Dwight,

We visited a Foursquare project in Manila and it may very well have been her project it was PH-238. I should have simply asked but I was not thinking about it at the time…I easily could have dropped off a gift!!!!!!!

Great to know we can send a gift to the project, I knew this but it helps to be reminded!!!!!!! It was great to get to meet Edwin!!!!!!! He told me to come back so I don’t want to disappoint him!!!!!!! hahahahahahaha!!!!!!!

Another gift idea her sponsor could consider is sending her a small gift with a suggestion that she use it to buy an illustrated Bible for herself, so she doesn’t have to borrow her friend’s.

I encourage you to consider a $25 center gift that you recommend be used to help her ministry. The church partner cannot arbitrarily dismiss a recommendation. The gift will be used according to your wishes unless they deem it to be in clear conflict with the center’s best interests.

Child development center-designated gifts can be between $25 and $1,000. You may recommend the use for your gift but can’t “designate” that it be used in a certain way. Your recommendation will be followed unless the center has a greater need for the gift to be used in a different way.

As for giving a gift to Patricia directly (i.e., a child gift), the internal board that oversees our sponsorship program is still discussing how we should handle situations like Kamrul’s in the future – specifically how that type of request fits in with our philosophy that each sponsor has a one-to-one relationship with his or her sponsored child.

And in anticipation of a potential question, I’d like to make a distinction between giving gifts to a child and helping a specific child with a medical need, like in today’s blog post.

Alexander and his need for heart surgery is a specific medical need identified by his development center. The latter is the key.

Many children have medical needs, but it’s up to church partner to identify needs that are beyond what our sponsorship program can address and that require specific assistance. This was done in Alexander’s case. A Complementary Intervention (CIV) proposal was submitted asking for funds to pay for his surgery.

CIV is the part of our holistic child development model that “complements” and augments our core programs in situations like disasters, medical needs, etc.

Child gifts and family gifts are a feature of the sponsorship program. They are governed by our gift policy which is meant to strengthen the sponsor/child relationship without creating dependence on part of the child or disparity among children in the sponsorship program. As a result, the gift limits are small in comparison to a medical need, like heart surgery, or a need in the wake of a disaster.