Continuing the Journey

It has now been close to 3 months since my incredible trip to El Salvador to meet my precious girl, Marlen.  When I came home I thought I would leave the blog as it was- a chronicle of the trip of my life.  I have since decided that since my journey with Compassion is far from over, there is no reason to leave my blog behind as I continue down the road.  Therefore, I have decided to continue to update as my life continues to be blessed through my association with this organization.

After meeting so many sweet children and young leaders in El Salvador, I got a true sense of how important letters are to these kids.  I have always written consistently to my kids and love getting their letters in return (although it can be a long wait).  Sadly many children rarely, if ever, receive letters from their sponsors.  This can lead them to believe that their sponsors don't love them or that they are not good enough.  It is easy for sponsors to forget to write letters, thinking that sending money is enough.  Compassion sees the importance of relationships to encourage kids in poverty that they are important and loved.  Therefore, they offer a program called correspondent sponsorship which assigns children whose sponsors have decided that they do not want to write, for whatever reason, with a 'correspondent' to write to the child.  As far as most of the kids know the correspondent is their sponsor since that is the person with whom they have a relationship.

I already had one correspondent child (Predilien from Haiti) as well as my sister's child (Kalkidan from Ethiopia).  However, when I got home I decided to ask Compassion to assign another child to me.  I was recently asked to write to this little cutie:

This is Rhean.  She is 3 years old and lives in the Philippines.  She lives with her parents and has 2 siblings.  Like most little girls, she likes singing, drawing, and playing with dolls.

I am so excited to begin writing to this precious little girl!

I also received a letter from my sweet Marlen recently.  The letter was written on May 9 (about 10 days before I left for El Salvador) but it does not sound like she knew that I was coming yet.  (They told us that the kids were not told their sponsor's were visiting until like the week before we got there so that the kids didn't get too worked up.)  

Marlen's letter is a theme letter about her house.  Most of what she wrote she told me while I was there. She does describe (and drew a picture of) a beautiful garden next to her home where she loves to go.  She ends with a Bible verse (Isaiah 41:13) and 'God bless you and keep you always.'

I love these kids dearly and am so blessed to have them in my life!  If you sponsor a child and have not written to them recently please set aside time this week to write a letter (you can even do it online).  Your words mean more than you know to your children.  If you are interested in becoming a correspondent sponsors and encouraging children in need, contact Compassion (contact information can be found on their website, www.compassion.com).  Feel free to leave a message if you have any questions (or just to say hi)!