As you probably know, my family and I live in a smallish town. I say smallish because I have talked to people when I’m out and about, that are from VERY small towns and call Longview “the city”. As in, “we only come into the city when we have to because it’s so crowded”. The first time I heard this I had to look around to make sure I wasn’t being punked.

I have also heard, “how can you live in such a small town? There’s nothing to do.”  There is ALWAYS something to do, you just have to look a little harder than if you live in Dallas or Austin.

I was scrolling through Facebook when I saw an event I thought would be an awesome experience, not only for me, but for my kids.

It’s called the Compassion Experience. There are several that travel around the United States. It gives you a first hand experience about what life is like as a child in a 3rd world country. Woo-hoo, it was coming to Longview!!! I clicked on the link, reserved our time and we were set.

When we drove up,  Jack thought it looked sketchy since it was next to the highway, in the church’s parking lot, but pretty far away from the church hosting it. The kids  really had very little interest. They would have much rather stayed home and gotten on their laptops, so I got a lot of grunts and okay fine. I wasn’t going to give in, because it was obvious to me that they needed a little wake up call.  I had been looking forward to this for weeks, so no matter the attitudes, it was on.

The inside is much larger than it appears on the outside. That’s my blurry son on the left. We were each given headphones and a small ipad and told that we would learn about Kiwi from the Philippines first. If we liked it we were welcome to come back around and learn about Jey from Uganda.

People in line for headphones. We are standing on the stairs waiting to go in.

When you walk into each room you listen as a narrative is read, in a child’s voice, explaining what you are seeing.

The hospital where Kiwi was born.

Kiwi’s home. My kids were actually listening intently because, well, just look at how she had to live.  It is one thing when I make them watch youtube videos about this, but it’s a whole other thing to be immersed in it. And yes, I am that mother that would make them watch videos of kids from 3rd world countries so they could see that their lives were pretty darn good.

Jackson is standing in the “market”.  We were allowed to touch and explore.

There is a “window” so you can see what the outside would be like. The kids thought this was pretty cool.

The stories take you from hopelessness to hopeful. It is God centered, which we loved, but I understand this may not be everyone’s cup of tea. Before we went I read reviews. One reviewer said that they enjoyed it, but felt uncomfortable with the whole Christian aspect of it. Well, let me clue you in, if it’s sponsored by a church, in a church parking lot, it’s probably Christ based. I didn’t feel like it was shoved down your throat, but it was inline with my beliefs, so I wasn’t bothered by it at all.

At the end of the Kiwi tour, the real Kiwi appears on your screen and tells you about herself. Hannah was surprised because, in her words, she thought it was a generalized story about a made up person. Nope, it’s real and it just became WAY more interesting to them.

So kids, do you want to do they next one? Yes, they 100% did.

This one was a bit different. We did the first one as a group by ourselves. This one we did with a mom and her 4 year old son.

Jey’s story was much sadder and grittier.   I was in tears by the end. I’ll paraphrase and show the pics. His mother made illegal moonshine and sold drugs to feed her family.

15 people lived in his hut. They would fight for the bed.

A meal for 15 people

As a child, yes child, he spent time in jail. There was not enough food and the conditions were horrible.

Learning about Jey’s life as it is becoming better.

A school room

Again, at the end, Jey came on our screens to tell us about where he is now.  Both had happy endings.  Yay! I think the kids enjoyed Jey’s story more than Kiwi’s, although both were extremely moving.

This exhibit is very well done. We truly felt as though we were in the places, living their lives with them.  I would highly recommend seeing it if it’s in your city. It created very good, thought provoking conversation on the way home.

This event was free, but at the end you have the option to “adopt” a child. There are pictures of different children on the walls as you leave the last rooms. There is no pressure to do this, they simply ask you if you are interested. We were not, and let me explain why. I didn’t realize that there was a homeless population in Longview. You just don’t see it simply driving down the streets. I want my family to get involved with helping people in need in our community.  Hopefully, by the end of the year I will have a blog post about just that.

Several children were “adopted” though.

If you see this coming to your town, it’s worth the time to go. It takes about an hour if you choose to go through both experiences. The people running it are extremely nice and helpful and I think we walked away with a better understanding of what goes on in the world outside of our little bubble.

Stacy