Love, doesn’t require our language, just our action. A simple lesson I learned when I met Crismeiry, my sponsor child in the Dominican Republic through Compassion International.

Our bus pulled up to a little beach park. As I walked off the bus I saw the powdery sand, ocean as far as the eye could see and a little beachside open-air restaurant. Waiting for me inside that little restaurant was Crismeiry. I could see her sitting there at a table with her Compassion Project Director and a family member I would later find out is her older sister. As I walked towards her table I got nervous…will this be awkward? Would she think I was cool? Did my wife and I pick out the right gifts for her? Did we do enough, get enough or bring enough? Questions began to rattle in my head and as I walked up to her I prayed, “Lord, help me.” She must have been just as nervous or just very shy since she didn’t really say much more than “hello” to me for the first 10 minutes. So we sat there, awkwardly. Thankfully the place had wifi so I was able to FaceTime my wife Amber back home and that changed everything!

My wife beamed from ear to ear seeing Crismeiry through FaceTime and Crismeiry responded back just the same.

My wife who doesn’t speak the same language helped me to bridge the awkward gap between me, the 36 year old stranger and her our 11 year old sponsor child.

My wife told her how loved she was, how special to our family she is, how we pray for her and how she can’t wait to come next year and met her in person as well. My wife loved on this little girl from half a world away and it didn’t take more than her time and her smile. Actions, really do speak louder than words.Next thing I knew Crismeiry wanted to play volleyball with me. So we grabbed a group of us and took to the sand. We ran and jumped and played hard, we shared some pizza and took a selfie. Love doesn’t require much from us, but can move mountains when we take the time to do it.

Crismeiry is a part of our family now. Though she may live hundreds of miles away, love will always keep her close to our hearts.