When the Compassion Change Tour came to our church, we had the opportunity to see and hear what life is like for sponsored children, like our own sponsored child Emerzon. We toured the life of Julian from Uganda.
When we started sponsoring Emerzon through Compassion International, I did lots of reading on their site and other Compassion sponsors’ blogs about the importance of regular correspondence with your sponsored children. So I vowed to not wait long before we sent him a letter and some goodies.
Sending goodies is tricky because you are limited to paper items and the total package can’t be any more than 1/4″ thick. For this package, in addition a letter, we sent a picture Brooke drew of our house, some stickers from the Christian bookstore and a heart Brooke had made at church on Sunday that said “Jesus loves YOU”.
One benefit that I hadn’t anticipated when I signed us to be Compassion sponsors was the opportunity to teach Brooke letter writing skills. That is probably something that isn’t stressed too much anymore but I think its a very viable skill to have.
Brooke’s first letter to Emerzon:
Hola Emerzon!
My name is Brooke and I am 3 years old. I live in a house in Tennessee. I live with my daddy, mommy and our dog named Sheed.Everyday I go to school while my mommy and daddy go to work. At school I like to play with toys, sing songs and read books.
At home I like to play games with my mommy and daddy and I really like to sing and dance. What do you like to do?
What is your favorite color? My favorites are purple, pink and green.
Do you like sports? I am learning to throw, catch, hit and kick a ball. It’s lots of fun!
At church, we’ve been learning about Easter and how Jesus died and came back to life!
I drew you a picture of my house. I hope you like it.
My family is praying for you.
Your friend,
Brooke
I can only imagine how their letters and notes to each other will evolve as they get older and hopefully get to know each other.
The same day we sent off our package to Compassion, we received our first letter from Emerzon!! Stay tuned for that!
See this sweet face??
This is the little boy we’ve just started sponsoring with Compassion International.
His name is Emerzon and he lives in Honduras. He’s 3 years old – just a couple months older than Brooke.
I’m very excited to have finally started sponsoring a child through Compassion. It’s something I’ve wanted to for quite some time since I’d read about it from other bloggers but the time was never quite right.
At the beginning of the year, I began to really start considering it again. We’ve done well with our plan to pay down debt and we’d heard the message at church about what Pastor Chris calls “Giving 2.0” – regular giving, not just coming to the rescue in times of tragedy or disaster.
I’d pull up the Compassion website and browse through all the children waiting for sponsors and hem and haw about it.
Then during our “Hero” series at church, they brought a speaker from Compassion who’d been sponsored as a child and now as an adult speaks on behalf of Compassion to share his story.
That was the final push I needed. They had a table in the lobby with packets of information for children waiting to be sponsored. I got Brooke from her class and explained to her what we were about to do. We went out to the lobby and sorted through the available children. I’d wanted a child close to Brooke’s age. My hope is that as they both grow, Brooke will get a better understanding of the differences in her lifestyle and her blessings and those of our sponsored child.
We found a packet of a little boy who was born in July of 2008. Brooke was born in September of 2008. It was a match! We’ve sent off our first introduction letter and I look forward to getting letters from him as well.
If you are so inclined, we’d love to have you include Emerzon in your prayers. Or if you’d like to take it one step further and sponsor a child yourself, you can click on the graphic below for more information.
