Poverty pressed in on every side, asking her to shrink, to adjust, to stop hoping for more than what her circumstances allowed. But even as life tried to contain her, something in her refused to dim. Long before she had language for it, Jessa carried a writer’s heart—noticing everything, holding onto small details and believing quietly that her story could one day stretch wider than the limits she was born into.
And today, it has.
Jessa now works for Compassion—the organisation that stepped into her life when she was just 5 years old and never left her side.
Jessa’s story is one of hope. But the scars of her past still sit close to the surface. She remembers being a little girl watching other children run past with snacks or new clothes, wondering why her life felt so different from theirs.
There is no bitterness in her voice—only honesty. She learned early how to smile through hunger, how to hide the ache of wanting what she couldn’t have and how to carry questions too heavy for a child.
But even then, something in her stayed soft.
Jessa was 5 years old when her life shifted.
At first, the Compassion centre was simply a place she had to attend. But slowly, it became something more. A refuge. A community. Somewhere she didn’t feel invisible.
Through Compassion’s local church partner in the Philippines, she received meals, school support and she learned what safety felt like. But what impacted her most were the letters—the ones that travelled across oceans to reach her hands.
“Even when I lived in poverty, I felt seen, loved and valuable through my supporter and receiving the letters,” she says. “Knowing someone across the world was praying for me, and telling me, ‘Jessa, you’re going to have a good life,’ was everything.”
Those words didn’t just encourage her. They reshaped her.
They told her she mattered. That she was loved. That she had a future.
Learning she was seen by God, too
As Jessa grew, the church running her local Compassion centre became a place where she began to understand who God was—and who she was to Him.
“I have a personal relationship with God through Compassion,” she says.
She remembers hearing Scripture like John 3:16 and wondering if it could really apply to her: a girl who felt small and unseen. But slowly, she began to believe it. She began to see God in the world and in the people around her.
“If I look back in my life, I see God in every step, in every decision I made,” she says. “God told me, ‘You will use your time living in poverty to exalt my name.’”
Becoming a teacher
Years later, when she finished the Compassion program, Jessa stepped into a role she never imagined for herself.
“Now I am one of the Compassion teachers at my church,” she says.
She has been teaching for five years now—guiding children who sit where she once sat, carrying questions she once carried.
She laughs when she talks about it. Not out of pride, but out of wonder.
“I’ve been at the church since I was a child in the sponsorship program,” she says. “I call the young people who go there my family. We cry together. We pray together.”
The group she mentors—known as the Salt and Light Squad — is made up of 12 boys and girls aged 16 to 18. They meet on Saturdays at the Compassion centre, then attend church and serve together on Sundays. Sometimes they grab coffee and talk about life throughout the week.
To Jessa, they are like her younger siblings. They call her “Ate Lay”—sister.
Her life has a bigger purpose
Poverty often pushes young people into choices shaped by survival, not hope. But Jessa believes God used Compassion to protect her, to guide her and keep her close.
“Every time I share my story, I say, if not for Compassion, I may be having a child, pregnant early or doing something wrong.”
And slowly, that has become true.
Today, Jessa works. She teaches. She financially supports her three siblings and her mother. And still, she dreams—dreams shaped by the same quiet noticing that carried her through childhood.
She discovered early that she loved observing the world: the way people spoke, the way they carried their pain and the way God showed up in ordinary moments. She began writing these observations down.
“I love reading books. I love to write. I have a blog where I write about my life. I’m more of an observer,” she says.
When her dad passed away, she wrote about that too. Words became a way to breathe through grief, to make sense of sorrow and reconnect with hope when things feel dim.
Her story may have begun in narrowness, but words have helped her world widen.
A life transformed
Today, Jessa works with a team of colleagues who have shared a similar journey to hers—all of them have graduated from the Compassion program in the Philippines. She speaks with gratitude about the sponsors who supported her, the staff who guided her and the God who never let her go.
Her story is not loud or dramatic. It’s gentle and steady—full of small, faithful steps. It’s the story of a young woman whose heart stayed soft, even when life was hard, who now dreams of writing words that will soften the world around her.
It’s the story of what happens when one child is given the chance to flourish.
And it’s the story of how sponsorship doesn’t just change a child’s circumstances—it changes their identity, their confidence and their future, plus the futures of others they will one day influence.
If Jessa’s story has inspired you, you can learn more about Compassion’s Child Sponsorship Program here. Perhaps you can help widen the world of another child living in poverty.
If you’d like to read more from Jessa herself, you can find her personal blog here.
