Editor’s note: The audio begins after 10 seconds

It’s been eight months since my last sponsor letter photos post, so I felt it was high time to raid our digital library again and round up another batch of photos showing sponsored children reading letters from their sponsors. Hope you like ‘em.

If you have trouble viewing the slideshow above, you can view the photos on Flickr.

Jaime is 11 years old and lives in the La Prosperina neighborhood. He had the happy opportunity to be registered at Jesús es Amor Student Center about six years ago.

Jaimito, as many of his friends call him, is a very joyful, outgoing, obedient and disciplined child. He truly loves his parents and siblings, and most of all he has surrendered his heart to God.

Jaime and his four siblings — Jesús (16), Jonathan (9), Allison (5) and Aarón (3) — live with their parents, Jaime and María, in the basement of a humble house. Jaimito’s grandma on his dad’s side gave the house to the family 16 years ago. It was once a warehouse full of old and useless stuff, but now it is Jaimito’s home.

Jaime’s father doesn’t have a steady job. He’s an artisan who makes plaster layers that are used in roofs in most houses on the coast. Currently, he works at a little artisanal factory. He makes U.S. $40 every week.

On the other hand, María, Jaime’s mother, doesn’t work. She does all the chores at home and takes care of her five children. She would love to find a job that would enable her to sustain her family too.

María graduated as a nurse’s helper a short while ago. She took a one-year course at a local institute.

Jaimito: A Day in His Own Words

Normally, I get up at 6:30 a.m. and get myself ready to go to the center. I wash my face, brush my teeth, and then have breakfast with my family.

My mom usually puts a cup of coffee and a piece of bread or some crackers on the table for each of us. Breakfast is the coolest time of the day because my entire family is there.

After that, I take my medicine — the one that the doctor prescribed. She’s the doctor from the center. She’s really kind and always treats me nicely. She also encourages me a lot. I know she will totally help me to get well soon.

I leave for the center around 8:30 a.m. (more…)

Excellence is answering God’s call to the best of our abilities with the gifts and resources He has given us. It is carrying out God’s work with an attitude of enjoyment.

Thanks to the Leadership Development Program (LDP), Talita is living in the best moment of her life, not only professionally, but also spiritually. Her life story is about striving for excellence. Her dedication makes her an example to be followed by others and a reference of struggle and Christian character.

Petite and delicate, 20-year-old Talita teaches the 5- and 6-year-olds at her former child development center. God, the Father, has made her a great woman.

The public system of education in Brazil is full of contrast. The best universities are public, and to be accepted in to one, the student has to have a good and strong education during high school. But when talking about a young person who’s attended a public school, the odds are small.

Public schools are the worst ones and rarely prepare for the next step. Besides all the hardship and risks children in poverty have to face, their academic and professional path can be compromised due to the lack of good education.

Talita attended a public school in her town, Tauá, a small city about 330 kilometers from Fortaleza – the capital of Ceará state. But different from most of the students of lower class who barely finish their studies in order to get a job and help their families, she devoted herself – and still does – to study. She overcame the statistics and got a vacancy in a public university – the “Universidade Estadual do Ceará” (University of Ceará State). (more…)

After a two-hour bus trip through chaotic traffic, I arrive at a child development center located in the northwestern part of Lima City.

The center is in a quiet place far from the noisy avenues, although the homes of squatters surround the church mission. The houses are built with precarious materials that show the poverty this community has to face. The mission is on a large property with buildings built long ago.

As I walk through the church’s wide, dusty dirt-floor patio, the center director greets me. With a wide smile and wearing blue jeans and a black hat, she looks ready to film the perfect Western TV series. Her name is Miss Pino and she is a graduate psychologist who has also studied at a Bible institute and has specialized in child advocacy and child evangelism. She has been appointed by her mission authorities as center director for Semillero de Campeones Student Center, which started in June 2008.

In this position, Miss Pino has to deal with many things she never thought she would, such as trying to keep the center open. The rising costs of household items – cooking oil, chicken, milk, etc. – has led to a 20 percent increase in food costs for all student centers in Peru.

For Semillero de Campeones, this has made it difficult to manage a program with 166 young children to feed, from which 40 percent do not have a sponsor yet.

Because of the rise in prices, many student centers have had to stop some activities such as camps, retreats and extracurricular activities. The budgets for each center are simply not enough.

Development centers with less than 160 registered children, such as Semillero de Campeones, have been more affected as they have fewer resources to face the crisis. Therefore, in order to continue serving the vital meals to the children, Semillero de Campeones received a special assistance through our Complementary Interventions Program (CIV). (more…)

People often ask me what my favorite part of my job is. For me, the answer is easy: the people I get to meet and know around the world. There are people working for Compassion with such heart and passion and such incredible stories of their own. Henry Guarin is one of those people.

Henry’s fun and funny, he sings in a rock band, he has a passion for his job. And he used to be a sponsored child.

Here’s a little more about Henry, in his own words.

It’s 7:15 a.m. in Bogotá, Colombia, it’s cold, as usual, and I am waiting for the school bus to pick up Juan Felipe, my 5-year-old son.

As we stand at the door of the apartment building we live in we are talking about his favorite TV shows, dinner, games with his friends at school, and other things, just like every day.

The school bus finally arrives, so I give him a big hug and a big kiss and I tell him,

“The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him; and he delivers them.”

I come back to my apartment and Xiomara, my wife, is finishing feeding our little son Lucas. He is only 5 months old and he is happily kicking in his cradle, and he smiles at me as he sees me coming in.

Xiomara and I sit and start talking about how different things were for us when we were children. (more…)

In 2007, Carrie McGinty was Executive Director of Donor Development at Proverbs 31 Ministries. She traveled with Compassion to South America. Through a mother’s eyes, Carrie gives us beautiful insight into a mother’s deep love for her son.

In August 2007, Proverbs 31 had joined on as a Compassion representative to speak on behalf of poor children all over the world. And so, Compassion had invited me and other Proverbs 31 ministry staff and speakers to experience firsthand the work Compassion is doing in Ecuador.

To say that this trip was a life-changing experience is an understatement. The people I met deeply touched my heart and I will never be the same.

In the Otavalo mountains of Ecuador I was surrounded by beautiful little girls, dressed in their finest handmade dresses, but out of the corner of my eye I couldn’t help but notice a young man on crutches.

He was all alone. I felt God telling me to go over to him. I left the brightly dressed little girls and walked over. (more…)