Introduction

We are finally in a financial position that sponsoring a handful of Compassion children isn't a hardship for us.  This blog will be a place for me to be accountable for letter writing long term (I never have a problem in the beginning of a sponsorship), and not going overboard with Compassion sponsorships.

Right now, I sponsor 3 children, all from East India, as that has always been an area of interest for me.  I am always drawn to the kids of India, and specifically, East India. Since we are likely not doing any international adoption, I figure we could help the kids who have parents, but just need a lot of support.

We are foster parents who have also been blessed to adopt through the foster care system, and have (believe it or not) had wonderful experiences overall through our local county foster care program.  Our kids are now 3, 4, and 5 years old.  After fostering for 7 years, and having 3 very small children all right in a row, we are on the fence about closing our home or remaining open to be a safe place for more children.  Our kids are getting older, and we are just now exiting the haze of infant/toddlerhood with all 3.  It's nice.  It gives us freedom to pursue other activities, like child sponsorship.

A little over 3 years ago, I started sponsoring, but quickly realized that not only were we not in a financial position to sponsor, I was extremely busy with our 2 children who were both under 2 years old at the time, and I quickly found myself having signed up for 5 kids to sponsor, in addition to having a handful of correspondence children!  Way out of hand!  I shut the whole thing down after 3-4 months, realizing it was just not a season in our lives where we had the time or money for such a thing.

Now, we're in a much better position.  Yes, we have one more child, but the youngest is preschool age.  We now have no debt beyond our mortgage, Hubby has a better paying job, and we have a budget in place that allows us to reach out to others who need it.

My personal goal for sponsorship is not to move beyond 3 kids for the remainder of 2013, as the dollar amount for 3 kids is barely noticeable in our budget.  I'd like to write at least 1 letter a month, but not more than 2 letters a month (I don't want to overwhelm the kids or Compassion's translators/mail system/etc), and I want to make sure I send monetary birthday gifts, and donate to the Christmas Gift Fund every year.  And, I want every other letter to have some kind of "goodie" enclosed for my child to use and share with their friends.  Stickers, coloring pages, etc.  I'm also hoping that my kids get involved with these sponsorships, and will be excited to draw pictures for our sponsored children, make handprints, etc.