Too Small To Ignore

By Anna Hamman 

One of my favorite books is Too Small To Ignore: Why the Least of These Matters Most, by Wes Stafford, the president and CEO of Compassion International.

Too Small to Ignore is a book that has challenged my perspective about children and poverty. It helped me see how God values children not just for who they will be as adults but for who they are now, and how it is our responsibility to care for them too. Because of Stafford’s unique upbringing in a remote community in Africa, he brings a fresh perspective from someone who has lived and worked in both third world and Western settings. Here is a quote I really love:

“When the wealthy and the poor get together, each ends up meeting the desperate needs of the other. Too often Satan achieves his wicked agenda by keeping them apart---geographically and philosophically. The result is that one tends to die in need and the other in greed. But when Jesus brings us together, the genuine needs of both are mysteriously and wonderfully satisfied. In God’s amazing economy, the rich and the poor need each other, the common message being, ‘Enough really is… enough’”

I really recommend this book for those who care for children. It offers a fresh perspective on how important children are in God’s equation but also a challenge on how we value those who have less than we do and how we can pass this perspective to our own children. In this book, Stafford shares his own experiences of growing up in an African village and also his perspective from working with children and families through Compassion International around the world. 

Compassion International is a Christian organization that helps people sponsor children and teenagers and their families in third world countries. My husband and I have sponsored and written letters to two children through Compassion for a few years now and we were privileged to go and visit them and their families with compassion staff in rural Uganda a few years back.

We were really impressed by how sponsorship through Compassion benefits a whole community and were so touched by how overwhelmingly grateful our sponsor children and their families were for the relatively small amount we sacrifice each month to sponsor them. It was a humbling experience to realize how such a small sacrifice each month from us could really make a huge difference when channeled in the right way. We were also touched when they brought out every letter and photo we had ever sent them and shared how much they loved getting them.

I do not write this in any way to glorify us, because I feel this is a small act on our part. I just want to emphasize that child sponsorship is just one of those things that seems so right in this world. It is around $40 dollars a month to sponsor a child and sometimes that can seem like a stretch, but when you see how grateful the children, their families and the community who benefit from sponsorship are, it seems well worth it. Really when you think about it, $40 for us is just a few meals out that we could save by eating at home a little more. In a third world setting, this money goes a long way. Many of you may already sponsor a child or give in other ways but if you are interested in finding more about it, I highly recommend it.