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

Compassion

Are you familiar with Compassion International? If not, let me just tell you, I'm in love!

Last month, my church hosted an event for Compassion International. Basically, the Compassion team arrived with this cool trailer and set up shop in our church parking lot. This trailer transformed into a really cool, interactive experience. In some strange way, it reminded me of a haunted house. Nothing in the trailer was "haunted house" like, but the fact of walking through room-by-room, behind closed doors, gave me that instant "cautious" feeling. To be honest, I was bracing myself for some scary person in a mask to jump out from behind a door or curtain. It was the perfect set-up to catch unsuspecting guests on camera being frightened by scary dudes. Ha!

HOWEVER, it was nothing like that!!! The Compassion Experience was a display showcasing 3 children from various parts of the world. First, we chose a child to follow throughout our journey through the display. We could actually choose to follow all 3 children, by walking through the display 3 times. Robert & I decided to only do it once since we were pressed for time. After selecting the child who would be our guide, we were given some cool, noise cancelling headphones and a handheld device. Robert swore it was an iPhone. The device prompted us to walk through the display stopping in each room. The rooms were set up to resemble the actual homes, schools, and other environments that these children live, work, and play in every day. It was quite sobering to see how little people in other parts of the world really have. At the end of the experience, a room was designated for sponsoring a child. Hundreds of child packets lined the walls and shelves.

I already knew that I was going to sponsor a child. God had really laid that on my heart & prepared me over the last year. I told my husband that I really wanted to find a boy who had the same birthday as a baby we had previously miscarried in 2008. After walking in the sponsoring room, I found the boy we were going to sponsor. His packet was the third one that I looked at. His birthday is August 10th, which was our due date with the baby we had lost. I immediately fell in love with the little boy in the photo. I just knew he was the one! We immediately filled out the sponsor card and took our packet home.

Here's our little guy! His name is Bobby. He is a 9th grader who lives in the Philippines.

To sponsor a child through Compassion International, it costs $38/month. As tight as our family budget is (with 1 income), we decided that $38 is really a very small amount to sacrifice for such a huge investment in a child's life, as well as their family. To be honest, I don't care if we have to eat out less or sell something on Ebay, as long as little Bobby is getting his sponsorship each month!

So, we sponsored Bobby last month (March 2015), and we have already received our first letter from him! How cool is that!? I realize that just maybe, the organization has the children write their first letter before even getting sponsored. If so, that's perfectly fine with me. I am just so ecstatic to get a letter from him! I'm on cloud 9! I think that in the last 2 days of having the letter, I've probably read it 10 times! Not to mention, the countless hours that I have spent scouring Pinterest for letter ideas to send to sponsored children. Look for my first letter to little Bobby in my next post! :D

Can you tell that I'm seriously excited!?!


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