I had requested another correspondence sponsor child. (These are children who are financially sponsored, but whose sponsors [often corporations/groups] sign off on their ability to write letters to their children. Since learning how much letters matter to these special children, I really felt that the Lord was nudging me to write to another child. On Feb. 16th when I signed into my Compassion account there she was:
We've also received several letters since that last post on February 1st. We got our first letter from Tania on Jan.31st. Then on February 1st we got a Christmas Card and letter from Camilo in Guatemala. I wrote about those two letters here.
On February 19th another happy dance was done by the mailbox! Our first letter from Katherine in Nicaragua arrived. I had asked about the sponsorship history of our children and knew that we are Katherine's third sponsors. She writes in her letter "I give thanks to my God for putting you in my way as a sponsor. I'll pray for you so that you always be my sponsor." Absolutely heartbreaking. This little girl is only 9 and has already been dropped by two sponsors. I can only imagine how devastating that would be. Her letter was very short and I hope that with time she'll open up a little. I assured her, in my reply, that it was my prayer too, to always be her sponsor.
On February 22nd we received our second letter from Allan in Ecuador. It was dated December 31st and it thanked us for the gift he received, a duvet for his bed. I know when I think of Ecuador I think hot weather, but Allan lives in the mountains and the average temperature year round is about 10 C/ 50F, so a duvet would be a good thing! He (via his tutor, Monica) enjoyed the Christmas party at the Compassion Project and asked for prayer for his family.
Today, March 7th, the mail came early-ish and I was excited to see one of those cream envelopes amid the other mail. Opened it up to find a third letter from Allan!!! Also written on December 31st this one was printed on letterhead that said "Reciprocal Letter", so I guess this means he's received a letter from me! He thanks me for the benefits I have sent to him... not sure whether this is the financial support or the stickers/bookmarks... He wonders what my country is like. I was happy to send him off a reply note via the Compassion International website. They have a feature where you can e-mail your letter (the letter will still need to be translated before reaching the child) which speeds up the process a little. You can't include tangible goodies but you can encourage and thank them for the letter you've received. I try to send a reply this way whenever I receive one of their letters. I also tend to send my mid-month letter this way. Once a month I write out a handwritten letter to each child. Feb 1's post details the sorts of things I include.
I did another big mailing on Feb. 24th (2 months before Easter) with Easter cards and stickers and a photo of Super Beautiful and Super Map at the fire station. I didn't take any photos this time as I was rushing to get them done in time. It was good to get that mailing done before my family arrived from Canada on Feb. 26th. My mom, who lives in Quebec, picked up a couple of French cards for Loury (our Haitian sponsor daughter). There really aren't a lot of French cards in Virginia :) However, we do have some Spanish cards available, so I picked up Spanish Easter cards for the other six kids and I hope that they will like them!
I've asked for and received permission to do a presentation for Compassion Sunday at our MOPS group on March 31st (yes, not a Sunday), as part of our Service/Ministry day. I would appreciate your prayers for that. There is also some potential to have tables set up at different meetings at church, so please also pray for these opportunities to share Compassion. There are so many children who still need sponsoring!
Loved hearing about your Compassion kids!
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