Step Up Walk

Yesterday morning we bundled up and headed out to Clemson University for the Step Up Walk put on by Compassion International. You may remember me sharing it with you quite awhile back but I forgot all about it when I was preparing for retreat and all. I meant to post about it more and hopefully get more people to sponsor us by donating money but it didn't happen. I know that God will bless the children with what we did raise! 

It was a beautiful, sunny and brisk morning, and the kids were excited. I anticipated a very large group of people walking but there was only about 25 of us there. It was very neat how they had it set up - they had 7 different stations you would walk to. At each one, you would stop and watch a video together on your smart phone and then participate in whatever activity at that station. It took you through the story of a child who had lived in poverty and what experiences he went through. For example, they had to "dig through the trash" to find food, see the dirty and contaminated water he had to carry and drink, decide to spend their coin that they "found" on medicine, food or rent. It was hard for the kids (and us) to hear some of the videos and what was said. But we could also see things clicking in Max and Addie's heads, and the empathy that they had for those children. 

I am so thankful that we signed up and will probably plan to do it again next year. I kept thinking about how we can talk about these things with our kids all the time, but it doesn't really sink in until they can actually "experience" it themselves. I pray that someday they will want to go to some of those countries themselves and share the love of Jesus with them! (I am hoping the same thing for myself!)

At the end of the walk, you could choose to sponsor a child through Compassion International. We already sponsor Embefri, who lives in Indonesia, but we decided to start sponsoring Maria from Guatemala! Isn't she beautiful?!

Love,