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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.

I’ve been dealing with a lot of heart issues the past few days.  Issues I don’t normally deal with, but they’ve been rearing their ugly heads.

For Christmas this year Shawn and I felt very convicted to ask our family instead of buying us gifts that they would just give us the cash they would normally spend on us instead and we would be sending that to our little girl we sponsor with Compassion in India.  This was our heart of hearts.  I knew going into this that it wouldn’t be easy not receiving gifts, I mean who doesn’t like to get presents.  But it was really hard.  Selfishness started to bloom in my heart.  I wanted to get gifts just like everyone else.  My only hope was to start praying for a heart change.  I’m still recovering but God is working.

Shawn and I have been blessed far greater than we ever should be.  We are grateful for every blessing.  Part of those blessings is blessing Nikita.  We love her so much.  I believe by God’s providence, we received a letter from her just days before Christmas.  Shawn and I agreed to wait to open it and that would be our “gift” to open on Christmas.  We opened it last night and our hearts were overjoyed.

My life has no room for a selfish or jealous heart.  It was more and more room for loving on other people and blessing them.

My first experience with Compassion Intl. was when I was in highschool.  Our family sponsored a young girl in Haiti.  Now my relationship with them is more personal.  It is my husband and I who are sponsoring our own child, Nikita.  I can’t express how blessed I am to have her in our lives half a world away.

This week I’m following the Compassion Blog Trip to El Salvador.  I’m reading the stories of five women and one man who are visiting, meeting, and getting down & dirty with the families and workers that are involved in the Compassion project down there.  The only thing I can think to say is I’m so moved.  I have to read these stories, watch the videos, look at the pictures taken when I’m at home and I can cry and not make a fool of myself.  If you get a chance I recommend reading some of the blog posts.  And if you don’t or even if you do pray about whether God would have you sponsor a child through Compassion.  It is because of one of these Blog Trips that Shawn and I decided to sponsor Nikita.

Thank you to all the bloggers on the El Salvador trip.  You are touching my life all the way here in Arizona.

For a while Shawn and I had talked about doing something. Sending money to help build fresh water wells in Africa, sponsoring a child, etc. It wasn’t until we read blog postings by Anne Jackson and Shaun Groves on a Compassion trip they took to India that we decided to sponsor a Child.

This is Nikita. She lives in Nagpur, India and is our sponsor child.

For Shawn and I our faith isn’t just Sunday morning (or in our case Sunday night). It’s lived out every day in every way. We’re learning slowly. Nikita is a small part of that. Even though she’s over 7,000 miles away we can touch her life and love on her.