the topsoil slid away, running down Maple Drive toward the point of least resistance. A pile of rocks and plans and dirt lying in the street. My rocks, my plans, my dirt. My shifting foundation.

I stood and stared at the mess for a bit before it came to me. Unsure of what it meant. Hoping it didn’t mean what I thought it meant. But it did. It does. And I’m in the middle of my detour. My way around the landslide. I’m where I’m supposed to be, where God’s called me to be. Among the rubble, the orphaned, the poor. Among the different, the difficult, the strange. Where there are earthquakes and volcanoes and landslides that rock the foundation of this country and wreck my heart for its people. Where my foundation is finally The Rock upon which I stand.

” The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall because it had its foundation on the rock.”

-Matthew 7:25