Hello, my name is Lisa-Jo and I am a lame Compassion International sponsor.
I originally wrote this blog post four years ago and apparently I still haven’t learned my lesson. Because today when I logged on to write a birthday letter to Daniel who I met in Guatemala on a Compassion International trip four years ago I clicked on the “letters to date” tab. And I was mortified to see I’d only sent ONE letter last year. You guys, I am SO LAME. I had to go and re-read my own post and it made me want to share it with you all again.
Four years ago I thought about starting a support group – “Lame Sponsors Anonymous.” ‘Cause on my trip with Ann, Lindsey and Amanda to Guatemala I just knew that there were others out there like me who could be founding members.
Here’s the deal- we sponsor two kids through Compassion International and I have never really put much stock in letter writing. I mean, we write – sure – but no more than maybe four times a year; when he writes us, we write back. I just don’t really see how much a five-year-old can get out of a letter from a strange white woman formerly of South Africa now living all the way over in the U, S of A.
I mean, we pay the $38/month, right? How much could a letter really matter? Four years ago, with tears and mascara running down my face, I found out.
My life is all boys. I have two brothers, one step-brother, one adopted brother, three nephews, two sons and a husband. Yea, that’s a lot of testosterone right there. So not surprisingly, the Compassion kids we sponsor turned out to be boys as well. There’s nine-year old Thomas from Ghana and nine-year-old Daniel from Guatemala. And yes, I have a nine-year-old son, Jackson and a seven-year old son, Micah
Four years ago in Guatemala, three more boys moved into my heart.
Mynar, Josue, and Daniel.
Each of them have been supported by the same Compassion International Child Development Center since they were six years old. They are twenty four now. And they don’t know it, but they put the smack down on everything I have thought up to this point about corresponding with my sponsored children. (Well them and Shaun Groves whose family, I discovered, writes a letter a month to each of their four Compassion kids. Oy vey!)
So me and my lame, low-letter producing self asked Mynar, “but what if our sponsored kids can’t read yet. Do the letters mean anything to them?”
His eyes widened in amazement and then he leaned forward, hands clasped in front of him and told me, “We save all our letters.”
“And even though when we were little, Compassion workers read them to us, when we grew up we could read them ourselves. So we go back and start at the beginning. We read every letter again to get to know our Sponsors better.”
Daniel chimed in, “Getting a letter from your sponsor, it’s just so cool!”
I’m guessing that Angela from Australia would be delighted to see the big grin that I got to reap from her fourteen years of correspondence.
I listened. I listened as Mynar spelled out the three reasons why the letters that have come from Margaret in the U.K. for the past fourteen years are saved and re-read time and time again:
- Everyone loves to brag when they get a letter; it stinks to come to the Compassion Center on mail days and there’s nothing for you.
- It tells me someone loves me.
- It is a confirmation of what I learn at the Compassion Center – that God values me.
Cue the goosebumps.
Josue’s sponsor is also from the U.K. His name is “Mr. David” and he’s a missionary. Mr. David started sponsoring Josue when he was still single. Over the last fourteen years Mr. David met his wife, got married, and had a first baby boy. And he sent Josue all the pictures and correspondence to include him in the journey. They are connected by a bridge of letters. And even though Josue knew from the other kids that sponsors who got married often dropped the sponsorship commitment as they moved into their new lives, Mr. David stuck by him.
Glue. Words and lives and stories and exchanges. Glue that holds boys together when all around them their friends are splintering into a thousand shards of broken bits and pieces splintered by gangs and prison and hopelessness.
“Do you know Sarah?”
The young boy who has materialized at my elbow asks again, “Do you know Sarah? She also lives in America like you.”
The translator is quick to explain. This is Gaspar and his sponsor is Sarah. He wants to know if I know her. He’s with his friends Luis and Manuel. They are the mini-versions of Daniel, Mynar and Josue.
Five years. Five years Sarah has been sponsoring Gaspar (who is in the white shirt) and in that time he has received only two letters. Luis (on the right) is only five months into his first sponsorship and he is eager to write to Mike and Caroline but he can’t until they write first. And he’s still waiting. I hear the story repeated in different voices all throughout the afternoon. I mean, how can your name be Darling and somehow you’ve never received a letter from your sponsor?
“What would you like to know?” I ask. What would you like to know from your sponsor if I could ask for you? They look up at the ceiling, look at each other, fidget, and then,
“if she has a husband,” says Gaspar. “And where she lives. How old she is and what work she does.”
It only takes very simple words to build a sturdy bridge.
These boys, they climb into my heart with both feet. I feel them in there stomping around and rearranging things. And it wells up in my eyes and my hot cheeks and strangely I find it hard to swallow. My fingers are itching for a pen.
And by gum if I don’t hope yours are too!
Our letters are more important than our money. Our words more valuable than our automatic withdrawals.
And we can change the course of history by investing in the person instead of just the payment plan.
I want Gaspar and Luis and Manuel to grow up to be as sure that they are loved and covered in prayer as Mynar and Josue and Daniel. Heck, I want that for my own boys.
And so I am determined to tear up my Lame Sponsors Anonymous card once and for all and pick up pen and paper. I will write. I will keep writing letters to my Compassion kids and prayers to the God who lays Himself down as the living bridge between us.
Because I have walked across and discovered what He has known all along:
No dejemos de congregarnos, como acostumbran hacerlo algunos, sino animémonos unos a otros, y con mayor razón ahora que vemos que aquel día se acerca. Hebreos 10:25.
Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. Hebrews 10:25.
Won’t you join me? Come on, let’s run across that bridge!
If you sponsor a Compassion International child won’t you write him or her a letter today.
Click here to email a letter and photos to your sponosred child. Compassion will print it out and mail it for you! (I just did it this morning – it’s so simple).
And get this, many children like Gaspar have sponsors but no communication; no relationship. And Compassion tells me they’re always looking for more letter writers to match up with existing sponsored kids.
Click here to become a child correspondent- a word sponsor – to write to a child and tell a Gaspar or Luis that he matters more than any dollar value. He matters because God says so. Simple as that.
And I promise I’ll be here with you, setting calendar reminders to write monthly letters so I can tear up my lame sponsor card once and for all.
Let me know if you wrote a letter today- just leave a comment or reply to your subscriber email and we can continue to encourage each other, yes?
All photos by the amazing Keely Marie Scott.
I started sponsoring Liberatha last month after I saw that Holley was going to the DR with Compassion. I had specifically NOT sponsored a child b/c I knew I would be a lame sponsor and I didn’t want to be a disappointment. But I was convicted and my girl who is 4 had been waiting over a year for a sponsor. While I haven’t send a hand-written letter yet, I have sent 5 using the online letter writer since Feb 2nd! They aren’t very long and sometimes I struggle with what best to write to a 4 yr old…but a few words of love is all that is needed isn’t it? :) Learning as I go but excited to finally have taken that step, a step of freedom for both of us! :)
You are inspiring me!!!
Thank you for the reminder. I wrote to my kiddo!
YES! high five!
Lisa-Jo, I’ve been thinking this same thought since the team went to the DR. I sponsor two children as well and I’m horrible at writing them! Thanks for reminding me of the importance of the love shown in a few words. My sweet girl, Night, always says how much she is praying for me in her letters. The least I can do is write more than I have in the past. Thanks!
You and me both, Holly. And thankfully it’s never too late! :)
And the letter is sent. Crazy how the guilt of not doing something can make me put it off even longer. Thank you for the kick in the rear! It is easy to send money, so much harder to truly invest…
Thank you for this reminder! I sponsor a child in Ghana through World Vision and I haven’t written for several months.
7:19 a.m. is too early to be crying. Yet I did. I do write my compassion child but I need to do it more. I have a little boy now (had a girl when I started) and I have had the attitude of how much could he really be interested in my letters, or whatever. So this was definitely encouraging! Thank you!
Ok- I did the thing where you can type the letter online and they send it. SO convenient!
Hi Lisa Jo,
I was so excited to read your blog post this morning. I do not yet sponsor a child but my husband and I are going on a ‘Compassion Exposure Trip’ to India next week! I’m so nervous and excited. Praying that God will show us the right places and people to get involved in.
God bless you in all your honesty and openness and thank you!!!
Ali
I just sponsored a little girl Yarianny in the Dominican Republic. I have birthed three boys and my heart has yearned for a daughter. I love to write letters and honestly, my fear is that my boys will not want to do that with me one day. So when I read your blog today, it really touched me. If I cannot birth or adopt a daughter right now, then maybe I can start a relationship with one who I can write letters to. My heart is open. And here she is – Yarianny. Thank you so very much for the inspiration Lisa.
Oh this is so beautiful to hear!!!
Lisa Jo,
Thank you SO MUCH for the insight!! We actually sponsor a child through World Vision, but the challenge remains regardless of the organization we sponsor with. This morning in our homeschool, we WILL write a letter to our little guy in Guatemala. He can’t read yet, but now I’m convicted that every word, every picture, every encouraging message we send to him WILL impact his little life now and in his future. Goosebumps for sure!!!
Again THANK YOU
LOVE hearing this!
Lisa-Jo, this touched me to my very core. My husband and I have been sponsoring two Compassion children from Ethiopia for three years, and I’m embarrassed to say I’ve only sent a handful of letters in all this time. I figured, like you, that they’re young (elementary school) and I’ll write more once they can actually understand what I’m sending their way. I never thought that they might save those letters and go back and read them when they grow older. Your words cut to my heart. Thank you for this post, for being honest about still struggling with this, and for your charge to tear up my Lame Sponsor card. I’m going to put a reminder on my phone every month to write a letter to my Compassion kids. Thank you!
You and me both, Asheritah!! You and me both.
I am totally a lame sponsor. All but one of my letter so far have been handwritten (why do I feel like they HAVE to be handwritten with cute stickers, age-appropriate wisdom, hand-picked verses, pretty photos, and confetti???) so I have no idea how many I wrote to each of my three kids last year, but I am sure it wasn’t more than three. If that.
No more of that! I’m gonna go the online route! And I sent each one a letter this morning! Thanks for the kick in the rear….and lesson learned: perfectionism hurts the children, y’all.
YES I was always stressed about the letter and the stickers etc but I finally realized online and regular is so much better than handwritten and only one a year! Let’s do this! :)
I blogged about this a bit last month, I know how excited I am to GET letters from our sponsored child so it compels me to write to her. Sometimes I use the materials the service provides to jot a quick note and sometimes we send gifts. Last month, my 18 year old daughter wrote her first letter to our child. I didn’t even read it before sending, just wanted that genuine compassion to go right across the world – girl to girl. Thanks for encouraging us all to do something today, no matter what we’ve done before. http://skipperclan.com/2015/01/16/quick-simple-gifts-sponsored-child/ “Honestly, I believe from her responses, that our child loves getting the personal notes as much as anything else.”
Oy and vey is right! I could be an officer in this club. I think we need to get on this today. We talk and talk about writing, but then it’s two months later. LAME, indeed! Thank you for a much needed kick in the pants!!!
My daughter and I just wrote letters to our sweet girl in Kenya yesterday. For her letter, she told me what to write (she’s 5) and she even wrote a poem for our girl about butterflies! Then she signed her name. It was really sweet to hear what she is interested in knowing about our sponsored child. Our 3 kids love getting letters in the mail from her so I can only imagine the excitement that the sponsored children feel!
I went as a blogger on January’s sponsor tour to the Dominican and was SO convicted, especially after the leadership development graduates shared. They told us how some kids get angry that they have to write their sponsors when they don’t get letters in return–because they believe the sponsors don’t really care. And, of course, it makes them very sad. Can you imagine how it must be to be left out of mail call time after time. It’s not all about the money.
Anyway, I came back and wrote a letter to our sponsored child–as a post that I meant to send, but before I could, I got a letter that she had moved, and there was no Compassion program available to her. We’d sponsored her for 12 years.
http://sandraheskaking.com/2015/01/please-forgive/
I’m still in mourning, but we’ve gone ahead now and sponsored a Dominican girl and signed up to correspond with a girl from Bolivia who has a financial sponsor but hasn’t had a letter or even a birthday gift for years.
Wow Sandra – my heart is aching for you and that loss. And it was watching you guys in DR that reminded me again that I have to keep coming back to the basics and writing and writing and writing and in so doing sending hope and encouragement – more than I can really understand even now.
Thanks so much for this reminder, Lisa-Jo! I have been feeling guilty about what a lame sponsor I am. We’ve been sponsoring a child through World Vision for years. I just went to the website and couldn’t believe he is already 19 years old! I sent him an email and put a reminder on my calendar to do it every month from now on.
YES! Love this!
Lisa-Jo!! Yes! You inspire me in so many ways. This post was so beautiful and this, “Our letters are more important than our money. Our words more valuable than our automatic withdrawals.” YES! Always. Your heart is so beautiful. Thank you. Thank you! Grateful for you! Xoxo
Love following in your footsteps, Bri!
We just started sponsoring a 15 year old boy in Burkina Faso. I wrote him a letter just now. So easy with the website! Love this post. It really made me think.
Thank you Lisa-Jo – I just finished a letter to my sponsored teen. Feelings of guilt were pounding on me because I thought it had been about 4 or 5 months since I last wrote. Looking back I discovered my last letter was actually sent in December and I had a draft of another. Okay. So the guilt left, and now I was just feeling lame. But I don’t want to be a member of the lame Compassion sponsor group. So I write, and will continue to follow your inspiration to write consistently and often.
Convicted again! I need to print this and post it on our fridge!
You and me both!
I did! I actually wrote our sponsored child on Saturday because I realized it’s been a few months since we had done so. Sometimes it’s hard to get motivated, but I try to get my kids involved. I chose this little boy specifically because he shares a birthday with my oldest son. I want each of my boys to grow up with a child, sharing a birthday and sharing a relationship as they grow.
Lisa-Jo,
I remember being with you on that trip! Thanks so much for this reminder of how important letters are. And yes, I’ve never forgot those three young men, Mynar, Josue, and Daniel. What amazing guys. Thanks again for this great nudge to write more.
Hey Dustin,
Looking through the Flickr stream made me miss you all – what a remarkable trip that was. The beginning of so many things for me – not least of which was my daughter, Zoe, who turns four next month. Just amazing. Thank you for inviting me and trusting me with these precious stories. Those three guys will always be with me.
Lisa Jo,
My lame sponsor confession is that I never got around to adding the measly 20 bucks for a Christmas present this year…just kept forgetting to budget for it, (we have three) and so I never sent a Christmas letter/card, Nothing!. I felt so bad. But just this week I put things to right by sending out an Easter letter with some drawings and that extra 20 bucks for an Easter gift, and even did a photo shoot with our four girls, and yes two fat bunnies that look exactly like the Cadburry Easter bunny to send along! It took time, like most of the afternoon,but it was so uplifting for us as a family on another crappy, cold, depressing, winter day.
Thanks for the honesty and hilarity and heart once again!
Cheers
I read this last night, but it was late. So I just wrote my first letter, to my recently sponsored child! Online was super easy, and even tho my whole family wasn’t here to do it together, I figure everyone can take a turn and do the same! I would not have known that it was so important to the kids had I not heard it in their own voices. Thank you for that! And I never have a printed picture handy, but it was so easy to attach the picture to the email. No excuses! Thank you.
Great blog! The letters really ARE more important than the $. We went a couple of years ago with Compassion to El Salvador and I can say without exception, every single home visit we did where a child was sponsored showed us how valued our letters are. In a world where they have few treasures, every sponsor letter was kept in a very special place and we were repeatedly told by the children how much our letters help them. Sometimes, just a little note to say “Hey – I’ve been thinking about you today and I know that God wants me to share that with you. We both love you very much.” Such a great reminder to write – it could make the difference in the day of a child and could very well be the only good thing they have in that day!
Thank you for writing this! I signed up to sponser a child for the first time after reading it and am planning to write to him this weekend! It sparked a great conversation with my husband and he remembers hearing that the kids who didn’t have sponsors in a certain neighborhood would come to the gate at the Compassion center every day asking if they had a sponser yet! This post reminded us and lit a fire in my heart to reach out in this way! :) Thanks again!
Thank you. That was really eye-opening and helpful.