Letters make us happy, too!

THE OTHER DAY, my daughter Lilia got a letter from her sponsored child, and it included the greatest thing: a picture of Gloria, holding the letter she had just gotten from Lilia.

Which got me thinking...

We read a lot about how much our letters mean to sponsored children, but do they know how much their letters mean to us? Do you ever have those nagging doubts that maybe your sponsored child didn't even get the last letter you wrote? They must have those feelings too!

So... my gift to you: an idea, and a way to implement it. Have someone take a picture of you holding your sponsored child's latest letter. Print it out, print out one of these "frames" and paste your photo onto it, and send it with your next letter! Hope you like them!

Here are two "frames" showing how they'd look after you paste your (much more attractive) picture of yourself in...

The mouse version (without my picture in it!) can be downloaded here.

And the floral version can be found here.

(Or just click on the images below!)

Enjoy!

Reconditioning Humanity

FROM THE "I wish I had thought of this" files... Check out this website: www.reconditioninghumanity.com. This is so great! 

The Idea: You get cards from them and leave them or give them with a Random Act of Kindness. The card asks the recipient to "pay it forward"--but there is also a number on the card that can be tracked through their website. . . Assuming people actually log in and report on their card, you could watch your little act of kindness grow and multiply!

I ordered three cards for Bob & Lilia & me. 

Go to their website! Order some cards (they're free)! Pass it on! 

Things to Send Sponsored Children: A Bible Verse "Cootie Catcher"

RAISE YOUR HAND if you remember "cootie catchers!  

HERE IS ONE you can print out, fold, and send to your sponsored kids-- a cootie catcher with Bible verses! I remember making these and playing with them for hours in elementary school (We would rig them with names of boys in our school that we'd marry, numbers of kids we'd have, all kinds of fortune-telling narratives!), and I thought it might be neat to have them with Bible verses rather than fortunes as the final step. Plus, for the little ones, they provide a teeny bit of practice with numbers and letters (of the English alphabet).

To make it easier, here is a PDF so you can print the sheet on regular paper, with an instruction sheet showing you how to fold it (in case you don't remember, if you were not as obsessed with these things as I was as a kid!) and the third page is an instruction sheet to include for your sponsored child on how to play the game. I've included lots of photos (featuring my lovely daughter) to make it easier.... Don't forget to write your child's name/number on each piece to make sure it gets to them! Enjoy!

Taking that first step.

Estefani

I'VE BEEN THINKING about the day I jumped (crawled hesitatingly, really) onto the sponsorship wagon. And, to be trite and cliche-ish, my life changed forever.

Those of us who are Sponsorship Fiends often try to convince others by touting what we know: You will feel differently about yourself and your life, and even the world around us, when you are intimately connected with a little stranger in another country.

There's even research supporting this now: neuroscientists are discovering that the human brain is wired to make you feel good when you help someone else.

That's really amazing to me! Not only did God tell us to care for one another, he fixed it so that we'd feel really good when we did so!


I knew none of that when I signed on to sponsor Estefani. My focus was mostly on how my family was barely getting by, living as we are in an area of the country that is far too expensive for our income. I thought that people who went on mission trips were crazy people, and giving money for any sort of charity was only for people with "extra" money, whatever that was.

But I had been praying for God to "use me." That is a very dangerous prayer! It occurred to me that God often calls us out of our weakness: Moses the stutterer asked to speak for a nation; David the little kid asked to defeat the giant--over and over God shows that he is not intimidated by our lack. "So," I thought, "if I have a lack, it is financial. God must want me to give!"


The "little voice in my head" said to do it, and I knew better than to ignore it.

Estefani's information was there on the table. She was the same age as my youngest daughter, with almost the same name as my oldest daughter. I picked her card up, and was instantly in love. The compassion part of my brain must have started firing on all cylinders!


Looking back, a series of miracles occurred that kept us afloat and able to keep sponsoring. God was clearly involved in this mission of ours.

My Darlings!

We still struggle to pay the bills some months. We are paying off some debts much more slowly than I'd like. But we are rich beyond measure with our "extended family" of sponsored kids/women. If I get depressed or anxious, I've learned to simply think about them and pray for them--the best mood-enhancing activity I know!


To read more about the neurology of compassion, read The Compassion Instinct by Dacher Keltner. It's a series of papers about the human brain and compassion, forgiveness, kindness, empathy, and so forth. Easy reading, and exciting stuff!


If you have not sponsored a child, I urge you to take the leap. Listen to that little voice in your head (or in this blog), and click on the Compassion banner here... If you are already a sponsor, tell people how it makes you feel! (It's science!)

Paper Bracelets!

SO MAYBE YOU READ the last post and are thinking, "But I sponsor older kids. My teenaged kids wouldn't want finger puppets!" Most of my sponsored kids are in the 14-15 age group as well, and it did feel a lot easier to send things when they were younger!

I don't think I ever made one THIS long...

So I went searching, and, as it turns out, on a walk down memory lane! Anyone remember making chains from gum wrappers? This was a Big Deal in about 6th grade (OK, maybe even later than that.). I remember my friends and me trying to see how long we could make our chains. The boys in class would donate gum wrappers to whichever girl they liked at the time (in 6th grade, everything is a popularity contest.). When I could talk my mom into buying me a giant pack of Wrigley's Doublemint, it was like Christmas!--a treasure trove of materials for my chain! (Remember when they stopped including colored paper wrappers in the big packs of gum and used plain white ones instead? Boo!)

This site will show you how to make the good ol' gum wrapper type bracelet....

But I found this website, with instructions for slightly more complicated chains, made with paper of your choice. I won't repeat the instructions here, because they are very good on the website, but I think these made a great option for sending to my sponsored teenagers!

First, the paper. We found this beautiful tiny origami paper at Michael's:

Michaels has all kinds of amazing papers... Wrapping paper would also be an option--I'm imagining some really cute Christmas bracelets!

Cut the paper into strips (they need to be in a 1:4 ratio):

Follow the instructions at "Inna's Creations" and start creating!

Lilia has now been inducted into the Secret Society of Gum-Wrapper Folders. It's quite an honor.

The finished bracelets are really quite pretty!

We started with the more muted papers.

And then progressed to the brighter colors!

The finished bracelets seem quite forgiving (ie, you could squash them flat to mail to Compassion, and they won't be worse for the wear). Voila! It's flat... it's paper... but it's a way to send jewelry to your sponsored kids!

Try it: Click on this picture to get to Inna's blog, and create away!

Now... What to send to sponsored BOYS?

Why I Sponsor

How I started sponsoring

I actually sponsored a little girl in the Philippines as a kid. I had this idea that my class could each contribute 50 cents a month, and we would have enough to sponsor a child. I discovered quickly that trying to get that 50 cents from everyone each month was a task I loathed--and I wasn't very good at it, either. So I paid for the sponsorship myself, with babysitting money. Every month I was afraid I wouldn't be able to make the $12, but somehow I did--at 50 cents an hour, that was 24 hours of babysitting!

When Christian Children's Fund raised their sponsorship fees to $15, I panicked. I was unfamiliar with the notion of trusting God to provide, and reasoned only that I had barely been able to raise $12/month--$15 was impossible. I wrote to CCF and explained that I had to discontinue my sponsorship. It always felt like an abysmal failure.

Fast forward to about 7 years ago. My daughters and I were sitting in church, watching a Compassion Sunday presentation. That "little voice" in my head said, "You should sponsor." I explained to the little voice that we did not have the money; we could barely pay our bills as it was, etc. etc. Money management has not been my strong point! Then it occurred to me: Often God calls us out of our areas of weakness! Moses the stutterer was called to be the spokesman for a nation; Jonah the coward was called to undertake a dangerous mission in Ninevah; Peter denied Jesus and was asked to start His church. The list goes on. As I debated with God about how I had talent to offer, could even come up with time to offer, but I just didn't have the money, He persisted. My daughter turned to me and said, "I think we should do this."

Fine! We chose Estefani from Nicaragua, since one of my daughters is named Stephanie.

I must say that a heart change was immediate. Getting my Droid phone brought me happiness (I admit it; I love that thing). Signing up to sponsor Estefani brought JOY. If I could only have one of the two, I would absolutely choose Estefani and joy.

And more and more

While waiting anxiously for my first letter from Estefani, I discovered a Yahoo group of child sponsors. I found that these crazy people actually sponsored more than one child! You can do that? Soon I added Ritu in Bangladesh as our second Compassion sponsorship. Many others followed. Somehow, God seems to provide; new jobs come in, just enough to cover my new sponsorships.

What to do when bad things happen to you

Sponsor a new child! We've adopted the approach that, when something bad happens to us, or even in the world, we can fight back by putting something good out there: we sponsor another child. I like to picture Satan, poised to strike, and thinking, "Oh, MAN! If I hit them with this, they'll just add another sponsored child to their list! I HATE it when they do that!"

The rewards

When I urge people to try sponsorship, they always say, "I know, to remind me that there are people who are worse off than me.

No, that's not it at all. You will find that sponsoring brings such JOY. Getting a letter from a child in poverty who says, "I pray for you" is so humbling. Knowing that someone's life is different--better--because of you is mind-boggling. So... try it. Try it. Take a step in faith, and try it. I guarantee you will be glad you did (and Satan will be bummed.).