Compassion (Day 6)

This post is written by Rebekah Hampton

We apologize for the clumps of blog posts, but we have to hike up a hill and hope the cable is working in order to get internet. :) Thank you for your patience, and thanks for tuning in!


Today we got to visit the compassion school at Karangazi Church. There were 7 kids that we got to meet that some people on our team sponsor. It was an awesome experience getting to see the smile on the kids’ faces when they got to meet their sponsor. We got to spend the whole day with them. They never stopped smiling the whole time!

After meeting the kids, we got to tour the Compassion International office there at the school. They showed us what a kid’s file looked like, which included their family records and history, current health, living conditions, and their exam scores. They keep track of all of those things for each kid! We also got to learn about a new project that they are currently raising funds and awareness for, which is providing water filters for each compassion child and their family to keep in their home. It is a new project, but they are moving quickly and hopefully will be getting them to the families soon! It is amazing how many people here are drinking dirty water, if they are even getting any at all. There is so much need here it is overwhelming.

Once we were done touring the Compassion office, we got to go around to the classrooms and visit all of the children involved in the Compassion Project at Karangazi.  The children were so excited to see us, and they greeted us with many songs! It’s amazing how many songs all of the children know and they want to sing all of them for us. It was so great to see Compassion International in action and to see the difference that it is making in Rwanda. It is so encouraging! God really is using this organization to make an impact on this country and on all of these children.

In the afternoon, I went with a group to four different homes in the community where we visited with the families that live there. The first home we went to was a home of a compassion child, named Ruth, and it was at least 2-3 miles away from the school. It was definitely farther than I’ve ever walked ANYWHERE. Ruth is the child that “Church of the Redeemer Youth” sponsors!  This girl walks to and from school every single day!! She didn’t complain one time about how far or how hot of a walk it is. We got to meet and pray with her family. We learned that her family grows Sorghum, peanuts, beans, and corn. They have a beautiful home out in the country. It was a great experience to hear all about the way they live their life and trust God with everything they do. We could only hope and pray for the kind of faith that they have.

Samantha’s sponsor child, Jackline (pronounced Jacqueline), rode with us in our bus on the way to Ruth’s home, and she was so excited. The smile never left her face the whole time we were riding. We didn’t know why she had lit up so much once we got on the bus, but once the translator told us what she was saying, we learned that it was her first time riding on a motorized vehicle!! She is 7 years old and has never ridden in a car. It was awesome to get to see her joy with such a simple thing. It is so easy for us, as Americans, to forget the things that God has blessed us with. We take so many things for granted. God is blessing me with reminders like these this week.

Since being in Rwanda, I have remembered so much of what I learned when I spent a couple months in Kenya two years ago. These people have so much faith, and I can only ask God to give me that same faith. With having so much at my fingertips in America, it is hard to rely on God with every aspect of my life. That is the only option for these people. I hope that some day I can understand.