Waiting

I'm waiting for letters from my Compassion kids. I have not heard from them in a long time. By a long time, I mean a few months. A few months isn't a long time because it can take many months for letters to arrive but I am impatient. I want to hear from them. If it was up to me I'd be able to email them and see them all the time.

The weird thin about Compassion is that when I look at all the pictures of the kids I realize that they could be kids I see running down the street. These kids look just like I did when I was a child. I was lucky, I didn't live in poverty and I was never hungry. These kids aren't so lucky but it could have just as easily been the other way around.

Someday, I'd like to go visit each of the kids that I sponsor. All the kids that I financially sponsor have a story about how they fell into my life. Karen came because I lost a sponsored child named Linda. Linda was the first child I ever sponsored and after she left I didn't know if I wanted to continue to sponsor. I almost stopped. Then I looked into the eye os Karen. In her picture she was probably 4 years old. She is now 6 (will be 7 in April). I couldn't say no after looking into her eyes. After Karen, I began to get more involved with Compassion. I joined OurCompassion.com and became very involved with letter writing. I never realized just how important it was until I joined that site. That site has a very positive community that I enjoy reading what is going on with everyone and their kids.

After Karen, I began thinking about sponsoring another child. Around that time, Ghana-232 posted videos of their children introducing themselves. It was so great to watch the children in the video. I looked at those children but didn't know who I wanted to sponsor. That's when I saw James. In his picture, James was not a kid that caught my eye. It was his name that caught my eye. James is the name of my boyfriend. I clicked on James and watched his video. He couldn't be cuter! His smile left me yearning to meet him. At the end of his video he sang 'goodbye'. He seemed like such a class clown. His personality shown so much through the video that I could not see in his photo. James won my heart through his video and he became my second sponsored child.

After James, I waited a few months before sponsoring another child but before I knew it I was bit by sponsoritis. I wanted to sponsor another child. I began searching the site looking for exactly the right child but didn't know. I prayed asking God if I should sponsor another child or if I was doing it for selfish reasons. I kept looking until Gift caught my attention. Her full name is Gift Godlove. I looked at that as my first sign from God that this was a child I should sponsor. Gift was from Tanzania which was a place that I had wanted to sponsor. Her child center was also TZ-452. 452 is an important number from my favorite show when I was a kid. So Gift was added to my list of children.

My last added child is Glory. Glory came after a lot of prayer and thought. Weeks before I sponsored her, I thought about how I wanted to sponsor a girl that was part of a girl/boy twin. I wanted the child to be older than 7. Right before Christmas, I found Glory and Simon from Kenya who were 8. I wanted to sponsor Glory but I didn't want to sponsor her and leave Simon on the site. How would he feel if she was sponsored and he had to wait a long time before being sponsored. Glory and Simon had already waited 6+ months for a sponsor. I decided I would watch them and pray. If Simon got sponsored then maybe I would sponsor Glory. However, I figured that was a small chance as it seems girls get sponsored quicker. To my surprise, Simon was sponsored and Glory was not. I waited, thought, and prayed then made the decision to sponsor Glory. I'm excited to talk to her about being a twin and sharing my stories of being a twin with her.

As for my correspondent children, I don't know why they were put into my life. God has a plan and in his plan meeting Apophia and Simon is part of that. Both children I love and encourage.

I'm hoping to stay strong and not add any more children to my family but when I look on the Compassion website I see too many cute faces. Then I once again think about how that their situation could easily have been mine. That makes my resolute to not an addition fold. These children need help and I just can't not help.