It started out like every other session at Catalyst 09: the organizers bring up on stage someone who is living out their faith in a unique way. We’ve seen basketball players and Michael Jackson dancers. In one memorable instance, a guy leapt from 35′9″ into a 12 inch deep pool of water. Catalyst is about experience, and each time a session opens you can bet you are in for a new one.
So this session started like all those others.
Ken Coleman, Catalyst staff and interviewer in chief, climbed the steps accompanied by a young-ish black man. As the interview began we learned that this boy — now a student at Moody — was originally from Kenya. He was a child sponsored by Compassion International. He began to speak, this Kenyan with an unbelievable accent that made us all listen closely. He told us about his family, their poverty, and how his mother had to give him to her sister, to try to help this boy survive. He ended up begging on the streets for awhile. He spoke matter of factly, describing horrors. But at the age of 8 he was sponsored by Compassion. “Mark, a man from the United States, sponsored me and my life was changed.”
Mark was a 20 year old student in the US who had a heart sold out for God. And working out his faith, Mark decided to sponsor a child. He sponsored this man, and sent him a letter. The Kenyan read the letter, an original, battered copy that he obviously treasured. Mark told the then-8-year-old about another friend, Jesus. And the little Kenyan boy believed him. The money from Compassion kept him off the streets. Gave him food. Helped him go to school. And now he is in the States, studying at Moody. Great story.
And oh, yes… the Kenyan now sponsors a child from Haiti, because he wants to give back. Some day he is going to return to Kenya to teach the Bible. Convicting, yes. Wow.
But then, then Jesus showed up.
From off stage out came a man. The man. Mark. The sponsor. Mark had never met his Kenyan “child.” When Ken Coleman made the introductions, the Kenyan man fell sobbing into his arms saying thank you. Now when I say sobbing, I mean sobbing. His sobs could be heard all over the auditorium. The two men stood there in a bear hug while one of them sobbed.
No dry eyes. None.
It was a beautiful picture of the face of God. It was black and white, it was United States and Africa. It was sponsor and sponsoree turned sponsor himself. It was everything that James called pure worship in Bible.
And I was undone.
Like the good little programmers they are, Catalyst staff had packets for any who wanted to sponsor their own child through Compassion. They had 1,200. All were gone within two minutes. If you didn’t agressively snatch a packet from an usher, you were out of luck. Gone.
But there are more. And I will find one!
In a related project, an armored car drove into the auditorium. Out of it came money…lots of it… from Hope International. The plan is this: each Catalyst attendee was given $10 in cash. We need to take that money and turn it into $100. We can do that by raising money or just adding on to it. We can use the $10 to buy supplies to raise money or use it as matching money. In any case, the goal is to return $100 to Hope International for their Never Ending Hope Project. This project has a great idea: raise $100 from us. Loan it to a business person who needs help. The business person pays it back when their business thrives, and then Hope International lends it out again. Your one donation can impact dozens, hundreds of lives. Great use of micro finance and micro lending!
So help me out, bloggy world. How should I turn my $10 into $100? (Technically, I need to turn $20 into $200 because David got his own $10, of course.) Anyone have any good ideas? I know I could just add the money and make up the $100 and send it, but I want to enter into the spirit of the adventure. So send me your ideas, and eventually I’m going to implement one of them. I’ll let you know how it goes! In the meantime, go to Never Ending Hope and check out the website.
And oh yes, you could go to Compassion International as well. They’re waiting for you.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Yes! Ideas please! We need to go for $200. No idea too big or small. Thanks.
Compassion is a great charity. My friend and I started sponsoring a child in our second year at university hiding it from our parents who would not have approved of giving some of the money we were meant to be using to live on at uni on a Christian charity (her’s lives in Indonesia, I sponsor a wee boy in Ethiopia who is a few weeks younger than my youngest brother).
Ideas…I have NO clue. if you knit could you buy wool and knit stuff with it to sell? Or get ingredient to make jam or yummy cakes to auction off? One of our trustees raised about £70 selling her homemade chutney a couple of weeks ago.
Better yet, ask Mr Fourth Space – he is good with the creative business ideas!
I was undone too! I was actually just thinking about that very moment this morning…thinking I will remember it for the rest of my life! Or at least I hope to. Sending that $28 dollars to the girl in Zambia that I sponsor sometimes seems so distant, it’s just a tiny bit of money that goes out that I sometimes forget about. But look at how impacted that man was by the money he received!! Look at what it meant to him. We literally got to SEE the impact on stage. I’m so thankful he was unashamed to express how he felt on stage in front of all of us. It was beautiful!! I will never forget…