Escaping the Guilt of being a Child Sponsor

We’ve sponsored a child from India through Compassion Canada for many years already. He’s a cute little guy named Janapati Samuel Raju, we’re still not totally sure what his first name his since the documents sometimes refer to him as Samuel and other times as Janapati.

When I think of our sponsor child my first thought/ feeling is usually guilt. I don’t think about this little boy’s education or the better life that he has had since he was sponsored by us. I feel guilty about not writing to him more often, about the unsent letters that I actually did write or the blank forms sitting on top of the fridge that I forgot about. Every so often I try to make a conscious effort to write more often, send little treats, etc but then a few months go by and I’m back in my guilty rut again. Then we get a letter from him and he a tells us about how he prays for us everyday (every letter we have ever recieved has said this), sigh...the guilt sets in even deeper.

A few days ago we got an update on Samuel (?) and the token form letter... still praying for us daily. Compassion (and most other sponsor organizations) makes it really easy by leaving a small space to fill out and providing an envelope to send the letter back. I was about to start filling out the letter when I noticed there’s now an option to send your letter via internet. I’m not sure how long this option has been available but I was thrilled. The site is incredibly easy to use and was MUCH easier than writing out a letter, buying a stamp and getting it into the mail (even though that’s not hard). Within a few minutes I had written my letter and sent it off, yeah! No more guilt and best of all I'm being more consistent in my letter writing.

This is definitely the way to go for me. So now I have a new plan. I’ve picked a date each month and made a note on our big calendar, that’s my “write sponsor child day.” At Christmas and in June I will send a hand written letter with stickers (or whatever). The plan looks promising.

My mom works for Canadian Food for the Hungry in Abbotsford. The organization also matches up sponsors with children throughout the world. We often talk about child sponsorship, etc which is probably why I found this little find that much more note worthy. I truly believe that child sponorship is a wonderful thing and very necessary for so many communties around the world.