The Compassion Experience

As part of the Honors Colloquium class, we have to get out of our dorm rooms and get involved with something on or around campus. My wonderful Resident Advisor is always trying to give us opportunities to get out and have fun. We have done and or are trying to set up activities like volunteering at the local animal shelter, going bowling, doing trail cleanup, and working at the Boys and Girls Club that is in town. We always have a really great time, and it’s is nice to help out the community and get to know people better. So, when my RA told me about an experience called Compassion, I was very eager to go.

The Compassion Experience’s slogan is “Experience Another World Without Leaving Yours”. This is because the purpose is to give you a glimpse of what it is like for children living in poverty-stricken, violent countries in South and Central America, Asia, and Africa. They set up rooms you walk through to resemble those of the children’s. From the floors to the ceilings and everything in between, they had props and actual possessions and pictures from each child to make it feel real. They also gave you a pair of headphones attached to an iPhone that would play a different recording of the child talking and telling his/her story based on the room you were in. I felt like I had walked into a different world. There were three childrens’ stories that you could go to when we went: Carlos, Kiwi, and Olive. We were only able to make it to Carlos and Kiwi; unfortunately we ran out of time.

Carlos was from Guatemala. He was forced to work with his father at a very young age and for many hours a day to get by. His father dealt with their rough situation by turning to alcoholism. It was this alcoholism that killed him, leaving Carlos and his mother to fend for themselves. They struggled to make enough money to survive, but there was never enough to fully feed them. Carlos felt like he had the obligation as the man of the house to work and provide for them, so he worked as much as he could doing anything for money. Eventually, he was able to go to the center that Compassion International had set up in the town, where he was able to eat, be sponsored by a family in another country, and learn about God’s love for him, which helped both he and his mother to stay strong enough to survive. Carlos made it to adulthood and was able to get a good job to make enough money to live a good life.

Kiwi lived in the Philippines with her younger sister, mother, and father. She had three older brothers, but none of them survived past childhood. Her father is an alcoholic and her family struggles to get by through selling fruit at the market. Her mother often considers moving to another country, where jobs await, but Kiwi and her little sisters talk her out of it. They move to another city in hope of better job opportunities, where they have to deal with bad flooding that brings sewage, trash, and dead rats into their house. One day, their father attends a sermon dealing with how God will protect and take care of them. The revelation makes him stop drinking, and they become a Christian family. They are helped by Compassion International, along with Kiwi’s sponsor, and Kiwi eventually grows up, goes to college to be a physical therapist, and gets married.

Compassion International goes and sets up places where kids get the chance to be kids and to learn about God. At the end of each story, they had another room filled with pictures of kids around the world in need of a sponsor. The sponsor would send money each month to help the child and his/her family get by in the name of God. Overall, the experience was amazing, intriguing, and eye-opening. It made me appreciate all the things, I realize now, that I took for granted, and made me aware that problems like this exist and are very real for many people. It brings me hope that organizations like Compassion International are trying to help. Maybe, one day, we can help all the people in need to have better lives, even if it means having a pair of shoes or a hot meal.