In my college years, my wife and I had sponsored children through Compassion International thanks to Mark Matlock's Planet Wisdom conferences. We gave up this expense due to budget concerns - being newly married and in college.
Lately, we have had plenty of extra resources on hand to start this back up. We decided to sponsor three boys plus a yearly gift on their birthday. We let our boys pick out who we would sponsor.
For a while, I kept getting the idea that we needed to sponsor more. I was willing to sponsor an army - if God wanted... but knew that wasn't what He had in mind.
I was on my way home from work praying about it. As I pulled into my driveway, the Spirit clearly told me, "Take your full savings, plus the amount of your stocks, divide that by ten, and plan on giving that amount for the next five years."
I walked in and told my wife what I thought the Spirit told me. We decided to pray and think more on it after the kids were in bed.
That night, I sat down at the computer, did the math, then figured out how many children I can sponsor over the next five years with that money. Turns out, it's one child plus a yearly gift for her on her birthday.
Meet Agness.
My wife and I were amazed at how precise the calculations God gave us were. Ten percent of the amount we have in savings plus stocks almost matched up (to the penny) to the amount it would take to sponsor this child for five years. There was only a little left over that we decided to donate.