If you're going to Colour this week, then you probably don't want to read my blog because I don't want to let the cat out of the bag for you!
Without doubt, the most impacting session was Saturday morning during the "Sisterhood" session. Personally, I never really liked the term "sisterhood" because it conjured up images of girls shopping together, doing toilet trips together etc etc. I've never really been into that.
However, Saturday morning disintegrated that perspective.
On Saturday morning, we were confronted with the horrors being experienced around the world. Children kidnapped and forced to become soldiers required to commit sickening crimes against other children and babies (eg tieing infants to a tree and hitting them until they died). One girl (yes Girl!) told how she had to beat her own brother to death, or be killed herself.
Similarly, girls are being kidnapped and given to men as wives. We saw 2 women who tried to escape, and had their lips, ears and nose-tips cut off with razor blades as punishment.
Then we heard about parents feeding their children mudcakes to hold off hunger pains. Another mother talked of feeding their children 'rat rice', which is the rice found in rat nests.
We saw babies and toddlers who had been discarded on rubbish tips - left for dead - some with hands and feet bound.
Take a look at this youtube video on how the global food crisis is affecting so many.
Against this horror, I realised that my own world was too cacooned. My prayers were too selfish. My perspective was far too narrow and it needed to change. I needed to stop judging the 'sisterhood' because I didn't like the word, and my perspective on what that meant!
What if a group of ordinary women, who are unremarkable by the worlds standards, could create an extraordinary difference around the globe because they were aligned in purpose and vision? That's the sisterhood.
We are a 'Synery' - which is "The interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual" That's the sisterhood.
As individual women, our impact may not be felt - but the combined effect of 18,000 women can be felt globally and generationally.
This morning I put my money where my mouth is. I sponsored an 8 year old girl who had been waiting for over 12 months to be sponsored. I chose an 8 year old, because this is the same age as my son. Neither he nor I did anything to be born into this luxury of Australia. So we are making a difference to a child that could have been any one of us.
Have I really made a difference? It's like the story that many of us have heard of the boy running along the beach full of stranded starfish, tossing each one he encountered into the sea. An onlooker stopped him and said "But there are more starfish on this beach than you can ever save before the sun is up. Surely you cannot expect to make a difference." The youth paused briefly, bent to pick up a starfish and threw it as far as possible. Turning to me he simply said, "I made a difference to that one."
Today I made a difference to one, and am part of something bigger.
This isn't a pat on the back for me, nor is it the first child I've sponsored. But this is my step so that I am not just sitting back and say "isn't that heartbreaking - someone should do something about that", but a step to "be the change I want to see in the world"
Please sponsor a child at Compassion. It costs only $44 a month - a small price to pay for such a huge impact. Be part of something bigger and be the change you want to see.
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