We’re terrible child sponsors.
The only way we could possibly be worse sponsors is to not be sponsors at all!
Long story short, we moved country and didn’t redirect our mail… then we kind of forgot about it, for four years!
Yeah, you read that right. For four years.
Oh, the money kept going out of our bank account every month, so the kid kept getting his support and services but that’s not the most important part of child sponsorship and it’s certainly not the point.
I read a blog post by Lindsey Nobles recently, and watched the video in it. If you don’t read Lindsey’s blog regularly, you should, she writes some great posts. The video she shared is VERY good, so good in fact that I think you should watch it if you haven’t already done so:
Catalyst 2009 Compassion Moment from Catalyst on Vimeo.
Here, in the western world, the ‘first’ world, we really don’t have much if any concept of just what it’s like to truly have nothing. No food, no clean water, no clothes, no healthcare, no education, no job, no prospects for a better future. Nothing.
When you sponsor a child, even just the $35 a month you pay changes that child’s life in ways most of us here probably can’t even fathom.
What’s even more important though, is the letters that the sponsors send. Letters of love and encouragement, letters of hope and brotherhood, letters that can excite and surprise the child as much as any financial gift ever could.
I think about that poor boy we were sponsoring, how the other sponsored children in his village would get letters from their sponsors with maybe a little gift in them, a balloon or a special notepad and pen and time and time again, year after year, he’d get nothing. While the children around him excitedly opened their gifts, he’d be sadly left out. I am so sorry for making him feel that way. I don’t know how much it affected him but however much it was, it was too much.
I contacted World Vision, through whom we sponsored him, and updated our address. Circumstances with the projects have changed and we now have a new child we’re sponsoring. I missed by 20 days being able to say goodbye to our last child, to my shame.
Things will be different with our new child, who is in Bolivia. In fact, I’m going to give regular updates on this blog.
I can’t change what a bad sponsor I was in the past, I can only change what I do in the future.
Thank you, Lindsey, for showing me how important it is to write to the children we sponsor and giving me the kick I needed to do what I should have been doing all along!
If you want to sponsor a child, here are some of the agencies you can sponsor through:
We have a little girl in Lesotho Africa we sponsor through World Vision. She's been ours for 6 years now. You know what prompted us to sponsor her? Our missions coordinator at our church gave a presentation on how American's spend 3 times, yes, <1>3 times as much on their pets as they do on charities directed at feeding and medicating the children of the world. We signed up so fast…
Don't beat yourself up about losing contact with your child. The money and the support from World Vision made a difference. Really, it did.
With your new child, did you know you can email him or her? You can sign up through World Vision to email your sponsored child, they translate it, print it and deliver it. I love it! I email Jerita (our little girl) all the time. And she always mails us back a letter. It's so awesome 🙂
Thank you for the video you posted and bringing awareness to how we can all give up some things we don't need to help those who have nothing.
Email sounds good! I'll have to see if that's possible with our child!
I sponser a child in another organization, CFCA, and I am just as bad. I never write because I don't know what to say. Around Christmas I try to send "Merry Christmas. Thinking of you and praying for you. Love Helen" but otherwise, I don't know what to say. I worry about saying something that brings to mind the differences of our circumstances. But I will try harder.
That was our problem… But we're going to work harder on it!
I could watch this video over and over. I went straight home and wrote my sponsor kids. I need to create a pattern for it, so that it doesn't slip through the cracks. It is so important.
Thanks for the nice things said about my blog. I appreciate you!
You're welcome, Lindsey!
Keep writing that great stuff and I'll keep linking to you 🙂
So now I feel guilty. We've sponsored children through CCF for over 13 years. We started off with a boy and a girl, and the girl got married very young so we got a new child. Then the boy got old enough that he wasn't part of the program… so now we have two 'newer' children to our family and I haven't sent one letter. BAD!!
Thanks for the reminder, Peter.
It's so easy for us to think that writing a check is all that's needed.
It's what we do at church, it's what we do with sponsorship and it's what we do with most 'ministry'.
We need to start connecting rather than just financing!
So sorry you missed out on saying goodbye! I'm guessing your new child will find you to be highly attentive :o)
We support an orphanage through our church, but for our kids’ sake I would like to do something like this just so they associate our family giving with a real person they can communicate with. I think it’s time to make this happen- thanks Peter!
Awesome Peter. Thanks for the reminder that we can always stretch ourselves to do more.
The wonderful thing about sponsoring an individual (rather than simply donating to an organization) is that even if we don't have the kind of reunion on Earth that Jimmy and Mark did, we have hope of one we'll celebrate in Heaven. The greater our investment now (money, time, prayer), the greater the future celebration.