My First Letter to Bobby

As I mentioned in my first post (here), I was totally stoked to receive a letter from Bobby (the child that we sponsor through Compassion International). Receiving Bobby's letter stirred up a letter writing passion in me! At first, I read and re-read his letter over and over. It's so cool to receive a letter from someone you've never met who lives thousands of miles away, in a country you've never been to. After the initial shock, eh, excitement I then began perusing Pinterest to find ideas on how/what to write in my letter to Bobby.

I found some really cool ideas. Some of these sponsors really go all out for their child. It's awesome!

















Armed with my arsenal of ideas, I made a trip to the Dollar Store. (Don't ya just hate when people say "I got this from the Dollar Store."? I mean, which stinking "dollar store" are you referring to? There are multiples: Dollar General, Family Dollar, Dollar Tree, etc, etc....Rant over.) Ok, so, I took a trip to Dollar Tree. Dollar Tree is my fave! Love it. You can really stock up on kid items like coloring books, stickers, easter basket items, and more. My mission was to find age appropriate materials for little Bobby. Having a sponsored child that is a teen can be a little more challenging for finding items that aren't too "babyish". Even with the challenge, I was able to get some good stuff.

*Robot Printer Paper *Transportation Stickers *Space Dot-to-Dot book *4 National Geographic Kids Books

You may or may not know that Compassion does NOT allow sponsors to send anything other than paper items. This is strictly due to Customs fees. So, get creative! The books I purchased will be pulled apart, and I will send a handful of pages per letter. It works out pretty well since the books I chose have only 1 subject per page. (Such as connect the dots books.) Coloring books would be great for this! Just tear them out & send 2-3 pages with your letter.

As some of the bloggers mention in the links above, many of these children don't have photos of themselves. So, I cut out one of the photos from my sponsor packet and made a little bookmark for Bobby.

I decided that it would be best not to overwhelm poor little Bobby with my very first letter! So, I'm sending the blank letter template that came in my sponsor kit with a photo of our family attached. I'm also including the bookmark and a few stickers.

I decided to make labels with our sponsor number and Bobby's number on them to quickly label all of his belongings. Compassion asks that all correspondence have both sponsor & child numbers on them. Thanks to Three Little Larks for this great suggestion!

Do you have any great ideas for letter writing to a sponsored child? Share them with us!


Links:
Compassion International: www.compassion.com
The Compassion Experience (video): http://www.compassion.com/change/about-the-experience-video.htm