When I went to the post office yesterday I was delighted to find a letter from Liz (Lees), the little girl I’m sponsoring through Compassion International. I was so excited I could hardly wait to get home to read it. But the closer I got to home the more I realized that I wanted to read it in the quiet of my day so that I could really savor it.

This was a pretty momentous occasion for me. It’s one thing to sponsor a child and see her photo, and quite another to have a tangible, touchable, letter from her. So last night I curled up in bed with the kitties around me, warm blankets over me, and opened the letter.

Up at the top was a sweet drawing she’d done.

And underneath that was the translation of the reverse side of the paper. I wanted to read everything in Spanish first, so I turned the page over, and that’s what I did. I found out that Liz’s favorite color is green, her favorite animal is a bear, and her favorite subject is art.

There were questions that she asked me, the names of her other family members, and a brief message for me. The letter was written by her tutor, because even though Liz is 6 years old, there isn’t enough room for her in school right now.

Needless to say, I’m going to write back to her right away. We’re only asked to send three to four letters a year to our sponsored child but I’ll be writing once a month.

My friend Sara, who made a trip to South America to see her sponsored child graduate from high school (!) told me that many kids are sponsored by corporations rather than individuals, and when it’s time for the sponsor letters to be passed around, these kids sit at a table by themselves because although they are grateful that they’re sponsored, they never receive letters.

Sara told me that there are people who are writing sponsors, who make it a point to write to these kids. So that very day, I called Compassion International and said I’d like to do that. The wahine I talked to was thrilled, and she’s going to send me two more packets, giving me the information about the two girls that I’d like to sponsor in this way. I can’t afford to financially support more than one child right now, but letters I can write!

A new step in my new adventure, and it feels really, really, wonderful.