Morning- Day Four

 I woke up this morning with renewed energy, despite our long, active days.  I slept peacefully last night, especially if you consider how excited I am for this day.  Today we will meet our sponsored children and take them to a amusement park and pool. Probably all the children have never visited either and most of their parents haven't either. The father of my sponsored child asked if he could join his wife and son.  Normally it is just one parent escort.  I was thrilled.  That was one of my prayers, that I could meet both his parents.

I also get to meet the mother of Brenda, the little girl I sponsored yesterday. I have so much I would like to tell Elias and his parents, but I know because of translation time and that now I will be sharing my time with two families, I won't be able to say it all.  I just wish Josh and the kids could be with me!  Maybe someday we will come back as a family to visit both the kids. The sponsored children love to interact with us and I feel like these visits are happy times for all the kids, but I can see how much they all want to know their sponsors.

I just can't emphasize enough: If you are a sponsor - write, write, write!  Even if they don't always respond, they want your letters.  Many kids go to school for half the day, come to the Compassion program for half the day and then go home to help their families and do their school work.  Your letters are a gift to them.  And send pictures - of where you live, of yourself, your family members, pets, anything.  They love pictures.   They will go out of their way to see pictures and get in pictures because and they want to see pictures of you even more. I may have been disappointed in myself and the state of our world that creates poverty circumstances during this trip, but I have not once been disappointed with what I have seen Compassion and their partner churches doing here.  They truly are a sanctuary in every sense of the word and the way they manage each project according to the needs of the people around them, yet with the utmost care and efficiency, is even more impressive than I could have imagined.

Please, please, please, consider visiting your child.  I can't say it is not emotional, but it is very important to both you and your child and it will open your heart to your child ten fold, and probably open your child's heart as well.  I will never regret my decision to come here, even though I miss my family, had to miss the kids first days of school, and have riden a wave of emotion, I would do it again in a heartbeat.