Reaching for a Goal

I am one that sets goals carefully.   I am a firm believer in setting goals that can be achieved, and once set, it is very important to reach the goal.    It is a huge sense of accomplishment upon completion, not to mention makes a huge deposit into your self-integrity account.  

Last year was our first year sponsoring with Compassion.   It was a year of learning the ropes so to speak.   We learned how the letter writing system worked....  how long it actually takes to get a letter back and forth.    We learned the significance of those letters and how much it means not only to us, but to the children we sponsor.   It was fun to get the answers to the questions we had asked even though it took a good four to six months.   We learned how to give birthday and Christmas gifts.   And this is where the goal comes in.  

Not knowing what the Christmas gift program looked like, we gave a small amount of money for Christmas.   With that money our little girl in Honduras was able to buy a new outfit and her mother was able to buy shoes as well.   It opened our eyes to the fact that we can be helping these families as well as the children.    Our little girl in Kenya just wrote to us saying that with the birthday money, she received a mattress, a school bag, and a mosquito net.   A mattress!    Some of these children don't even have a bed to sleep on. 

In April we set a goal for this year's Christmas budget for the Compassion kids.  We have set a pretty big goal, and I am hopeful and having faith that we can make it.   My mom had a brilliant idea to collect money from the pop cans and save that money in a jar to put towards the gifts.   What a great idea!   If you know my family, we consume a large amount of pop.  

The kids are on board with the idea and help out with the recycling of the cans. 

We even have coupons that we use to get the maximum bang for our buck. 

 With the start of the pop can money and the jar sitting out, we have watched the money fill up the jar as the summer has progressed.  The great thing is, not only is pop money going into the jar, but the spare change from pockets, coins found on the ground, and the kids put a little of their allowance money in the jar.  

Periodically so we don't loose focus, we pull the money out of the jar and count it.   This is always a fun time as we get to see how pop can money and pocket change add up, and also how close we are getting to our goal.  

With the money in the jar and the savings that Mark and I are working on, we are well on our way to our goal.   My heart becomes so happy when I think of the money that we are going to send to our sponsored children.   I wish I could be there when they get the money, to see what they will do with it.   Of course we should hear from Compassion what the families were able to do with the money, I am just so grateful that God is providing so we can help these families.