Archita's Letter

It's only fair to post a shot of Archita's first letter that arrived this week, since I posted Nayan's.  Archita's letter was written by the project social worker, but she drew me a nice flower.  On the flip side of this letter, I discovered that Archita's favorite colors are blue and green, her favorite game is ringball, and her favorite food is rice, dal, and chicken curry.  

I found it interesting that she speaks a different language than Nayan.  Archita speaks Odhia, where as Nayan speaks Bengali.  

I already have letters written back to Nayan and Archita, but they probably won't get sent until Tuesday.  I do want to wait that long to see if I get an initial letter from Sabnam during that time, but also because that will be roughly 2 weeks after I sent their last letters.  Even if I don't hear from Sabnam by that time, I will still write her a new letter :-)

How World Vision Works

BIG SURPRISE

I just recently posted abut how I expected the wait for my first letter to be relatively long, so you can imagine my surprise when, on Monday, TWO letters from my Compassion sponsored children arrived in the mail!
The first one was from Nayan, and here is the back of it.  The project worker wrote the letter, and he wrote the English alphabet for me!  Pretty good penmanship for a boy, lol.

On the other side of this letter, I found out the names and ages of his parents, and that he has a younger brother, Sayan, who is 1 year old.  Nayan's favorite color is orange, his favorite game is football, and his favorite good is rice and egg curry.  There was also a map to show which state he lives in (West Bengal).

Because of how quickly this letter arrived, I suspect it was first written when Nayan was registered with the project, and kept on file to be sent when word came that he had a sponsor.  But, even knowing that, it is special to receive a letter so soon!  That makes me hopeful that my first letter has already reached Nayan, or could be reaching him soon this week.

Sponsorship works!

Happy Birthday to my youngest

Taking a time out from sponsorship blogging to wish a very happy birthday to my youngest baby, C.  He turns 3 years old today, and I suppose I shouldn't be calling him a baby anymore.

This is from his party, which we had over the weekend.  This kid loves cake and ice cream more than any other kid I know (that's what's all over his face).

He'll be off to preschool in just a couple weeks.

C loves cars, spiderman, and copying his big brother.  When big brother gets to be too much for him, he hangs out with his big sister, who is much more calm :-). 

I love watching C be included in his older siblings' play.  They used to exclude him because he was "a baby", but now they are like the 3 musketeers.

1st Packages to World Vision kids ready to go!

I have to admit that one of the things that drew me to World Vision sponsorship is that we could send our sponsored children small packages.  I like the idea of being able to send more than just paper items that can total 1/4" thick (Compassion's rule), although I can see how this could easily get out of hand and ultra expensive :-).  Compassion's rule keeps me in check, lol.

So, this morning, after I drop my 2 older kids off at soccer camp, the little guy and I will be heading to the post office to drop these packages in the mail to Alphonsine and Willy.

They are filled with coloring books, stickers, noah's ark sticker scenes, colored pencils, pencil sharpener, a pack of 2 new toothbrushes, a short note (wasn't sure if I should send a note in the package or not), and a picture of my kids from late 2012.  

I blurred out Alphonsine's child ID number and the address for World Vision Rwanda as I am not sure on the rules yet for World Vision, so I figured better safe than sorry.

Update: the price was $14 and change for each package to go first class to Rwanda.  Not cheap, but not outrageous, either.

Double whoops!

Well, Hubby needed someone who shared his birthday, so say hello to 3 year old Willy, also from Rwanda, but from a different community in Rwanda that Alphonsine.

Willy was sponsored "on purpose", as I wanted to sponsor a child from a world vision project that was still in phase 1.  It was also completely by chance that he has Hubby's birthday.  I don't know if I saw his birthday and didn't realize it, but I really don't think so.  I thought he had a March birthday, so again, when his birthday popped up and it was Hubby's birthday, I was a little shocked.  I am usually pretty observant, and this kind of thing just does not happen to me.
Ok, now we're really done!
We have 5 sponsored children--1 for each member of our family.  To me, that sounds like a great stopping point.