Lifting a child up

We are home now and are trying to adjust to being away from our girl.  After our week with her we felt we grew a great bond with her and it made it very hard to leave and it is hard being back and going through the normal motions of life....she is on our minds always.

We had so many great moments with our girl and also with the other kids of the creche.  I had one particular moment that really touched me and I wanted to share this story...especially with my friends who I know sponsor children.

When I got back from my first trip to Haiti I was so impressed and moved by Chances for Children that we decided we wanted to further our support for them and sponsor another child.   Child sponsorship entails a monthly financial commitment to help pay for the needs of the children (food, school, etc.).   In addition to the sponsorship you get the opportunity to write letters back and forth with the child you selected.  I consider child sponsorship a huge part of our adoption story, as our daughter initially started out as our sponsored child. Anyways, when I returned to the USA I added a sweet older child name Bernadine to our sponsorship list.

I viewed the sponsorship as a way to support the overall creche and did not really think of the importance of the relationship with the child.   In my mind at the time it was just a way to do my part and help fund the creche.   My opinion has drastically changed as to how I view sponsorship based on my last visit. 

Last April I wrote Bernadine a short letter with a few encouraging words.   The correspondence I received back was in the form of pictures and drawings.  I haven't done much more in the way of correspondence since that first letter, again, my thinking was that really I am just providing funding.

Bernadine is a sweet girl, she is very shy.  If you don't seek her out you might not even notice her as she stays in the background pretty much.  Well, one day I was looking for our girl and went into Bernadine's room.  I started talking to her and very quickly she got a huge smile on her face.  The kids at the creche only have 1 drawer in a dresser to themselves and what they keep in their backpack, that is their only belongings.  So as I am talking to Bernadine she goes to her backpack, which I can see just a few loose papers in.   With the biggest smile on her face she pulls out the letter I wrote from April and showed it off to me like it was her most prized possession.  She then read it to me and also had me read it to her.  I could see how happy this one letter made her and how proud of the letter she was.   I was holding back the tears as I was realizing how she had held onto this letter for over 8 months and how happy this letter made her.

I later was talking to the director of the creche and she told me how much these kids value their sponsorship letters and how for some of them, it is all they have.   Wow! 

I now have a whole new viewpoint of child sponsorship.  It is first and primarily a way to speak words of encouragement into a child who very much needs someone to lift them up and make sure they know they are loved...and it is secondly a way to support the overall mission of the organization.   Needless to say, my sponsorship letter writing activities are going to greatly increase. 

If you aren't a sponsor and would like to be blessed by a relationship with a child you can go the Chances for Children website to sponsor a child.  There are also other reputable organizations like Compassion who also offer sponsorship opportunities.

http://www.chances4children.org/sponsorship/

http://www.compassion.com/

The kids getting together to sing for us