Upon arriving at Dominican Republic’s airport, Claudia, a local World Vision representative met us at the airport. Like the World Vision employees I met when I visited Uganda in January, Claudia instantly impresses me. She carries with her a presence that radiates with passion and professionalism. During the 30-minute drive from airport to the hotel, Claudia talks about her experience on the day that the earthquake hit Haiti.

“People here felt it,” she says. “I was on a bus, so I didn’t feel it. But I could tell something had happened by the expressions on the faces of people along the streets. When I got home, my mom and sister told me about the earthquake.”

A few days later, Claudia went for ten days to a World Vision office that’s located on the Haiti/DR border. “I was only an hour or so away from Port-au-Prince. Hundreds of earthquake victims traveled across the border into Dominican Republic to seek shelter, food, water, and medical help.

“One little girl I remember well lost her mother in the earthquake. When I first saw her, she was being pushed across the border in a wheel barrel because one of her tiny legs was broken. For four days, she’d survived with that damaged leg, and infection had set in. It was too late to save her leg, so doctors were forced to cut off her leg right above the knee. She was so upset. In fact, I don’t know of a time when I’ve ever witnessed such dark pain. She was only eight or nine, and she was being forced to survive without her mom and with only one of her legs. Soon, she would have to learn how to cope with a prosthetic. And she had to do that among a bunch of strangers.

“But what I love about my job with World Vision is that I get to not only help fill somebody’s physical needs–you know, food, water, & other basic things… but I also get to love them like I know Jesus loves them. That little girl lost everything in the matter of a few seconds. And after she’d received medical attention and her belly was full of food, what she needed most was love. I held her for hours one afternoon and probably said a hundred prayers over her… ”

I love that.

Child sponsorship through World Vision not only provides your sponsor child with basic needs, education, but it also allows World Vision to create avenues for disaster relief to become available to those in need as quickly and efficiently as possible. Within hours of some of the most recent disasters–like the earthquake in Haiti or the tsunami in southeast Asia–World Vision was there to help.

There’s probably a lot of reasons why you might think that sponsoring a child isn’t possible at this time, but there are also a million little reasons  why you should. The little girl that Claudia talked about is only one of them.

Sponsor a child today. If you already do sponsor a child, perhaps sponsor another child. Child sponsorship through World Vision is one way that we are able to show the love of Jesus to an individual in need.

And I assure you, it’s a good way.

CLICK HERE TO JOIN THE WORLD VISION STORY…. SPONSOR A CHILD

Also, read this post from Jessica–a ‘Letter to Elias’

And if you missed “My Sober Friend,” please read!