Christ's Love Mobilised

“What are you going to do?”

It’s a great question.

Move With Compassion

“Compassion” describes itself as a global neighbourhood with one mission: releasing children from poverty in Jesus’ name. To fulfil that calling, Compassion partners with local churches around the world.

In 1952, Everett Swanson was in Korea, where He had the confronting experience of seeing children die. Children exposed to the elements with no support or succour. During his aeroplane journey home, God asked him a question many might quail at hearing: “What are you going to do?” Everett’s answer began with a promise to help 35 children. From that small beginning, a global movement grew – one that continues today with the same “release in Jesus’ name” mission.

Compassion Begins With Seeing

Poverty is easily reduced to statistics. A quick internet search will tell you the bleak facts: How many children are affected, how many boys and girls, how many families are struggling, how many communities lack clean water, education, health care or their “daily bread”. Yet poverty is never just a statistic. For Compassion, each entry that is amassed into a line in a journal or on a website, each and every one, has a face and a future. A future that, without intervention, becomes “you do not matter, the outcome is already decided”. Compassion exists to provide the intervention that moves the story from “you do not matter” to “I see you, your life is valuable, your future can be put on a different path”. That path includes dignity and hope. With foundations deep in the love and compassion of Jesus, Compassion brings practical love wherever it is active.

A Global Neighbourhood

Compassion’s work is built on a simple and powerful conviction: children should not have to face poverty alone. To this end, with help from all across the world, local churches are already present in places of deep need. They know the children by name. They understand the language, the culture, the pressures facing families and the unique challenges of their communities. That is why Compassion partners with local churches. Compassion works through the Church—equipping pastors, volunteers and local staff to care for children in ways that are personal, consistent and deeply rooted in relationship. Rather than distant charity from afar, the local church approach transforms charity into neighbourhood care. What does this look like in a struggling community?

It looks like meals prepared by local volunteers.
It looks like children gathering in safe spaces to learn, play and grow.
It looks like mothers receiving support during pregnancy and early parenthood.
It looks like young people gaining skills for the future.
It looks like urgent help arriving after disaster, illness or crisis.
It looks like the Church moving toward suffering, not away from it.

Sponsorship’s Power

One of the most beautiful aspects of Compassion’s work is child sponsorship, which is so much more than a regular gift of money. The way Compassion encourages sponsorship, it develops from a donor providing funds to a caring partnership across distance. Sponsors often do not realise the full impact of the letter they penned or the prayer they prayed. To a child growing up in poverty, the prayers’ effect may not be readily seen or felt (though it is no less real), but a letter from someone who cares and who is helping to meet your family’s needs can be a powerful reminder that someone sees them, believes in them and is journeying with them.

For sponsored children, that regular help opens the door to practical care through their local church. This includes meals, learning opportunities, health support, safe activities, spiritual guidance and community.

How can you support

Everett set out to help 35 children. Now Compassion, through its local church partnerships and a world-spanning network of sponsors, helps millions of children.

So the question that you cannot turn from is the same question God asked of Everett, “What are you going to do?” His answer mattered then and your answer matters now. Movements need movers. Acting alone, you cannot, not with with all the passion you can muster, bring crashing down the walls of poverty and inequality that criss-cross the globe. But you can, as one mover, end poverty for at least one.

One child sponsored and seen, one church equipped, one family supported, one future changed.

Compassion is not passive, but it can be pervasive. Compassion is not standing at a distance proclaiming “Child, be warmed and filled!” Jesus was moved into action by compassion; what about you?

Want to be a mover?

We can summarise this way: Compassion’s work is Christ-centred, church-driven and child-focused. It is hope delivered by Christ’s proxies in the form of meals, healthcare, education and long-lasting, enduring relationships.

Can you sponsor a child, should you? Pray for Compassion and consider how you might be part of long-term change in a child’s life.