The boys have a soft spot for South America. In our journey around the world, they have really been looking forward to this stop. Why? Ittiel, their friend and sponsored child through Compassion International lives in Peru.
My husband and I began sponsoring our first child when we were engaged. He was from Guatemala – a country near and dear to my heart since I had spent part of two summers there. But when he graduated last year, I really wanted to bring the boys into this process. So I called Compassion and asked if we could sponsor a boy around their age! And that is how we ‘met’ Ittiel! He is a month older than Xander! The boys have enjoyed writing and drawing pictures for each other. In his last letter, Ittiel drew a picture of the two of them playing together!
I’ve been inspired by Michelle at Blogging from the Boonies as she writes about ways we can make an impact with the children sponsored thru Compassion. She has all kinds of ideas on things we can send to them, and tips on how to organize our letters from our sponsored children as well as devise a plan on how to pray for them and strategically write to them. I must confess that we only wrote our last sponsored child maybe 2 or 3 times a year. Now our goal is to send Ittiel something once a month. We are putting our notebook together so we can display his letters as well as keep track of what we are writing him about in order to keep from repeating the same things (another problem I’ve had in the past).
As we wrapped our time exploring South America and Peru specifically, we sat down and drew some more pictures for him and sent him some fun stickers!
These were our two favorite books:
~ I picked this up at a used curriculum fair this summer. I love the artwork in vintage children’s books!!! The boys were enamoured with this story of a Peruvian boy and his llama playmate. It was a cute ‘coming of age’ story! It is amazing how much you can pick up and learn from a story. Narratives can be a powerful learning tool which is why we spend so much of our day reading and re-reading good books!Carolina’s Gift: A Story of Peru 
The Littlest Llama
Love and Roast Chicken: A Trickster Tale from the Andes Mountains
Discovering El Nino : How Fable and Fact Together Help Explain the Weather
Great post and I want to encourage you to continue writing often to your sponsored child. That is the one message I am bringing back to sponsors from the kids in Peru…sponsorship to them is not about the money, it’s about the relationship they develop with their sponsor through letters. One child went so far as to ask us why her sponsor doesn’t love her – it turns out her sponsor has never written a letter to her. So THANK YOU – from the children in Peru – for being a good sponsor!!
And thanks for visiting my blog – I have many more posts about Compassion Peru to share in the weeks to come.
I loved hearing all of the ideas. Door hangers are brilliant! I’m hoping that it will work out to eventually have each of my boys paired with their own sponsor child… 🙂
We love writing to our Sponsor children too!! My girls are ALWAYS making pictures, cards, etc. to send! 🙂
Blessings,
Jessica
I love this post! We sponsor four children in Cambodia. We have little door hangers with their pictures and my children pray for their friends in Cambodia.
A year ago I left my two little kiddos and husband behind here in Texas, and traveled to Cambodia with a Asia’s Hope. Cambodia is the #1 sex trafficking country in the world. After my trip our Church became very involved with Asia’s Hope. I’m now on a mission to bring awareness to the children in Cambodia. You sound just like the kind of person who will care for these children. 🙂
I have links on my site to Asia’s Hope and Jen Morgan who blogs about her life in Cambodia working with orphans. I think you’d enjoy jen’s blog.
http://waddleeahchaa.com/2010/06/24/oh-cambodia-the-land-of-sweat-and-dreams/
I just love the sweet pictures of your boys.
Thank you so much for joining the Hip Homeschool Hop today.
Blessings,
Sue
This is such a beautiful idea! Our family sponsors a child in Dominican Republic and we send letters to him and pray for him and his family!
Thanks for stopping by my blog and commenting!
Tracy at “A Slice of Smith Life”
http://www.asliceofsmithlife.blogspot.com
What a wonderful post! Stopping by from the Hip Homeschool Hop!
Wow, thanks for the “shout out”! 😀 We’re working on another round of letters right now and I plan to post with pics and info tomorrow or Sunday! There is a blogger in Peru right now, her name escapes me, but I will try to find her link and share it.
I look forward to reading more!!