I'm very excited this week to share my letters, I guess partly because I had no mail to share last week. I did received the hard copy updated photo of Mwanaidi in the mail, with the nice little bookmark, along with a letter from Sheena and Mame Abe.
My first letter was from 18 year old Sheena in the Philippines.
This was a regular scheduled letter, with stationary that was new to me. It has a boy writing a letter with the Philippines flag behind him. And then on the bottom on the back is has the Philippines national flower, the Sampaguita flower, and some trivia about it, like that it is commonly used to make necklaces and also as a car air freshener by drivers!
She starts out with Christmas and new year greetings (the letter was written in September, we as sponsor aren't the only ones thinking of the holidays early ). One of the first few lines that really made me smile was "Miss Heather I know that you are excited now reading my letter." I always tell me kids how happy I am to receive their letters, and how special their letters are to me. I thought it was neat she recognized this in her own letter. She goes on to tell me that she had a new event at school, a gathering for acquantances to get to know each other. And she mentioned something also of costumes. It as held in August. She said she enjoyed the party, and there was also games.
She asked for prayers for her grandmother (I just wrote her recently asking about her, because she hasn't mention her in a while and that is who she lives with. I know grandmother has very poor eyesight also.) because she injured her right foot and cannot walk so long. I know injuries in the elderly take a while to heal, let alone living in a third world country with limited access to medical facilities. Please pray with me for her grandmother.
She goes on to tell me that at the center she learned that God created her in His own image and likeness and made her special. Reiterating what I tell her often :) She goes on to ask how I'll celebrate Christmas, and gives me John 15:13 as her verse.
This letter made it to me in a little under two months, and it didn't need to be translated. She wrote the entire front page and almost half of the back also. This has been on of her longer letters, and since she wasn't replying directly to any of my letters, I feel she gave me a bit more information than she normally does.
Next is 15 year old Mame Abe from Ghana.
Her letter was a response letter, and it was written the end of October and got here in a little under 4 weeks. This letter definitely has more information that most of her letters do. And since it is a response letter from Ghana, it is a template letter with different sections, and it is suppose to be designed for 13 years plus.
The first section is a thank you message, and out of all the letters I've received from her in about the 6 months I've been sponsoring her, have all thanked me for choosing her as my sponsor child. She is definitely grateful! This time in addition she thanked me for all the letters and also my prayers.
She goes on to tell me about her excursion to Sajuna in the eastern part of Ghana. She said she learned how to swim and play football. (From the information I found, there is a "beach resort" on the Volta River where many Ghanaian students go, for fun. When I first learned the location, I was very nervous because of the time JD has spent in Ghana, on Lake Volta helping rescue child from slavery. So then I had to go back through my letters to find out more about the original mention of this excursion, to find out it was an excursion she took with her church, during her holiday break around August. Then my fear settled a bit more, after finding this information and looking up where on the map she was in accordance to where JD has been (and there are on completely different ends of the Lake Volta area, and after looking at the map, I now understand why the van ride was so excruciatingly long for JD and company!))
She also tells me what she was learning to do on the computer during her computer class. That she learned how to draw and paint. She also tells me in school her grades are good. She goes on to tell me in school she is learning to shade in 3 denominational form (most kids here would say 3D). At home she said she is learning to cook. And in her community she said she learned to tidy up the compound. Which I learned from reading JD's Ghana post that most of the homes are centered around a common area, or compound, with a central meeting area in the middle. I enjoyed learning more about this, as she has mentioned a compound in a couple of letters, and I just hadn't gotten around to asking more about it. JD answered without even knowing :)
Again she has mentioned in this letter learning to weave beads at the project, I will have to ask her more about this. In her prayer request, she asked for God to grant her more wisdom and knowledge. Most letters I've read from Ghana, the children ask for prayer for more wisdom. In my opinion, that makes them pretty wise already!
This concludes this weeks edition of Mail Call Monday. Button compliments of Michelle over at Blogging from the Boonies.
