Some of My Favorite Things about CCF

• CCF only employs local people in its projects. This is not a paternalistic organization in which the "rich folks" parade into a community and tell people what is best for them. Most program decisions are guided by CCF, but made locally, by local people. Most (maybe all, I'm not sure) projects have parents' groups that help make decisions and take other actions to improve their communities. What better way to empower people than to help them to guide themselves?

• The folks at CCF are experts at what they do. There are many, many organizations around that are doing their absolute best to combat global poverty. This is thrilling, because the only way we will truly make a difference is to attack the problems from many angles. However, an awful lot of good people try to do good things and just don't have much of a clue about what they're doing. Unfortunately, sometimes they can do more harm than good. It is essential to me that I ensure that my money is used the the most effective ways possible. By supporting CCF, I can have faith that incredibly talented and dedicated people are working for my kids.

• One factor that is very important to me is that CCF assists needy children without regard to religion. This is based upon the rights of parents to raise their children within their chosen belief system. It is important to me to maintain those rights, regardless of whether or not the parents make choices that I would personally make. I value the opportunity to share my faith. However, I strongly believe that religious witnessing should be kept separate from basic assistance. It's like saying, "We'll help you feed and educate your children, as long as you worship in our way." There are plenty of opportunities to share one's faith without tying it to basic human rights. And this is what we're doing by sponsoring a child in desperate poverty. The services we provide are simply providing folks with their basic human rights of education, nutrition, medical care, etc.

• Another one of my favorite things about CCF is that it enlarges my world. By sponsoring through CCF, I'm able connect with people that I'd never have a chance to meet otherwise. It's relatively easy for me to hear the cries of a neighbor's colicky child as I'm coming home from work, and to know that the mom has been trying to quiet the poor thing for hours. I know that I can help out by taking the baby into my apartment for a while, to give the mom a rest. I can easily go to the thrift store to buy winter coats for the kids at the homeless shelter. I can do my best to support my friend when she's trying to escape an abusive husband. I can do these things, because I can see and feel the need and the solution. But, these are not my only neighbors. With the help of CCF, I can connect with my distant neighbors. The problems of poverty and illiteracy are so large, that as an average person, I really don't know what to do. With the help of the experts at CCF, I can not only assist my nearby neighbors, but my distant neighbors also.

• In addition to helping me to connect with people that I'd never have a chance to meet, CCF helps me to communicate with those people. Without the translations done by CCF staff, I'd never be able to communicate with Asma and Wellington. I've had the translations checked by native speakers that I've met, and have been told that the translations are quite good. CCF also protects both the sponsors and sponsored children from receiving unwanted mail. As much as we'd like to believe that it's not possible, as a result of their relationship with us, our sponsored children are vulnerable to being used by an outsider to take advantage of us. Unfortunately, there are people who would love to coach our sponsored children to beg for whatever they can get from us. By requiring that correspondence is routed through CCF, we are protected from this. Even worse is the fact that sponsored children must also be protected. As much as we'd hate to believe it, there have been "sponsors" who send inappropriate mail to children. I'm grateful to CCF for protecting the children and their families from these people.

• Finally, one of the biggest things that I like about CCF, is the attitude that sponsorship is about relationship, not just about fundraising. I have always been a firm believer that one of the greatest benefits of sponsorship to both the child and the sponsor is the relationship that is developed. (One only has to look at my web site for a few moments to see that...) By developing the relationship in a respectful and loving way, we open the ourselves and our sponsored children to a new world. Suddenly, our world is not only our family or our neighborhood, but we have a genuine interest in and understanding of new places & people. The fact that someone that lives thousands of miles away loves them enough to sponsor them, to write them, to send small gifts, is a powerful message to a child. Managing the correspondence between sponsor and child and organizing visits are expensive tasks, I'm sure. But, CCF seems to value this as much as I do, and encourages us to write to and visit our children.