Ok, so some of you may be wondering why I picked Compassion in this effort to fight malaria.  Well, we are very familiar with Compassion.  When we began to sponsor our first child, we had really no idea about Compassion or what all this was about.  Since then, we have had quite an education.

Soon after sponsoring Jose in the Dominican Republic, we decided to visit him on a vacation that we were planning to the DR.  We contacted Compassion and told them about our wishes.  Some organizations do not want you to visit your sponsored child because they don’t want you to see exactly where your money is going. Not Compassion.  They set up a Compassion field staff employee to meet us in Santo Domingo to facilitate our visit with Jose.  He jumped in our car and we drove to Jose’s house in the hills above Santo Domingo.  We got to meet Jose and his family.  Distribute gifts and talk to them (with the help of our Compassion interpreter).  It was very tough to see the conditions that Jose and his family were living in.  Just a 2 room “house”, with 2 beds in the bedroom and almost nothing in the “kitchen”.  No cupboards!  But we were told that cupboards were not necessary when you have nothing to put in them.  They truly lived day to day with 6 boys!  But we did see joy and hope in that situation.  A thankfulness that we were there and being a part of their lives. 

We then went to the Compassion student center that was attached to the local church in the neighborhood.  Here Jose got a meal and tutoring.  He got a safe place to play and was given life tools to succeed.  They also were instructed in the bible. 

We were blown away by what we saw.  I could go on and on, but suffice to say we joined up with the volunteer network(now the Advocate Network) when we got back.  We discovered even more of the things about this great organization that put us over the top.  Over 80% of all that you give goes to your child through the local church Compassion project.  They are in over 20 countries around the world and we hear of great things happening through Compassion.  More on this stuff later….

 

 

Ran a couple of miles today and suffered..ughhhh.   Got a shoulder cramp.  Well, I have a year to train, so that is a GOOD thing.  Could have been the huge Mexican lunch we had after church today.  Went to a big grocery store here that has a cocina in it….yum.

Check out our new links to our Compassion kids.  Continually updated.  God bless!

  Easy run today.  2.5miler next to house.

Anyone interested in making a pledge, I will give them this bracelet.

Me and the little woman hiked Garden of the Gods today.  Beautiful day.      A good day “off” from training.  Will hit it hard tomorrow.

 

 

  

Pikes Peak in the background

Ran in Alamosa , CO today.  Not much else to do here.  I would not be here if there wasn’t a Walgreens that need extra help.  Anyway, I ran from the hotel down some country road for 2.5miles.  Kind of boring, but a good starting workout.  The altitude is about 7500 feet here, so not much air..WHEW!

Check the link to see the  route.         http://www.mapmyrun.com/run/united-states/co/alamosa/117331188310

Ran today.  I will use this as the baseline.  2.5miles..beautiful day.  I am OUT OF SHAPE!