Sunday, November 16, 2008

What's in the mail?

I used to dread getting the mail. Even now, almost everything is junk mail and I try to not set the mail down without weeding through it so that the junk doesn't pile up.

But with Compassion letters and the five children we sponsor, getting the mail can be like Christmas morning! Like today! We were away for a few days camping with some friends and came home to find two things from two of our kids.

The first one - we got a new picture of our newest addition, Guntur. Here he is -






He looks so little! He's 6 years old. We've only been sponsoring him for about 2 months and so we have only received one letter. He's so precious!


The other thing we got today was a letter from Mesay, our boy in Ethiopia. Mesay is very close in age to our son Matthew. They are both 13. I have thought for some time that Mesay may be a bit developmentally delayed. His letters always include the prayer for him to be a "smarter student". The letter today shows a tremendous amount of improvement in his understanding and he responded directly to a letter that I had written to him.


What was most interesting about this letter is that it included, for the first time, a copy of his report card.


I am greatly encouraged that he has now progressed a grade. I can only imagine what a life Mesay would have as a developmentally delayed boy in Ethiopia - WITHOUT COMPASSION. His letter says that he wants to be a doctor. What a wonderful thing it is that he actually has dreams and has hope. I am so proud that he is sticking to school, even though it is obviously very challenging for him. I think I'll send him some stickers!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think it's great that Compassion has been including educational progress reports. I didn't know they did that until I read posts from folks that have mentioned them. Is this standard for Compassion, or just in some areas, I wonder...?

Andrea said...

I've been a sponsor for over 5 years and this is a first for me. Both of my Ethiopian children are the ones whom I have received these reports from. I have received letters with handwritten notes about their grades, but never the actual copy. I am sure that these differences are from how the individual countries run their programs.