Sponsored children receive letters from their sponsors. Unsponsored children do not.
Andrea, one of the Compassion workers and our translator, told me that the only time there is a true distinction between a child who is unsponsored and a child who is sponsored is when letters are handed out. It’s a little bit like the unsponsored children are wearing scarlet letters.
This Christmas things are different. We came to Ecuador to hand deliver the Christmas cards you created for the unsponsored children.
To date your Christmas Cards have been delivered to the Embajadores de Dios Student Center and the Nuevo Amanecer Student Center! Some of the facilitators at other centers have already gone to the Compassion Ecuador office to pick up cards for their centers as well!
Now, I’m going to be honest: handing out the cards has been a little awkward for me. It seems that the children don’t quite know what to make of them, at first. They examine them carefully, watching as I hand cards out to the other children, and then quietly compare their cards with the other kids in the room.
But then there’s a change. I start hearing their little voices mumbling and I look around to see that they’re reading their cards. Each face wearing a very intent and serious look as they grasp their cards and read them aloud.
Enter celebration!
After the children read their cards they walk around, waving them in the air, excited to have received a letter!
I can’t express what truly beautiful moments these have been. You’ve caused such great joy and excitement and I believe the cards caused such a stirring in their little hearts. I never saw one card abandoned or laid down. They clung to them, they waved them in the air, and they read them over and over.
Thank you for making this possible.
