Here’s question three in our lead-up to World AIDS Day on Dec. 1.

Remember when you answer each day’s HIV/AIDS question correctly, you are eligible to win a free CD – your choice of either Portable Sounds by tobyMac or Beyond Measure by Jeremy Camp. We’ll randomly choose a winner each day from the correct answers.

Of the more than 2 million deaths worldwide in 2007 caused by AIDS, 72 percent of those occurred in sub-Saharan Africa.

That statistic shows the devastating toll AIDS is taking on the continent of Africa.

Source: 2008 Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic,Executive Summary, pp. 5, 18, http://www.unaids.org

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Will you respond when calamity knocks? When a poor child has no defenses? When she’s cornered by the bullies of poverty?

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Here’s question two in our lead up to World AIDS Day on Dec. 1.

Remember when you answer each day’s HIV/AIDS question correctly, you are eligible to win a free CD – your choice of either Portable Sounds by tobyMac or Beyond Measure by Jeremy Camp. We’ll randomly choose a winner each day from the correct answers.

HIV infections are found throughout the world, and developing countries are particularly vulnerable to the devastation caused by HIV and AIDS.

In poverty-stricken countries, many people do not understand the risk of HIV or how to prevent it. Once infected, they do not have the same access to treatment as do those suffering from the disease in the developing world.

Source: The Skeptic’s Guide to the Global AIDS Crisis by Dale Hanson Bourke (Colorado Springs, Colo.: Authentic Books, 2006), p. 9

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It’s here! The official Compassion International browser toolbar.

And this matters to you because the toolbar will help you stay connected with your sponsored child and our ministry much more easily.

Our exceptionally groovy browser toolbar offers you quick access from your Web browser to:

• write a letter or give a gift to your child
• our blog
• all of our social media sites (e.g., OurCompassion, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and our Web banners and widgets
• our RSS feeds, including all crisis updates, news releases and Wess’ daily radio program, Speak Up With Compassion
• our online store and ways to get involved
• compassion.com and your “My Account” information

Plus, the toolbar has a search function, powered by Yahoo, which raises money for Compassion every time you use it.

So, here you go. Download the toolbar now.

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World AIDS Day is Dec. 1. So, over the next two weeks we’ll be asking you some questions about HIV and AIDS.

If you answer that day’s question correctly, you’ll be eligible to win a free CD — your choice of either Portable Sounds by tobyMac or Beyond Measure by Jeremy Camp. We’ll randomly choose a winner each day from the correct answers.

Here’s the first question.

Tomorrow morning we’ll publish the answer to this question in the comment section of this post.

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Friends! It has been much too long. I’m sorry for my extended leave of absence as of late. But I promise … I have a pretty good excuse. Let’s catch up, yes?

Let’s talk Twinkies first.

The Twinkie Project has undergone some serious plastic surgery. Face-lift. Tummy tuck. Lipo. The works. We’ve trimmed her up real nice and purdy. But don’t fret, it’s all for the best.

Who was the surgeon, you ask? Thankfully, not me. I did not excel in anatomy.

This project has been handed off to a team, as in several people, who will be taking it to infinity and beyond. Three highly qualified and ridiculously creative gentlemen are now driving the Twinkie Project to another level of awesomeness. I am still participating in helping to bring it to life, just on a smaller, less time-consuming scale.

Among the many changes that it has seen, the Twinkie Project has been renamed. Granted, the “Twinkie Project” was never on its birth certificate, so the code name still applies for now.

Without giving too much away, I will say this — it has grown much larger than I would have dared to dream.

Turns out the basic idea behind it — sending young people abroad to broadcast their lives to us and teach us about countries and peoples we don’t know — is not so new. As a matter of fact, there are several other organizations and companies that have pioneered this concept.

Only thing is … Compassion is the only one among the crowd that really does something so beautifully different — partnering with the church; equipping pastors to minister to their communities more holistically. We empower and enable people who have the hearts for ministry but not the means.

So while our little “Twinkie” looks like the other Twinkies on the outside, we’re filled with something entirely different on the inside.

Who knew Twinkies could make for such spiritual metaphors? Moving on.

Meanwhile, while the Twinkie has been under the knife, I have been up to some mischief of my own.

Working. Doing my new job. My real, permanent, big-kid job. I GOT HIRED!

I am now an official team member of Donor Services and my role on the team is that of Donor Services Specialist. What all does mean exactly? I have no idea.

KIDDING!

I’m pretty sure I have one of the best jobs in the building. I am hereby responsible for taking the stories and information that we receive from the field (i.e. the countries we work in) regarding the Child Survival Program and working with writers and designers to create crazy-awesome reports that we send to our donors.

See? Uh-mazing job.

And because we serve a big God, donors keep pouring in despite every outside force or news report telling us now is not the time to be giving away your money.

So I stay plenty busy and I couldn’t be happier.

I guess you could say that the intern has finally graduated. God’s timing is not mine, but it is better. His plans have been rich with blessing and had the last year not transpired the way that it did, I would have never known His goodness, His faithfulness or His perfect provision for each day.

So now that I’m not going anywhere … it’s time to have a little fun.

There’s no such thing as detention in the work world, right?

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My name is Peninah Esianoi Pashile. I was a sponsored child at Imaroro Child Develoment Center in Kenya. I would like to share my story with you and hope that it will be an inspiration and encouragement to all who are dedicating their time and resources to releasing children from poverty in Jesus’ name.

Your work is not in vain; your acts of compassion are changing the world day by day.

I was born in 1982, the fifth of seven children in the household. I was born and brought up in a remote village of Empuyiankat in Kajiado district, Rift Valley province in Kenya.

My father is a polygamist, married to three wives with 24 children. My father and his wives have no formal education.

As a girl in the highly patriarchal Maasai community, my chances of attaining an education were dim. Girls in my community are raised to be submissive and dependent upon men all their lives.

Female genital mutilation (FGM) and forced marriages of 13-year-old girls to men decades older than them characterize the lives of 99 percent of Maasai girls. A gender-oppressive culture, few and understaffed education facilities, and long treks from home to school and back across the vast savanna plains full of wild animals are some of the challenges girls in my community endure to access education.

I started school at the age of 6 at Imaroro Primary School. My enrollment to school and the Compassion program was the defining event of my life.

The only reason I was chosen was because my mother had five girls and two boys, and at the time of our registration, my elder brother was too old and the other was too young to enroll. This left my parents with no choice but to take me to fill the one slot given to my mother’s household.

Compassion introduced me to Christianity, and enforced compulsory Saturday and Sunday Bible classes. The Maasai tribe is known worldwide for maintaining their culture and traditional way of life as well as resisting modern and western life, including Christianity.

I wonder what would have become of me if I was not enrolled in Compassion and now leading a Christian life? But I find clear answers in the lives of my former playmates in the village.

Like them, I would have spent my weekends not attending Bible classes but singing and dancing to morans (Maasai warriors) at the village as required by culture. I would have spent my evenings not doing homework or preparing for the next day at school, but making beaded jewelry for self-decoration.

Other than Bible education and other support offered by Compassion, correspondence with my sponsors was the major source of inspiration to me. Their love and commitment inspired me to excel in education and to pursue a career in social work.

I prayed to God to one day meet my sponsors in person. Now that I am in the United States, I will be meeting them in the near future, God willing.

At the age of 13, immediately after primary school, I almost lost the chance of furthering my education. The Maasai culture demands that girls at that age be circumcised and married off to much older men.

So many of my sisters went through this horrifying experience, and I was not going to be an exception. Having done well in my primary-level national examination, and with a strong passion for education, I talked to my mother and a Compassion social worker.

I told them I did not wish to go through FGM and that I wanted to continue with school rather than get married. The Compassion social worker sent help from a women’s group fighting against FGM and early child marriages in the district, who talked to my father and got me admission to Moi Girls Isinya, a boarding high school offering refuge to many Maasai girls.

Compassion International and the women’s group financed my education at this school. This move opened the doors to my future.

I enrolled in university in 2001 to pursue a bachelor’s degree in social work. My dream is to bring about lasting change and advocate for the voiceless girls and women in my own Maasai community.

Today I live in the USA in the state of Maryland and am in the process of applying to graduate school to pursue a master’s degree in public health.

Those of us who owe our success to the good deeds of Compassion always say a prayer asking God to bless the hearts of all those behind this ministry. There are challenges and times when expected results are not forthcoming, especially in terms of unmet numbers and statistics. However, lives are being changed.

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Another clip from our video interview with the Moody Bible Institute scholars.

After watching it, will you sponsor a Leadership Development Program student? You can do so by yourself, but you can also do it as a group, with family, friends, co-workers, your small group, etc.

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More specifically, do you sponsor a child in one of these three child development centers in El Salvador?

• ES526, Bethel Student Center
• ES808, Cachorros de León Student Center
• ES782, Comisión de Amor Student Center

If you do sponsor a child in one of those three centers, let us know. These are the centers that the CompassionBloggers will visit next week, and we have someone going who is willing to TRY to get a photo of your child for you.

We can’t guarantee success, but we will do our best.

Please don’t leave your child’s name or number in your comment. Just let us know you have a child at one of the centers and someone will contact you via e-mail to get the information. Or you can send us your information via our contact form.

From Nov. 9 to 13, four bloggers will witness firsthand how we minister to the poor of El Salvador. Visit CompassionBloggers.com daily to travel with them through their stories, pictures and videos.

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