Flowers. Candy. Greeting cards. Last year, American consumers spent more than $17 billion on Valentine’s Day, according to the National Retail Federation. Men spend an average of $163, while women spend an average of $85. (Who said chivalry is dead?)

I do have plans on Valentine’s Day to show my wife that I love her. One of the reasons why I love her is because we share in a bigger love story: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth” (I John 3:16-18).

Christ showed us a different kind of love—one in which you pour yourself out without expecting anything back. There’s plenty of need for that in our world, with more than 1 billion people living on less than a dollar a day and 25,000 children who die every day in ways we could help prevent.

Child sponsors are part of God’s love story. For only about $1 a day (less than the cost of a rose on Valentine’s Day!), sponsors show that God cares for children in tangible ways. And the children know it for what it really is: love.

“My sponsor’s name is Dan; he is a wonderful father and he means a lot to me because he loves me so much. That’s why he has done so much for me,” says Pathias, 12, a sponsored child in Zambia who lost his father to AIDS and lives with HIV himself.

“You’re my inspiration,” writes Sheen Mae, 16, from the Philippines, to her sponsor. “I treasure your love. I wish you could feel my happiness and see my smiles. Thank you.”

What’s your sponsorship love story? Or what are the ways you love “with actions and in truth”?