A couple years ago our family decided to sponsor a child through Compassion International. We selected a little girl from Guatemala that shared the same birthday (not year) as Gretchen. Her name is Adela. She is eight years old now.Yesterday I received a letter from her in the mail. Compassion does a great job of making sure that sponsored children write to their sponsors at least three times a year. I wish they would do just as good of a job ensuring that their sponsors write their sponsored children. :-)
I've been so pathetic in the letter writing area. We do a nice job of ensuring our monthly sponsorship funds get to Adela thanks to automatic withdrawal. However, by utilizing automatic withdrawal it does make this whole sponsorship seem impersonal. We went to automatic withdrawal because it makes Compassion's administrative fees lower so more funds get passed directly to the children. I get it, but it makes it out of sight; out of mind.
What broke my heart tonight was reading about a sponsored letter's journey to a country and the journey a sponsored child's letter goes on to get to their sponsor. There's a picture of children gathered around a table waiting to see if there's a letter for them. It got me thinking that Adela has probably sat around a table like this for months and has been let down time and time again.
It's a new year soon...I have a good idea of one thing that will be on my New Years Resolution list now.
Write Adela once a month.
Pray for Adela if not every day at least once a week.
2 comments:
Awesome!! We sponsored a child in Uganda in Nov. Her name is Alice. We sent her a package for Christmas. We are so excited to hear from here. I sure hope we can keep up with writing to her. The kids have all written her once. We have only sponsored her now for 2 months, but it has been a great experience for not only me, but for the kids. Thanks for sharing!!!
You are SO GOOD to sponsor a child, and now to vow to write to her. She would probably love that.
I recently realized that snail mail letters are doubly precious, as this habit disappears.
To make it easy for me to write notes to people, I buy many note cards and keep them handy.
You know, the cards with flowers on them or pretty scenes. That way I can write only a short note and still keep in touch.
Bless your heart.
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