Sara, I don’t know if you’ve gotten your answer from someone else in the past few months, but here goes at my best response.

It depends on how remote the project is as to how long it takes for you to get a letter from your sponsored child. From my experiences (only in Brazil, 3 separate kids) some projects have the kids write a letter immediately when the child is sponsored. However, in the case of my newest child, it appears he did not write a letter until his entire project wrote their Christmas letters. If your child is at a project where the child writes his first letter with the rest of the project, then the timing of your letter depends on when in their ‘letter cycle’ the child was sponsored. If you sponsored the child right after the project wrote, the child may not write for 2-3 months after being sponsored and then it takes 2-3 months more to reach you.

My most recent (and only current) sponsored child wrote to me in mid December 2008 and I’d started sponsoring him in November. I got that letter over 4 months later in late April 2009. His second letter was dated 25 May 2009 and I received it on 16 July 2009! I would love if my letters took less than 2 months to get from me to him and vice versa.

It took over a year to start getting questions from my sponsored child (two previous ones who left the program) about things I’d written in letters, telling me they loved and prayed for me, and specific information about their schooling. I treasured their letters before then, but once we had a relationship established it was easy to see what impact my letters had on their lives. Specifically, one child started quoting bible verses in each letter! (perhaps from his project’s suggestion, but I still loved it)

As an aside, one of my kids left the program because his family situation improved and they didn’t need outside assistance. The other one left because he was behaving badly and sent away to live with relatives (right after he asked for prayer to be obedient). I know many people who have sponsored children for years, so I didn’t want to scare you with that!

Although handwriting can seem more personal, it is wonderful that you are taking the time to invest in your sponsored children regardless of how you write the letter. I’d say it is much better to send a typed letter (on your pretty paper ) than to not write at all. The encouragement you can give these children is literally life changing.

Someone mentioned that it can take up to 6 months to get an initial letter. If the kids are suppose to write 3 times a year, why does it take so long?

We are sponsoring 5 kids and have 2 correspondence children. I know that handwriting letters would be great, but I decided to streamline the process. I created a template for each child. Their number and our number are at the top of each page. I type on one half of the page and have lines on the other half for the translation. When I am done, I can save a copy for my records and print on bright, colored paper. I hope they enjoy it. Right now I feel like I am writing with very little response! I guess I just have to trust that they are getting where they need to go!

God bless

I too am sponsoring in Spanish-speaking countries because I understand the language. If you write a letter in the local language, you can write a longer letter because you burden no one in translation and the country office just puts it in the “translated” pile. You don’t even need the official stationery with the translation side taking up valuable space! But be sure to tape on the bar code if possible, or at least write the names, sponsor number and child number at the top.

I hesitate to use the email function because the child does not receive a pretty letter in your handwriting with stickers attached or any permitted enclosures. The email is for your own convenience and does not speed up the message to the child. It only speeds up the message from you to Colorado Springs, where it is printed. I think when children have a hard time visualizing us as real people out there, that a handwritten letter is important, so even though I could print it from my computer I take the time to print it by hand.

I do sponsor a child in Bolivia and have had issues in the past when the translator glossed over details. The translator leaves his/her initials at the bottom of the page. Compassion told me that if the translation is really bad to make a copy of the letter and send it along with a letter to the Colorado Springs office detailing the problem, and they would contact the country office. Compassion really does want good translations, and if a translator consistently does a poor job, his/her job should be given to someone who will be more dedicated. No one closely oversees the translator’s work (they pick up stacks of letters from the country office and return them with translations), so unless you complain the translator may do sloppy work on multitudes of letters.

Shelly ~ Translation is one of those tough things, I agree. I think there will always be disagreement no matter what.

Michelle ~ My child is 6. The thoughts of him doing teenage things is more than enough reason to continue sponsoring until the “end!”

Sara ~ Yeah, I chose a Spanish speaking country for that reason, and in hopes that I could someday travel and maybe converse without a translator!

Cahty ~ My goal is to do a letter every two weeks. We’ll see if I can keep it up!

Rhonda ~ As soon as I save up thousands of dollars for my family to travel, I will! And isn’t there a good country song, “… I hope you dance!”

Also writing a letter every month will help to connect with your child even more.

It has already been a year since I started sponsoring my little girl and each letter is so special to me.

Be Blessed