Aaron’s Blog

I have had the privilege of sponsoring a child through Compassion International for the last six years or so.  Periodically I receive letters from Nobert, the child I am sponsoring in Kenya.  When I first started sponsoring him, he was around 7 years old.  The letters I would receive early on often times included pictures that Nobert had drawn or colored and a short paragraph or two update.  Nobert recently turned 13.  He’s too old for coloring at this point, and the letters are getting longer.

Today’s letter was sobering to say the least.  While it started out with the usual tone, a few things set this letter apart from the rest.  Early on he said, “During the New Year we didn’t celebrate that day like Christmas because of the violence which was in the country.”  This was more or less mid-conversation, in between sentences about a wonderful Christmas celebration, and preparing for celebrating Easter.  But the real heart-wrenching part came at the end of the letter where he wrote, “Do you remember me telling you about the elections in the last letter last year?  After those elections is when violence started in our country.  There was no peace in our country.  For even one week leaders from other countries have come to speak to our leaders who say that the votes were stolen.  Me I do not know if it is the truth.  Many people have died.  Others lost their homes.  The only thing we trust on now is prayers.  I hope you will pray for my country to have peace.”

It’s really sad that Nobert’s had to mature so quickly, and is grappling with violence and the prospect of a stolen election.  I feel fortunate to live in a place where I rarely give a second thought to my own safety.  Beyond my own sadness for Nobert’s situation, I was a bit ashamed of how out of touch I am with world affairs.  While I vaguely remember hearing something in the news about violence in Kenya, I certainly didn’t dig deeper to find out more.

It serves as a good reminder to not take things for granted or otherwise become complacent.  Please take a moment to pray for peace in Africa — specifically in Kenya, and also to the north in the Darfur region of Sudan.  Also, if you’re not already sponsoring a child, please consider doing so through either Compassion International or World Vision.  I like them both because 84 to 87 cents out of every dollar goes directly to program expenses.  That’s significantly better than the average for most charities.