For those of you who don’t know, I’m a recovering “Lame Sponsor” with Compassion International. I have a checkered past when it comes to keeping up regular correspondence with the two boys we sponsor. To date, a five-year-old in Ghana has been out-writing me!
That all changed after I traveled with Compassion International to Guatemala this past September. And I got asked the same question over and over again in a language I couldn’t understand by faces I could read as easily as those of my own two sons, “Do you know my sponsor? Will you ask them to write to me?”
My heart cracked into all kinds of tiny pieces on that trip – each one determined to take home the message they’d entrusted me with, “Please ask them to write to us.”
Sponsor or no sponsor, turns out what every kid really wants is a letter. A letter to tell them they are special and loved and beautiful and necessary and that they matter much, much more than their circumstances may tell them.
When you’ve stood in a corrugated iron shack that houses a family of five who barely escaped a mud slide and watched them pull an envelope of letters that stretch back for years out from under the mattress pad you know you’re in the presence of something special.
Paper and ink can be an anchor in the storm.
Often our words are more important than our money.
And we’d like to make a way to send hundreds and thousands of words of encouragement to kids who really need them in this season of Thanksgiving. That’s where YOU come in! Well you, DaySpring, and Compassion International. From now through November 29th (the Monday after Thanksgiving) Studio DaySpring will be hosting a Christmas Card Drive for the children of Ecuador.
You design the card, Compassion will translate it, DaySpring will print it, and a team from both organizations will travel to Ecuador to deliver it in person in time for Christmas!
Four student projects with more than 100 unsponsored kids are looking forward to hearing from you. Did your tummy just do the happy flip? Mine sure did!
Here’s how it works:
- Click here to go to the Studio DaySpring Christmas Card Drive page.
- Design a card for a super special kid in Ecuador just dying to hear from YOU (for as little as $1.99).
- Tell them what makes them so worth celebrating this Christmas season.
- Include a photo of you and your family and a little bit about you so they know who the card’s coming from – kids LOVE photos!
- Bear in mind we’ll need some room on the card to translate your message into Spanish.
- Add to Cart and Voila – you’ve just created a Christmas message that will be hand delivered from you to a child in Ecuador. Our team will be there December 11-16.
- Oh and we’ve got a blog button to help spread the word – you can grab it off (in)courage’s side bar.
Kind words are like honey – sweet to the taste and good for your health (Proverbs 16:24). Your words will nourish no matter whose hands your card finds its way home to. You don’t have to know a child to impact their life. You only have to know the Jesus you both have in common.
And we can’t wait to report back – with words and photos – how your cards were received. We’ve got a feeling it’s gonna be nothing short of Christmas-tacular!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Lisa-Jo Baker lives in between countries, callings and kids, believes motherhood should come with its own superhero cape, and as the Community Manager for (in)courage loves dreaming up ways to serve the hearts of women.