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I take for granted that my heart works.  It vigorously pumps blood throughout my branching veins.  It thump-thumps in rhythm like the beat in a great song.  Sure it goes a little fast some times, skips a beat, but all in all…..it works well.

Meet Achile.  Achile’s heart doesn’t work very well.  He is an 8-year-old boy in Burkina Faso with a congenital heart defect known as tetralogy of Fallot.  On Jun 17th, he arrived in India for heart surgery.  This precious little boy needs heart surgery. His pain is great, and for the last five (5) years has been unable to attend school on a regular basis.

Achile has the privilege of being in the Compassion program in Burkina Faso.  More than that, when Compassion HQ contacted Shaun Groves that he needed to pull his child sponsorship info from the boxes that would be shared at concerts & conferences Shaun more than stepped up to the plate.  Actually…his son did.

Not only is Achile part of Compassion, he’s sponsored.  By none other than Shaun’s son.  He get’s the chance for life years from now, and gets to hear about Jesus, and gets to be loved on by a little boy and his family in Tennessee, USA.

Of course with any surgery, this isn’t cheap: $20,449.  You can help.  I encourage you to give towards helping pay for the surgery & airfare to save this little boy’s life.

In Matthew Jesus tells His disciples that when we’ve given to the least of these (the poor, the needy, the alien, the orphan) we have done these to Jesus himself.  Click the link below, donate.   Touch not only the heart of Achile, but also the heart of Jesus.

Update on Achille.

I know that certain dates can change your life.  Your wedding day.  The day your child is born.  The day you get that job.  However, I didn’t realize on the evening of April 30, 2009 that this date would forever change my life.

It rocketed my perspective and my desires to a completely other place than they’d ever been before.

More specifically, it took my heart and shipped it to a slum outside Nagpur, India.

On April 30, 2009 Shawn and I decided to sponsor our first child through Compassion due largely in part because of this Bloggers Trip (Anne‘s posts had my crying like a slobbering fool).  We always say that sponsoring her was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made.  And we’re completely serious.  I didn’t think that sponsoring Nikita would change my life, I thought we’d change hers.  Provide her nutritious meals, schooling, health checkups, etc.  But she’s changed ours in so many ways.  They way we are choosing to live our lives.  What we find important.

Sponsoring her has made me fall in love with India.  Praying that God would redeem and save India.  That He would break apart the hierarchy of the caste system and open the eyes of the leaders to the poor dying outside their major cities.

I can’t believe she’s been apart of our lives for a year already.  We do our best to write her often and send gifts.  I want her to be the little girl that always gets something from her sponsors.

I pray for her salvation and that of her parents and two sisters and brother.  This is hugely important to me.

I wear this ring as a reminder of her.  To pray for her and her family and her friends.

She is as much part of our family as our own child would be.  Even across thousands of miles.

As part of celebrating we sent her some special gifts.

A card, a little wallet size card that reminds her she’s special, Disney Princess stickers, My Little Pony coloring pages, monkey finger puppets I found in the Target Dollar Spot, and a beautiful prayer Shawn wrote for her.

We celebrate this day with great joy and pray that we will continue to celebrate for many, many years.

Happy anniversary our dear Nikita.

For the last week, Shaun Groves has been in Kenya with other various bloggers documenting and sharing how Compassion International is serving and rescuing the people of Kenya.  When I say people I mean more than just the children that are sponsored through Compassion.  The sponsorship of these children changes their entire family’s lives.

Shaun is doing a very thought provoking image blog category while on this trip called Third World Dictionary.  Photographic images of everyday things you and I take for granted.  There was one image that really hit me especially hard.

It seems over the last year I’ve grown to hate doing laundry.  And that is only laundry for Shawn and I.  No children.  It just seems to be a bother.  Remembering to transfer it to the dryer and don’t even mention folding/putting it away.  Ahhhh.

That was until I saw this:

I’ve only had to do my laundry outside for a few months……and it was still done in a washing machine. I haven’t had to brave inclement weather to wash my clothes.  I’ve never washed my cloths in tubs smaller than a plastic kids swimming pool.  I’ve never washed my laundry in dirty water.

I felt convicted over my complaining when I have it so easy.  I printed out this picture and have hung it up in my laundry area.  A reminder of this advantage I have.  That I shouldn’t be complaining but should be grateful.

In a good way.

If you don’t want to be messed up.  Don’t want to be convicted or have tears streaming down your face, do not click the link below.

If you want to see lives that have been changed.  If you want to see hope in the eyes of beautiful people.  If you want to be a little uncomfortable click the link below.

http://compassionbloggers.com/trips/2010-kenya

Shawn and I had a wonderful time in Prescott over the weekend.  It was full of lots of time to rest, relax, read, and just be with each other.

Saturday evening I got to see a friend I hadn’t seen in six years.  In that time she has had four beautiful children.  Lately we’ve kept in touch via Facebook but unfortunately life and the responsibilities that go with it have prevented us from seeing each other.  It was wonderful to see her and visit.  And I am excited that she and her husband are going to be in town for a wedding of a mutual friend later this month and we are planning to do dinner.

After dinner Shawn and I gathered around his laptop and over a shaky wifi signal we watched Compassion’s Help Haiti Live Benefit Concert.  I was moved by the generosity of the artists that performed, and even more moved by the stories I heard.  I gave a mental shout out to my friend Alece who I knew was there.

I lived in Prescott for about two and a half years.  It is a nice little city nestled amongst towering Pine Trees and mountains.

On Sunday morning we woke up to snow.  I have a soft spot in my heart for a bit of snow.  I grew up in Northern Arizona and was accustomed to having snow in the winter.  The most we ever had was four feet.  Living in Phoenix you don’t get snow.  You may get the occasional snow flurry if it gets cold enough, but nothing like what I grew up in.  I miss snow and was extremely thrilled to be able to see and be in this.  Shawn was thrilled for me too.

This was probably the first time I actually felt relaxed and rested after a vacation.  I immensely enjoyed my time with Shawn.

Thank you for your prayers I am feeling better.

Photos from our hotel room and the one of us taken by Shawn.

I have felt so helpless lately.  It started a while ago seeing images of precious people living on nothing just trying to get by.

It came roaring at me two weeks ago with the earthquake in Haiti.  The images of poverty stricken, broken people floated before my eyes.  I didn’t close the websites or stop reading the Tweets because I wanted to look.

I wanted to be broken over these people.

Last Sunday at church God literally wrecked me.  Our pastor decided to forgo communion after the teaching and allow people to pray for Haiti while worship was led.  We watched this video done by Pastors Mark Driscoll & James McDonald who went to Haiti to help churches just days after the earthquake.  Within seconds of the video starting I was crying.  I hadn’t cried for Haiti yet.  All I could do the rest of the service was cry and plead to God to save:  spiritually and physically.

It isn’t just Haiti though.  It’s all children and families that are in devastating poverty.  That is what breaks my heart.  I want to argue with God and ask Him why are you allowing this to happen to your creation.  Why are you allowing the flesh and blood you wove together to be eaten away by diseases and malnutrition?

Today Shawn showed me pictures that Tony Morgan Tweeted from his trip to Burkina Faso through Compassion.  All I wanted to do besides cry for these children, was bring them into my home and take care of them.  Love them.

I know it isn’t an accident that God has placed these feelings in my heart.  I’ve pleaded with Him over and over to break my heart for the things that break His.  This is an answer to prayer.  Yet, I still feel so helpless.  We sponsor our precious, beautiful little Nikita in India and fully plan on sponsoring more in the future.  Yet, I still feel so helpless.  I pray.  We donate to Haiti, and yet…  I feel like there is so much more I could do and don’t know how or what.

I just want to be open to what He has for Shawn and I.  I guess my feeling helpless means I just lean on Him all that much more and He’ll be the work in me that moves my hands the way they need to be moved.

When I logged onto my computer at work this morning I read this headline for this story on the BBC feed I use Haiti Quake Toll May Be 200,000.  My heart just breaks.  It cries out for God’s mercy.

Last night I was praying for our little girl Nikita in India, and the people in Haiti.  Both India and Haiti are amongst the poorest in the world.  Haiti being the poorest in the Western Hemisphere, and India having the largest concentration of poor in the world.  This utterly breaks my heart.  I began asking God to save and come quickly.  I am becoming more and more aware of the effects of sin on our world and our own selves.  In Genesis 3 man fell from the grace of God.  Sin entered the world and all that was in it and on it became cursed.  I long for the day with great anticipation when Jesus returns.  When sin and it’s effects are no more.

In the mean time all we can do is serve God, which includes others; and pray and give.  As I said in my last post I do not wish that you would give lightheartedly.  To treat it as the easy way out.  The truth of the matter is these people need Jesus more than they need money.  It seems like a harsh thing to say, but I’d rather die homeless in a gutter and have been saved by Jesus, then to die in a mansion and never know Him.

If God leads you to give then do it.  Don’t hesitate.  And pray, unceasingly.  My husband and I gave through Compassion Intl.  You can donate by clicking the Help Haiti image below.

For whatever you do thank you.

Today we are all reeling from the devastating earthquake in Haiti.  Thanks to technology images float in front of our eyes of the hurt, dead, and demolished.

The country and her people obviously need prayer and financial support.  Their lives have been stripped of the little they had to absolute nothingness.  I started thinking how exactly do you pray in situations like this?  It’s a little late to ask God to intervene and not allow the earthquake to happen.  I know to pray for comfort for those who’ve lost loved ones.  That those who are alive still would be found quickly.  But how else should one pray?

As I was writing this the thought passed of which is easier?  To give financially or to pray?  I was reminded of the story where Jesus forgave the lame man of his sins and the Pharisees accused Him of blasphemy.  Jesus said which is easier?  For me to say your sins are forgiven or get up, pick up your mat and walk.  Jesus was saying it’d be much easier for me to just heal him, but I’m the Son of God.  I think for some it is easier to just send $50 to a relief organization and call it done.  Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you shouldn’t give.  As Christians we are called to care of the widows, orphans, and the poor.  What I’m saying is evaluate your heart.  Ask God to break your heart for these people.  Pray for them in whatever way God leads you.

I would also ask you to consider once the dust has settled so to speak to pray about sponsoring a child through Compassion International whether in Haiti or elsewhere.

Transparency:  Five years ago when the tsunami hit Indonesia I was in a completely different place in my faith than I am now.  Since then God has shattered my heart for those in poverty.  I regret the attitude I had back then, and am now grateful that God daily teaches me how to love like Him.

The end of April Shawn and I sponsored a little girl in India.  It is something we’d talked about doing, but never actually took the steps until we read the blog postings by the Compassion Bloggers that were in India at that time.  I prayed that God would give us the girl that he wanted for us to sponsor.  We chose Nikita.  A beautiful nine year old girl.

Since that time we have become interested in the goings on of this very large nation.  India covers 1,269,210 square miles.  The estimated population for 2009 is 1,198,003,000.  When most of us think of India we think of Bollywood or those hour long conversations with a call center for our computer’s hardware or software OEM.  We don’t generally think about the residents that make up the rest of the country.  According to The World Bank, India has the highest concentration of poor people in he world.  According to The World Bank 42% of India’s population lives on $1.25 or less a day (http://xrl.in/34sy).  That means that at a population of 1,198,003,000 approximately 50,316,126 people live on what we pay for a soda at a fast food joint.  India also has a higher malnutrition rate of than any other country in the world!!

So, I’ve tried to think of India in this way.  Forgetting the call centers and the movie musicals and focusing on that 42%.  God has really been laying on my heart to pray for India when I pray for Nikita.  This is her home for the next dozen years at least.  I want it to be a place that cares for it’s people.  That seeks the welfare of all it’s population not just those who are in a caste that they feel deserves their respect and time.  Through prayer I know that God can change a nation.

Lovely Nikita

Statistics taken from here, please visit the site for more detailed citations.