P.S. We created a  Video for a Sponsor dinner but I think you will be touched by it as well. Enjoy!  

Adapted from a speech given by Lynn Clay at the 500 Dreams, 500 Kids event

This is Barnabus. He just turned 11. He is my sponsored son in Africa. For five years, I have had a dream to visit him in Kenya. We write a check every month to support him. We write letters, talk on the phone, Skype and send gifts and pictures. We pray for him and his older sister, Naomi, and look at his picture nearly every day. On Aug 7th 2014, my dream came true when my youngest daughter, Jasmine, and I joined a team of sponsors, and we took the long trip to Africa to meet Barnabus.

What are your dreams?...Dreams for your kids, dreams of vacations, dreams of accomplishing something significant? What if you didn't have access to food on a regular basis? What if water wasn't readily available, or it made you sick? What if you lived in an unsafe place? What if your whole world revolved around surviving in the moment? What would you dream about then?
Barnabus lives at the Oasis children's home called The Hill. He lives there with 96 other kids and a wonderful staff of mamas, teachers and caretakers. The atmosphere on The Hill can only be described as being what the Bible calls an "Acts-like" environment. I felt like we were in a Bible story, and the church was unfolding in front of my eyes. The older kids helped the younger kids looked out for them, explained things to them, played with them and treated them like beloved younger siblings. There was inexhaustible patience, no arguments and no complaints. There was an absence of competition and possessiveness between the kids...They share everything. We were warned not to be offended if we saw a shirt that we had given to our sponsored child on another child. It truly was a place of joy and love, filled with the Holy Spirit. Rick Smith, our onsite missionary, told me that it's like this all the time, not just when there are visitors!

In the middle of our trip, we went to a newer children's home to hold a Vacation Bible School like we had done on The Hill the day before. While the children at this home were beautiful and joyful, they seemed to be still living with a poverty mentality. Our experience there was more chaotic; the kids didn't know how to take turns, help the others around them or to be satisfied with what was offered them. Although they were now protected, fed and cared for, there was still a sense of desperation and fear. 

But...when you are living in a safe place, you have plenty of food and adequate shelter, you are loved and encouraged every day, go to school to exercise your brain and you are offered the wisdom, love, forgiveness and grace of God...Then you get to dream! You get to look outside the very narrow box of just surviving. You get to thrive!

This is the joy that I get to experience by being a sponsor... partnering with God to bring love, faith and hope to children on the other side of the world. We get to join God in taking care of the physical needs of food, water, clothing and shelter. We get to be part of God's plan to feed and nurture sharp minds with school and play. We get to partner with God to teach and grow children's spirits as they are drawn closer to their heavenly Father. And then...we get to watch them dream...big dreams... like becoming an architect to build strong houses with wood floors instead of just dirt. Or, we get to fuel the desire to become a neurosurgeon...not just a doctor- a neurosurgeon! Now that is big dream! Together, let's dream big for our Oasis children. I invite you to join with Oasis as we continue to develop and make room for God to transform even more minds and hearts of children in Kenya.

Exciting news about sponsorship - We added 30 new Child Sponsors in 2014. In 2015, we are going to turn up the volume on Education and Angel Sponsors, and Lord willing, will need more Child Sponsors sometime mid-year with the opening of The Shelter. With four children starting college and 11 kids from The Hill starting high school there are MANY opportunities for you to be involved sponsoring children. Please be thinking and praying about how it could look to welcome a Kenyan child into your family and heart!