A selfless good deed

For those of you who have grown up watching 'Friends' you may be familiar with the episode where Phoebe tries to prove wrong Joey's comment - "there is no such thing as a selfless good deed". This particular episode dawned on me today when I delved into the nature of my decision to sponsor a fourth child.

I remember my first engagement with the opportunity to sponsor a child. I was only 16 and was approached by a sales representative for World Vision. I remember having the lady present to me a range of bright orange cardboard description cards, each with photos of children in need of a sponsor. To this day I'm not entirely sure whether I decided to sign up out of my own free will or whether it was an obligation deriving from my naivety at the time. I did know however that when I saw that photo of Cavin a part inside of me felt like I wanted to help her, and that i did.

The help that I provided almost felt invisible at times. It's not like the help you give your child when they are ill, or the help you give your close friend when they are in need. It's a help that you can rarely, if ever, grasp as you are so far from the cause. I wrote to Cavin a few times in the beginning but then as time went by and my life began to fill with friends and work and responsibilities, each day moulding into the next, my sponsorship just became one of lives little intricacies. The donations became just another calculation being deducted from my bank account like the phone bills or the loan repayments. They joined the cycle of money-in-money out that became the basis of my working life. Little did it occur to me that somewhere I was changing people's lives. 

A few years later I decided to sponsor another child from Haiti. This time I did do it out of my own good will. I was earning more money at the time and I wanted to give something back. But after a while the same similar pattern occurred. I was now changing two children's lives, and evidently two communities lives, yet I went about my day to day life like there was no difference. 

As I grew older I began to realise that's the thing about life, and being a working class citizen. Time just passes you by. You get caught up in the hustle and bustle and somewhere in the midst of all this you forget to give a little back.

This is why I appreciate the opportunity to be involved in child sponsorship. It is a humble and simple type of giving. It provides someone with the chance of a better life and gives them opportunity that they may have not once had. To me, giving someone this opportunity is what makes it so special.

We don't all have the option of being doctors or leaving our lives to travel to third world countries to open up an orphanage, there are people that do that for us. For many of us, the most impartial form of giving is through donation or sponsorship and although I may not have much contact with my sponsored children, I know that I am making a difference somewhere worlds away. 

I don't sponsor to make myself feel good, I don't sponsor to make myself look good to others. It isn't something that I often bring up in conversation or boast about. I do it because I believe that everyone deserves the right to happiness and the chance to smile. I can listen to opinions about where my money goes and which charity CEO gets paid the most amount of money, but at the end of the day no matter what anyone says, if I feel I have the opportunity to do something good then I will embrace it. Sometimes you feel you want to do something good for someone but feel as though there is nothing you can offer. Well let me tell you, that feeling of wanting to do something good for someone, that's compassion, and that is one of the greatest gifts of all.

Now, 10 years on, I'm packing my bags to Africa to visit Cavin & the community that I have so drastically changed the lives of. I'm so eagerly looking forward to finally getting a glimpse of my selfless good deed that has been so close to my heart and yet so far from my world for all these years.