This might be one of the most exciting posts I’ve ever written here. I’ve started and stopped it so many times because I want it to be just right, and yet the words aren’t stringing them together quite the way I want.

But you all are great, so I’m just going to plow on through already and get on with it. Ready?

There’s a village in small-town Ethiopia with our name on it. And by that, I mean WE, as a community of people who read and write the Simple Living blogs, have the chance to specifically and extraordinarily bless another community of mamas and babies who need a bit of our help.

Seriously. It’s amazing and humbling and everything in between.

We are officially partnering with Compassion International to sponsor a Child Survival Program in Woliso, Ethiopia, which is not too far outside Addis Ababa. And we can all play a part in a seriously cool way.

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Today I met two supermodels. Not really. But holy cow, aren’t these two sisters gorgeous? These two girls are sponsored by two separate Australian families with Compassion here in the Philippines. Aira, on the left, is 17 and hopes to become a teacher. Dhesthile, on the right, is 13 and is mostly happy playing volleyball.

They both help lead worship in their dilapidated shell of a church in an area here called The Island. They call it that because several times a year, houses are flooded up to their waists.

Aira wants to stay there and teach. She wants to stay because she’s already investing in kids, and she knows them by name.

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You might be getting a little tired of reading these Compassion posts. It might be too much. Maybe a bit too heavy a read while you’re taking a break during the kids’ nap times.

I hear you. I’ve been like that during other Compassion blog trips — I want to read, but I also kinda don’t. The pictures, the stories, the descriptions… They’re just so heavy and sad, it’s hard not to feel a mix of sadness, anger, apathy, and even a little annoyance at the blogger doing the writing. It’s like they’re interrupting their regularly scheduled programming, and I want to read happier stuff.

To be honest, I’d read their posts and shut down the laptop feeling guilty. And I don’t want to feel guilty, especially when my own life isn’t always a walk in the park. So I stop reading, and pick back up after they return.

The thing I’ve realized this week, though, is that there’s a difference between guilt and conviction. The guilt is what causes that lump in your throat, where you can’t decide whether to swallow down your apathy or puke it all up in anger.

But conviction is that stirring deep inside you, when you acknowledge that guilt-like feeling, and instead of letting it fester, you mold and shape it into something productive.

Conviction causes action. Conviction leads to hope.
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I went to Kim and Moises’ house today. These two teenage brothers live in a neighborhood on top of a marsh — as in, there’s a concrete sidewalk leading to their house, with putrid water under floating rafts of trash on either side.

Their mother works as a seamstress in a factory, and their father is in Saudi Arabia. They also have a younger sister, who was napping in a neighbor’s home upstairs earlier this afternoon.

These two young men are a great example of how the organization does so much more than give their family money each month.

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