Bittersweet news

I received the sad (for me) news that Shallon, from Uganda has left the program. I have been her sponsor for 5 years now.  She started out as a correspondence child and when her sponsor dropped her, I took on her sponsorship.

She was one of my better letter writers, a deep thinker.  When I first got to know her, she wanted to become a teacher, but family health problems forced her out of class for several months while she earned money during her sister's illness.  She went back to school, but in a program to teach her how to be a hairdresser.  She is now 22 and too old for the program and she wants to open her own business.

I will be getting a goodbye letter from her in a month or two (I've been told it's in the pipeline), but she no longer appears on my list of sponsored children.

I made the graphic above here, and printed it in a 5x7 glossy to send to her in my own goodbye letter.

However, they offered me a my choice of a new child and I chose Edilsar, from Mexico.  He's 12 years old and lives near Chiapas.  I don't know much about him yet, but I am his third sponsor in three years and in that time he has received only one letter, so I will make sure we rectify THAT situation right away.

I also chose someone from Mexico in the hope that our Mexican daughter, Marie, might at some time be able to take a package to him for me, but since her family lives closer to Mexico City and he lives in the far southeast, I don't think that will happen.  (Kind of like saying "Oh, you're going to New York, can you drop this package off for my cousin in San Francisco...")

But I look forward in getting to know him.