I’ve worked for Children International for more than eight years – first as a sponsor services representative and now as a writer. To say it’s been a learning experience is an understatement.

When I tell people that I work for a child sponsorship organization, the usual reply is...“Wow! That must be very rewarding!” No doubt it is, but I always pause before responding. There’s no simple way to describe the depth and scope of work like this – so full of tragedy and triumph, heartache and hope.

Sharing the stories of the poor and disenfranchised is a cause I’ve been committed to ever since I volunteered at an orphanage in Bulgaria 12 years ago. That’s where I first came face-to-face with children in dire need of help.

Fresh out of college, with no idea what the future had in store, my time at the orphanage was a crash course in humanity. Interaction with the children there taught me what it means to be absolutely marginalized by society. Seeing boys and girls covered in sores from skin infections, I learned how essential good hygiene and health care are to young children. And teaching basic English to boys and girls starved for knowledge was a lesson in enlightenment no university setting could ever replicate.

These days, my teachers are numerous and spread all over the world. I now have more than 335,000 young boys and girls in 11 different developing countries teaching me what it means to be truly, and sometimes desperately, human.