Dulcisima Lopez

This is a Kiva loan and how could I not loan to this lady!

Dulcisima is 67 years old and lives in Sinacaban. She is married with 8 children. She has a motorcycle repair business and earns approximately $230 each month doing this type of work.

She has requested a loan to purchase materials for her motorcycle repair business. Dulcisima has been a member of PMPC for 2 years.

Kwagala

No, I haven't agreed to sponsor another child...nor did I take on another child as a correspondence child, but Michelle of "Blogging from the Boonies" put out a call for help the other day.

She explains, "Two weeks ago, as I was looking through children awaiting sponsors on the Compassion International website, a face caught my eye. It isn’t unusual, as I scan through the pictures and pray for the faces, that some of the sweet children pull at my heart. But this face… I don’t know if I can fully articulate, but once I saw Kwagala Deborah's face and read the story behind this young lady, I could not get her out of my mind. Several times a day, I would find myself looking at her profile. I posted her link here and there and mentioned her on my blog. I thought for sure that one of my family members or friends would also be captivated by her and stand up to sponsor her. But days passed and no one did."

She continued to be drawn to this girl, she could not afford to sponsor her herself. Then she had an idea. She decided to see if anybody would be interested in joining a group sponsorship.

"In the last week, thirteen people (and their families) have joined together to shower one beautiful girl with support, love and prayers. Enough donations have rolled in to pay for Kwagala Deborah’s sponsorship through May of 2012. ... Kwagala means love. This experience has shown me the power of love and I pray that Deborah in Uganda can soon feel the love we have for her."

I'm one of the group, though I couldn't send much. But I now consider her as part of my Compassion family too.

Briana

There was a letter from Briana in Haiti today, a bit worrisome, but since it was mailed a couple of months ago, I guess it is probably OK now.

Briana greets you in the name of the living God. How are you and your family? She wishes you good health. She always asks yes when we are praying, to pray for you and your family. Briana has grade for the second term. She is in a music class. She was not too well last week. We went to hospital with her. Now she is healed, in Jesus' name.

Briana thanks you for the anniversary gift that you sent for her in January. We bought her a beautiful dress. Briana is very happy for your mother, who is 91 years old. She says that she has many cousins. Briana has ten cousins. But three of these spend rarely time with her. She is glad to see you love your mother.

Briana thanks you for the beautiful pictures. Every time she is home from school, before studying, she looks at the pictures. She says that she is praying for your child Ned and the new baby so that she always healthy.

May God in his love bless everybody in your family. Thank you.

Welcome packet

Murugi's welcome packet finally arrived today, though I still have not had any mail about little Henrique in Brasil. This packet is to facilitate my sending her a short note of welcome, but I sent that two weeks ago, so it's kind of redundant.

The new packets that Compassion is sending out are great--regular little booklets with all the information in them, along with photos as well. I like them.

Murugi

Murugi is a new correspondence child, someone whose sponsor does not write to her.

She is 18 years old and in the St. Paul's (Episcopal) Cathedral program in Embu, Kenya.

Embu is home to approximately 45,000 residents. Typical houses are constructed of dirt floors, mud walls and tin roofs. The primary ethnic group is Embu and the most commonly spoken language is Kiembu.

The regional diet consists of beans and corn. Common health problems in this area include dental decay, malaria, amoeba infections, typhoid fever and malnutrition. Most adults in Embu are unemployed but some work as day laborers and earn the equivalent of $18 per month. This community needs educational opportunities, literacy programs and employment opportunities.

Murugi's mother is dead and she lives with her grandmother and works at gardening, animal care, and kitchen help.

Leniel

After a long dry spell, I have finally received a letter from little Leniel, who is 5 years old. He sends along this family portrait...I am curious as to why his mother, father and himself are black and the baby is yellow.


His letter, written by someone else, reads:

Dear Beverly Sykes,

Hello, may God guide you. Leniel is fine and hopes you are well. He thanks you for having sponsored him and for loving him. Leniel comments, "my family loves me and takes care of me. The drawing is about my mother going to work. My relatives are Liliana (Mother), Papolo (Father), Margarita (grandmother), Gabriel (the baby). My family goes to work by bus. The people in my neighborhood go to work and church by bus. How do you travel? Pray for my mother and the baby.

Hugs,
Leniel

Henrique

I will eventually get a bigger picture of Luiz Henrique ("Henrique"), but I talked with a Compassion volunteer today who let me see his picture. I was going to replace Pedro with an older child, but how can you resist this cutie?

The advantage of sponsoring Henrique is that I am his first sponsor and, God willing, he won't have to deal with sponsors leaving throughout his life.

He's 4 years old and lives 22 km north of Fortaleza, which is in the far north of Brasil, along the coast.

I look forward to getting to know him, though with a 4 year old, it will take years before I am actually able to hear from him himself. Don't you just want to grab him, hold him in your lap and read him a story?

Pedro

I was very surprised to log onto the Compassion web site today and learn that Pedro, from Brasil, has left the program. There was no explanation, but there was the name of a 4 year old Brasilian boy and an option to accept him as a replacement, or not.

I was at first very upset about how this was all handled, but others in Compassion have convinced me that Compassion always either calls or sends mail when something like this happens and perhaps I just happened to log in when the news hit their web site, but there has not been enough time for them to contact me more personally than just posting to a web site. I hope so.

I will miss Pedro. He was the second child I sponsored, but he also was one who rarely wrote, so I really know little about him. My one disappointment was that he expressed interest in American football and I found all sorts of information on the internet that would help explain the game to him, and had it all translated by our Brasiian son (now living in Canada), who translated it paragraph by paragraph and left the English to help Pedro see the words that were being translated. I sent that about a year ago and it was never mentioned. It was one of the things I was the most excited about sending.

Oh well, as I have been told, several times, by my son in other instances "It's not about you, Mom." And it wasn't about me. It was about Pedro. I hope his departure from the program means that his family is in better financial circumstances and don't need Compassion's assistance any more.

Now I have to see what I'm going to do about a new child to sponsor, to take Pedro's place.