Today is Compassion Sunday

Today is Compassion Sunday, where hundreds of people will be standing up in churches across the UK to say a few words about how people like you and me can make a difference to the lives of children around the world.

A few years ago, that is exactly what we would have been doing. Giving a talk or presentation to either our home church or another in the area speaking to perhaps a couple of hundred people about the difference sponsoring a child has made to our lives as well as the sponsored child's life giving them the opportunity to receive food, healthcare, education and lots more at a cost of only 70p  a day.

We don't currently have a 'home church' and I was thinking what a shame it was that this year we won't be able to speak out on behalf of those children and then I suddenly realised.... We may normally speak to a church congregation of anywhere from around 100 people to several hundred people, but our stats pages show us that this blog reaches several thousand people, so here is our little way of taking part in this year's Compassion Sunday.

What can be bought for 70p? Not even a cup of coffee these days in most places. Perhaps a pack of crisps? A can of cola? A daily newspaper? It doesn't stretch very far in the UK.

And yet that 70p a day could save the life of one of the 19,000 children who die each day from preventable causes.

I always think of those 19,000 children as  being almost invisible to us because they are largely ignored by the media and by us. I question whether we would stand by and allow this to happen if those 19,000 children were our children, our neighbours children, our friends children? If we were to wake up to find 19,000 children here in the UK gone each day? There is NO WAY that anyone would stand by and let that happen, and yet somehow because it is elsewhere and we don't have to see it everyday, then we do manage to turn a blind eye and let it carry on.

In the current economic climate, for some of us, it may well mean making compromises to our lifestyle. We may have to give up that odd meal out or that bar of chocolate, but at least many of us do have that option and we are not sat here wondering where our next meal is coming from or how to choose which of our children to feed with the next piece of food that we manage to obtain.

And if you are someone who already sponsors a child and so thinks this is not relevant to you, I would say thank you that you are doing something already but I would urge you to also consider if it is at all possible to save the life of a second child.

We have not been asked to write this but chose to do so because we have loved sponsoring the 4 children who we have come to consider as part of our family and we think it is unacceptable that in this day and age so many children are dying daily from preventable causes. To find out more about child sponsorship and Compassion Sunday visit www.Compassionuk.org