(Internet access is very expensive here in our hotel…and very very slow.  I’ve purchased one day’s worth and I’ll post as much as I can before it runs out, but when it does I doubt I’ll be buying more.)

When recording artists who work with Compassion International go on trips with Compassion they’re called “vision trips.” A few artists and staff from the artist division of Compassion go together to project sites in a nearby country – Central America, for instance.  On these trips, artists may visit their sponsor child, they play with kids, visit homes and see how folks in the third world live.  It’s an introduction, a way of easing folks into the shocking reality these people live in.  These trips educate artists about exactly how Compassion International works, but, most important I think, these trips mess artists up.  We artists tend to be pretty self-involved, treated specially, applauded weekly, admired often.  Sitting in a ten foot square room made of scrap metal, a place shared by a family of six, has a way of recentering a person, giving them perspective and prodding them toward a grander purpose for their lives than self-promotion.

This is not one of those trips.  I’ve been on one of those, was changed by it and inspired, but this is different.

Brian, my artist relations guy at Compassion (and my brother-in-law) is with me on this trip along with the VP of a radio marketing firm that works with Compassion, the vice chairman of the board at Compassion and the president of Compassion.  That’s it.  No other artists.  I feel under qualified to be here.

We’re here for two reasons.  First, Wess, the president of Compassion, is speaking to the first Ethiopian graduating class of Compassion’s Leadership Development Program.  In that program students with tremendous leadership potential are mentored spiritually and vocationally and given a university education.  All this is paid for by sponsors who give $300 a month to turn these young people into nation changing leaders.  We’ll be attending the graduation ceremony on Saturday and hanging out with the graduates for a few hours then too.  Wess wanted us to be here with him to celebrate this milestone in these students’ and this country’s life as representatives of Compassion.  It’s an honor.

Second, we’re here to delve deeper into the details of what Compassion International does.  What I generally speak about is Compassion’s Child Development Program, the $32 a month child sponsorship program which meets the physical, social, economic, spiritual and educational needs of school-aged kids.  But on this trip I’m getting to see what Compassion is doing for pregnant mothers, for areas infected with AIDS, for university students as well.  I’m being introduced to the breadth of Compassion’s work here.  And I’m gaining a greater depth of understand about the Child Development Program.  Unfortunately/fortunately this means spending less time with kids and more time with pastors and project leaders, hearing their struggles, encouraging them, thanking them, and ingesting lots of progress reports and statistics – the details of how this work is done.  It’s a lot to take in but I’m more confident than ever, having been able to look inside the records the projects keep and ask hard questions, that Compassion International works to end poverty and is worth putting my life into.

More later.  Here are some pictures and a video from our trip so far.

The slum outside my hotel window in Addis Ababa, the capitol of Ethiopia.

Kids at a Compassion project on the outskirts of Addis Ababa.

Yoseph, the five year-old boy we’ve just added to our family.  I’ve never been hugged so much by a kid.

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