You Are Never Too Young To Make a Difference...

I spent 2015 working in a local Christian school. I was part-time and did a lot of gap filling, so during the year I was able to take many of the Year 5 to 8 students for morning devotions. More often than not I would share one of many stories from my travels with Compassion with this overriding message:

"Never think that you are too young to make a difference to the world of another person." That is just not true.

Just last week, something happened that proved my point. Earlier in the year I shared about Compassion at a Grade 5/6 Assembly. The idea was to give these 10-12 year olds a glimpse of what life is like for many children around the world, and to remind them that God wants us to use what we've been given to help others.

Overall, I will never find out what happened as a result of that talk. I was hopefully sowing seeds of generosity and maybe down the track they will be inspired to make a difference.

Last week, I accompanied the Grade 5 students on their annual camp. One of them, Charli, told me that she had made the decision to sponsor a child, a 5-year-old girl from Togo. To do this, she uses ALL her pocket money, money she could be using on things for herself, to help this little girl.

I was amazed and inspired by Charli's generous heart and her sacrifice. I made sure to encourage her that even though she will probably never meet her sponsored child, I had seen the difference sponsorship makes, and she has already literally changed the little girl's life because she knows there is someone on the other side of the world who loves her and cares about her enough to be a friend and provide her material needs. This little girl has a future now because of Charli's generosity.

However, the story doesn't end there.

Charli's teacher, Mrs Hernandez, had been considering sponsorship for a while with her husband and when she saw Charli's example, giving so much from the little she received, she knew they could not put it off any longer and made the decision to sponsor a child.

Even though Charli is only 11 years old, her decision to think of others ahead of herself has now positively impacted the lives of many people, and the story is just beginning...

It's stories like this that make me continue to tell young people: "You are never too young to make a difference..."