Challenger Profile
Name:
Joe Blake
Challenge Date:
6th October 2017
TOTAL
Donations:£2,585.82
Donations
Target:£1,300.00
Children
Sponsored Target:10
Online Total: £1,131.00
Offline Total: £1,454.82
Gift Aid: £259.00
Hello!
I'm Joe, I'm 28 years old and I live in Gloucester with my wife, my brother and my friend, along with the dog and two cats.
By day I'm a Drama teacher at a secondary school in South Gloucestershire and I also lead the worship ministry at Kingfisher church in Tredworth.
By night I savour the simple pleasures of friends, films and food - not that I am describing any of my friends as simple.
I sponsor two children through Compassion: Zenash from Ethiopia and Riska from Indonesia, who I will get to meet during my trip to Indonesia in October!
So, since taking up sponsorship of Riska and Zenash, I've heard stories from other sponsors about the incredible experiences they had meeting the children that they support. I've always thought that would be an incredible opportunity, but I had no idea how it could happen and it didn't seem realistic.
I've grown up on stories that my dad shared of when he ran two London marathons, and he always spoke so fondly of them that I think on some level I hoped, or even assumed that I would follow in his footsteps one day and "give it a go".
When I saw the email about this challenge my heart leapt a bit, as I quickly identified the potential of fulfilling both dreams in one trip. Since then I've been compelled to keep investigating and I've made the leap of faith and am committed to seeing it through.
The best part of the whole venture is that it goes above and beyond my self-interest: the work that Compassion is doing around the world to see children released from poverty is immense. Getting to play a small role through donations and building correspondence has been a blessing, but having this chance to be physically involved in the vision and to be God's hands and feet is an opportunity that's too good to miss.