Our new "sister"

Meet the newest addition to our family, Jeli. She is 9 years old and lives in Tanzania, Africa. She is one of 6 children. Her parents sometimes work as farmers. We met Jeli through Compassion International. We just began sponsoring her. Compassion International is a Christian organization that helps children living in predominately poverty stricken countries. Through sponsoring a child, you can help them recieve education, meals, and experience the love of Jesus. We've heard about Compassion for several years, even talked about sponsoring a child for years. Several of the blogs I follow, have been invited on Compassion Mission trips. It was only recently hearing about them again at a Mercy Me concert that we felt led to act on our desire to sponsor. Nathan began researching their program and searching for a child. He looked through some of the children and we wondered how we'd ever choose just one. Just the other night, he brought up the website again and searched for children with our boys' birthdays. (I thought that was an interesting way to search.) He found only one match. It was Trevor's exact birthday--even the year! This was Jeli! We pulled up her profile and read about her. Her profile stayed on our computer for two days. We both discussed it further....confirming that we felt this was the child God wanted us to sponsor. So, today we made it official. We will receive a packet on Jeli in just a few days with all of her information and more instructions on correspondence with her. As part of your sponsorship with Compassion, written correspondence and exchanging photos is encouraged. We are so exctied to get to see pictures and learn more about Jeli and her family as well as share our pictures too! Please join us in praying for Jeli and her family! (If you are interested in learning more about Compassion International, please click on the link above, or click here.)