Wenesday facts

Today is Wednesday. It's no Friday but it's not Monday, either.

To honor the fact that we are in the middle of week, I will tell you five facts of life, about me or someone else, faith, world and existence in general.

And what I want from you, my readers?

I want to know about you! 

Leave me your facts, so I can enjoy reading them!

They can also be about you, your life or anything you find fascinating in this world or in the world beyond.

Today I want to share you about something that is very close to my heart, Compassion.

 

1. Compassion International exists as a Christian child advocacy ministry that releases children from spiritual, economic, social and physical poverty and enables them to become responsible, fulfilled Christian adults. Founded by the Rev. Everett Swanson in 1952, Compassion began providing Korean War orphans with food, shelter, education and health care, as well as Christian training. Today, Compassion helps more than 1.2 million children in 26 countries. There are children sponsored through Compassion also in Ecuador. I have had the opportunity to share both with the children and their parents. Your sponsorship can make a huge difference in a child’s life. You can find out more about Compassion here.

2. A team of Compassion Bloggers will be in Uganda from January 27 through January 31, 2014, marking our fifth year of blogging for children in poverty. Throughout this week you will experience a unique glimpse of what it is like to live in this beautiful African country through their words, photos, videos and tweets. You can see who the blogger are and follow them here.

3. Compassion Bloggers celebrates five years of releasing children from poverty by returning to Uganda – the first country we visited together. They travel from war-torn northern Uganda to a slum community in Kampala and share the journey through story, video and photos. You can follow them on Twitter here. 

4. The Goal of Compassion's trip to Uganda is to get 400 Children Sponsored. Together we will release 400 children from poverty. Your sponsorship provides a child with education, healthcare, nutrition and the gospel. If you want to sponsor a child in Uganda click here.

5. Would you like to do something to help these kids and raise awareness? How about blogging for Compassion? Blogging about children in poverty can be a simple but powerful way to raise awareness for the most vulnerable and needy children in the world. If you want to know more, click here.

Now it's your turn!

Compassion Bloggers celebrates five years of releasing children from poverty by returning to Uganda – the first country we visited together. Join us January 27-31 as we travel from war-torn northern Uganda to a slum community in Kampala and share the journey through story, video and photos.  - See more at: http://compassionbloggers.com/trips/uganda-2014/#sthash.3zxtXjDJ.dpuf

Compassion Bloggers celebrates five years of releasing children from poverty by returning to Uganda – the first country we visited together. Join us January 27-31 as we travel from war-torn northern Uganda to a slum community in Kampala and share the journey through story, video and photos.  - See more at: http://compassionbloggers.com/trips/uganda-2014/#sthash.3zxtXjDJ.dpuf

Compassion Bloggers celebrates five years of releasing children from poverty by returning to Uganda – the first country we visited together. Join us January 27-31 as we travel from war-torn northern Uganda to a slum community in Kampala and share the journey through story, video and photos.  - See more at: http://compassionbloggers.com/trips/uganda-2014/#sthash.3zxtXjDJ.dpuf

Poetry Wednesday

"Hope" is the thing with feathers

254

"Hope" is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—

And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—
And sore must be the storm—
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm—

I've heard it in the chillest land—
And on the strangest Sea—
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb—of Me.

Emily Dickinson

Our new home - Why we love Bailarina

When we came to live in Tena with my son in August 2012 it was very hard for him to accept.

Before that we lived in Quito and I only visited Tena and traveled here and back, trying to be as efficient as possible in work and miss as little time as possible with my son.

Matthew 6:14-15

For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

For me, it was time of guilt and bad conscience for one side and respite from the tensions in my married for another.

Finally, my husband's infidelity came too obvious and I was relieved to be able to leave him and give our marriage for a failure.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

For my son, this meant leaving his father, his school, his friends, his cousins and other extended family, in other words, everything he was used, everything he was familiar with.

It was hard time for us both.

Isaiah 43:25-26

"I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.  Review the past for me, let us argue the matter together; state the case for your innocence.

My son was afraid of not getting new friends, he suffered in the new school where I put him, and finally, in the middle of the semester, I had to change him to another school.

The first house where we lived was filled with vermin, giant cockroaches, wasps, black tarantulas, possums, and various other local animal forms.

I can forgive, but I cannot forget, is only another way of saying, I will not forgive. Forgiveness ought to be like a cancelled note - torn in two, and burned up, so that it never can be shown against one.
Henry Ward Beecher

Besides the house had been a bar, which I knew, and a bordello, which I didn't know.

And the former clients would come at night knocking and shouting, demanding for attention.

Finally, we found a new home, a beautiful house in a very nice and quiet neighborhood.

Numbers 14:19-21

In accordance with your great love, forgive the sin of these people, just as you have pardoned them from the time they left Egypt until now."  The LORD replied, "I have forgiven them, as you asked.  Nevertheless, as surely as I live and as surely as the glory of the LORD fills the whole earth,

And my son started to enjoy going to school, in his new school.

He started to get new friends and enjoy his life, cycling to see them, inviting them to our home to play with the computer.

But he still had nightmares.

He still was afraid to sleep alone I his room.

Forgiveness is the remission of sins. For it is by this that what has been lost, and was found, is saved from being lost again.
Saint Augustine

Most nights he would sleep next to me.

I told him that he wouldn't sleep alone, his cat liked to go to bed with him.

But would leave at night, and he would wake up at night, in the darkness, alone.

My son with his, please, can we take him back home with us, face.

Our snautzer didn't want to sleep with him but would jump out of the bed and run to sleep under mine.

Finally, last July his friend told him that their chihuahua was going to have puppies.

I told my son he could have one, but it would be his Christmas present, ahead of time, and there would be no other gifts.

Micah 7:18-19

Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy.  You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.

He told me that he wouldn't mind because he wanted the dog; it would be his friend and would sleep the nights with him.

In September he got his friend, a little girl chihuahua puppy.

Without forgiveness, there's no future.
Desmond Tutu

We called her Bailarina because she likes to stand in her back paws when she is excited and it looks like she is dancing around.

It has been another adventure.

The puppy sleeps with Mikael, he finally has his loyal loving friend.

Mark 11:25

And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins. "

But puppies can't sleep all the night without waking up to go to bathroom.

So we have had a lot of accidents.

But she is learning and sleeping next to my son.

Forgiveness is the giving, and so the receiving, of life.
George MacDonald

Who now can rest easily his nights on his own bed, in his own room.

And I can only sigh, how fast do they grow.

How at once I want to keep him close and make him stand on his own.

My son with his Bailarina.