This January 27th, the Child Ambassador Vision Trip Team will be heading to Guatemala to see World Vision's work in the field! This group of amazing and passionate volunteers have been faithfully sharing about Child Sponsorship, each connecting 40 or more children to sponsors! It hasn't been easy and many on the team faced some big challenges - but they've also experienced great joy as, one by one, they connected children to the hope of sponsorship and the love of Christ. Read their stories below and then read a little more about World Vision's work in Guatemala! Meet Donna Touros: Donna, we'd love to learn about your journey as a Child Ambassador. How did the Lord lead you to connect children to sponsors this past year? I've been a Child Ambassador since nearly the beginning of the program, at least ten years ago or so. I was a fairly new Christian and I'd been inspired by a friend of mine who said, "If you really want to grow in your faith, find something outside of the church that you are passionate about and get involved in it - and bring that passion into the church." So I found out about World Vision and sponsored a little boy named Wilber from El Salvador. I loved the letters and relationship so much that I started telling everyone about it. My church began hosting a Hope Sunday on a regular basis and many people started sponsoring as a result. After a lot of years of active involvement, my ministry kind of plateaued and life was filled with work responsibilities. But one day I talked to Megan (our Child Ambassador Team Lead), and I felt I could really be doing more now. I feel more comfortable in my job. I just need to focus more on the charities I'm involved with. And last year I had a stellar year! World Vision is now my top focus and I am embracing it more than ever. This really started with my faith journey and all of it has really been a journey of faith. What does it mean to you to see World Vision's work in Guatemala? What are you hoping to see or experience? I have always had a burning desire to go back to Central America. This started with God giving me this relationship with Wilber and loving this relationship. And seeing this region on the news - I just love that World Vision is in this country and helping people be able to love their country, strengthen their communities, and make their community a safe place to raise their children. It's not about anything other than giving every child a safe place to grow up. Give them a voice in their community. Give them hope and a future there. How can we pray for you, Donna? I feel like I'm so richly blessed and these children are not. Please pray that I'm able to share these stories with people . So many people in the world don't have solvable problems. Pray that God will give me the words to say to the people he places in front of me and give me opportunities to share what World Vision does. I can be so focused on what's next instead of who is in front of me. Pray I can seize the day and recognize the opportunities and the words to say. I want to find opportunities to have another stellar year and connect more children to sponsors. Meet Linnae Gomez: Linnae, we'd love to learn about your journey as a Child Ambassador. How did the Lord lead you to connect children to sponsors this past year? My main focus as an ambassador is with my clients and friends/family. Through conversations about what I love to do (support kids) and how incredible the work that World Vision does, I open doors to talk about real change in people’s lives. First, I build trust into my client’s hearts to understand that I care and have values that they relate to. Then through shared connection, I switch the conversation to my life passion. My husband and I also put on an art show for the city of San Jose’ s artist community. With their help and involvement, we work to create a shared experience of art and conversation of spiritual things. I use this as a platform for a large scale art installation immersing the guests into the heart of a crisis. One year we focused on the Syrian refugees and last year we focused on the drought in Africa. What does it mean to you to see World Vision's work in Guatemala? What are you hoping to see or experience? I am hoping to experience a change in my vision while in Guatemala. I would like my world view to shift and for the blinders on my eyes to open. Sometimes my head knows so much that my heart can’t catch up. I am hoping my heart wakes up and catches up. I am hoping that my tongue begins to speak from the heart and not the head. I am hoping to become a huge support to the people of Guatemala both in my city and in theirs. I am hoping to find a deeper connection to the team and learn to work together making each other stronger. How can we pray for you, Linnae? I have been having a lot of shifts in my work and am offering it to God to do something new and fresh. I am asking for more trust. I get headaches from stress and would like to physically be experiencing God’s peace as well. Meet Cari Conklin: Cari, tell us about your journey as a Child Ambassador. How did the Lord lead you to connect children to sponsors this past year? After going to the Middle East this Spring and feeling deeply how many Arabs, both Christian and Muslim, feel unseen and dehumanized, I came to see a new dynamic in sponsorship I hadn’t seen before: a way to connect families on a personal, human level to overcome and bridge communities here and abroad for our own transformation and reconciliation. I already believed World Vision’s models of community development is one of the best ways to transform communities and lives systemically. What does it mean to you to see World Vision's work in Guatemala? What are you hoping to see or experience? I feel like we have another group of human beings that have been dehumanized and marginalized and I want to meet as many lovely, resilient, strong and beautiful human beings as I can so that I can share their stories and my experience in hopes of building more bridges for spiritual discipleship and international reconciliation. How can we pray for you, Cari? My new job has been very intense and I pray for the pressures of that not to prevent me from being present and open to being moved by the God’s spirit. Also for some health challenges not to interfere. Meet Melodee Miller: Tell us about your journey as a Child Ambassador, Mel. How did the Lord lead you to connect children to sponsors this past year? This last year, the Lord lead me down a path I never knew was possible for me! I felt led to run a 1/2 marathon and find sponsors for 13 children, one for each mile. I’ve never been a runner so this really was the Lord’s leading! It was amazing! 18 children were sponsored! So, I decided to do it again and another 15 were sponsored! It was definitely all God!! The others were through one-on-one connections with people over the year. It was such an amazing year and I’m so thankful God led me to do something so crazy! What does it mean to you to see World Vision's work in Guatemala? What are you hoping to see or experience? I’m so excited to see World Vision’s work in Guatemala. My heart has been broken so many times over the border crisis. I’ve cried so much seeing the many families fleeing to try to make a better life for themselves and their children on a journey that is filled with danger and so much unknown. I was hoping and praying I would get to go to Central America to learn and see what is happening. My heart exploded when I found out that I get to go to Guatemala. I’m hoping to see the youth initiatives that are implemented to give children a safe space and provide opportunities for them. Ever since seeing the video at conference of the little girl who learned piano through WV’s music classes, I’ve been hoping to see a music club! I play piano and music has been a huge part in my healing from my past and it is one of the deepest ways I connect with Jesus. It would be so incredible to witness the profound healing impact that music is having on the children there. How can we pray for you, Melodee? For those that don’t know, the little 2-year-old girl I sponsored in preparation for this trip passed away two months after I sponsored her. She had a heart condition from birth. The news of her passing rocked me. Although I will not get to meet her this side of heaven, I will still meet her family. Please pray for that time and that it is everything the Lord wants it to be. Pray for my nerves and that the Holy Spirit gives me the words I need to say. Also, please pray for my husband and kids as I’m traveling while my family and I are still RV’ing around the country. They’ll be staying in two different campgrounds while I’m gone. Pray for peace for my husband and kids and that the move from one campground to the next goes smoothly. Thank you! Meet Emily Smith: Emily, tell us about your journey as a Child Ambassador. How did the Lord lead you to connect children to sponsors this past year? This year reminded me of 1 Corinthians 3:6-7, "I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth." (ESV). Year before last, God provided sponsorships through big events, like the Global 6K for Water. This year, I expected Him to create sponsorships in the same way. However, no events this year resulted in large groups of sponsorships, and I began to fear that I had lost my momentum. But God moved individual hearts in His own time, long after I thought the seeds I had planted were dead. My mom and two dear friends each unexpectedly decided to sponsor; a coworker stood in the gap for a little girl just days before her PF expired; a small church in my community pooled their funds to sponsor two kids together; a lady approached my World Vision table to tell me that God had been leading her toward sponsorship for months and that He needed her to sponsor that day. Time after time, God showed His glory by moving hearts in His own way and bringing a harvest at His own time. What does it mean to you to see World Vision's work in Guatemala? What are you hoping to see or experience? Seeing World Vision's work in Guatemala is the answer to months of prayer. Central America has been on my heart for some time now, and I felt helpless to assist in the crises there. Due to some last-minute sponsorships, I didn't know that I had qualified for the Vision Trip when I arrived at conference this year. So when they made the announcement for Guatemala, I knew that God had arranged it. I'm hoping to spend time with people to gather their first-hand stories, hopes, and dreams so that I can amplify their voices to the world outside Guatemala and engage people in working alongside them for a better future. How can we pray for you, Emily? Please pray for the right words and right opportunities when sharing what I've learned after the trip. I want the experience gained on this trip to fuel my advocacy and CA ministry over the coming year to get more people engaged in serving Guatemala. Meet Vicki Casper Vicki, you've been a Child Ambassador for many years. How did the Lord lead you to connect even more children to sponsors this past year? This year, my journey as a CA has been full of a lot of prayer and waiting on the Lord, trusting Him to move more than my words as I reach out to potential sponsors. One by one he has brought hearts to embrace the children we represent. This was the year of the hare and the turtle; slowly but surely God moved inch by inch. AMEN. What does it mean to you to see World Vision's work in Guatemala? What are you hoping to see or experience? I had the opportunity to see World Vision's work in Guatemala about 8 years ago and I am excited to see the progress. I am excited to see this beautiful land and its people again. How can we pray for you, Vicki? Please pray that God reveals even more to me about His work in Guatemala. Meet Dee Billing Dee, you've been a Child Ambassador for many years. How did the Lord lead you to connect even more children to sponsors this past year? Because God has challenged me to find sponsors for 1,000 children, I've been inspired to think larger with my Child Ambassador ministry. This God-sized goal makes me keep moving and thinking and asking God for ways to find sponsorships. I've been working on corporate partnerships and promoting Global Dinners to women's ministries. I also spend almost every Saturday at an outdoor event in the summertime. It's often slow and I don't always have a sponsorship but for every one, it's worth it! What does it mean to you to see World Vision's work in Guatemala? What are you hoping to see or experience? I've been going every summer to Guatemala and even though I only see these folks once a year, they have such a grip on my heart. I've been reading a book that has opened my heart more to the challenges of the Mayan people and I want to learn from them and understand more of their culture. And I also would like to share Guatemala with some of the team who haven't been there before. It's such a beautiful country - the marketplaces and the colors. It's just beautiful! How can we pray for you, Dee? My granddaughter, Aryian, will be in my home and staying with my dogs. Her car is in poor condition so I just worry about her getting home from her nursing shifts. Please pray that she will have safety and things will go smoothly for her. Meet Merrill Swenke Merrill, we'd love to learn about your journey as a Child Ambassador. How did the Lord lead you to connect children to sponsors this past year?
The beginning of the year started out really strong because a coworker invited me to share the Matthew 25 Challenge with her small group. It really was such a perfect, intimate setting to experience it. But still, it was such surprise to me that 6 out of 8 people sponsored a child! But mostly, this was really of year of finding sponsors one by one. I had to be a little bit braver and ask people I hadn't known all that long. What does it mean to you to see World Vision's work in Guatemala? What are you hoping to see or experience? It means a lot - specifically because of what we see going on in Central America right now. I'm really hoping to be able to come back and share about World Vision's work there and a positive way of looking at the people of Guatemala and help change people's attitudes. I'm hoping to see and hear success stories that we can bring back and talk about and say, "It's working and people are benefiting." I want to share that we were there and met these people and heard their story. To say that is just so powerful. How can we pray for you, Merrill? Pray that our team can listen and learn so that we can come back and share with individuals and churches and get support for Guatemala and other countries in Central America. Also, please pray that my family stays safe and well while I'm away - especially my mom. And prayers for everyone's families while we are gone. 6/2/2020 09:09:36 pm
Really nice and useful blog post. It feels nice reading about this, thank you for sharing this with everyone. Comments are closed.
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