I've moved!

After three years and 195 posts here in this little bloggy space, I have packed up my pile of rocks and moved to a brand-spanking new website!

Visit Cherise's new website HERE.

You guys, I can't even begin to tell you how fun it is to have my own space that is clean and fresh and new. I feel like a college girl who just got her first apartment, giddy over her first dishes.

The whole thing was a birthday gift from three of my favorite people in the world.

My husband bought the domain name and template, and our dear friends Kelsey and Avery camped out for hours on our living room floor, showing me the intricacies of widgets, email forwarding, backups, and installation.

To all three of you from the core of me--thank you for showing me love.

The new website has a sweet little email subscribe form so you can get my posts in your inbox--easy peasy.

Goodbye, Blogger! It's been fun.

Photo credit: http://www.prossersmoving.com/ 

Compassion part 8: Changed Lives

"It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men" - Frederick Douglass, abolitionist and statesman

This is the eighth and final post in my series discussing the work of Compassion International. It wasn't quite the ten posts I promised, but hey! Life happens, and it's good to fully live it when it does.

We discussed the weight of a hurting world, and learned that while we may not all be able to do great things, we can all do small things with great love.

In the next post I introduced you to three beautiful, small people from three far-flung corners of the globe.

We met Egi, the seven year old from Indonesia with the shy smile and beautiful eyes.

You saw Yegele, the sweet kindergartener who loves to play "house", and lives with no daddy.

We peeked into the life of a tiny boy named Gregori, a preschooler in Peru whose birthday is coming soon.

If you watched this video of Helen when she received her sponsor after waiting for over a year, you probably cried--I know I did!

And before the weekend, we talked about sports fanatics and saw how loving God means letting our hearts become invested in the things that move His.

I'm closing this series with one of the most compelling videos I've ever seen. 

Compassion International has been in operation since 1952, so they invited some of the children who have now graduated from the program to tell their stories as adults. If you ever wondered, "does sponsorship actually make a long-term difference?" just watch this.

Thank you for coming along with me for the past week and a half! In case you're curious, Egi, Yegele and Gregori did not find their sponsors this month, but this means that their profiles will be placed back on Compassion's website for anyone to find. If one of these children has touched your heart, you can search for them by their names, found below:

Egi Ricard Sarumaha

Yegele Telahun

Gregori David Quezada Pintado

And of course, these are only three of thousands of children waiting for sponsors! Check out the Compassion International homepage to see all of the children.