Posted By admin on November 17, 2009

I read this post by Molly Piper today about the child that she sponsors in El Salvador. She is there with Compassion, Int’l and had the opportunity to meet and spend time with her little boy and his family. She brought him gifts, played games, hugged and talked.  And had her heart broken with love for this little guy.

Go and read this post. Really – I’ll wait… Get the tissue first, though – you’ll need it.

Sponsoring a child should be so easy.  You send your money into an organization where they take it, provide for the child who you see in a picture once a year or so, maybe you get a letter from him, perhaps not, but he lives in his world and you in yours.  And on a good day, you say a prayer for him, a “protect him, bless him, let him come to know You one day” sort of prayer. No emotion exchanged, no feeling given – just a check in the mail.  Almost like another bill.

But every once in awhile the unthinkable happens.  You have the opportunity to meet your sponsored child. It rarely happens, but when it does…there’s a change.  You are no longer sponsoring someone on a piece of paper.  You are sponsoring a child.  A child very much like the ones growing up in your home.  A child who gets cold, gets lonely, gets scared.  A child who laughs and cries.  A child who loves licking the spoonful of icing, who giggles uncontrollably when tickled, who wants a hug.  Oh dear… he’s a real person.

And like Molly says (did you go read it?) your heart starts to break.  With every moment, every action, every handhold, another crack in your heart.

We worked our sponsorship different. Our hearts broke first.

Last November, when the Daraja bus drove up and those little Kenyan children started getting off the bus, we were excited.  We couldn’t wait to meet the kids who would be staying with us and get to know them.  (What a wonderful multicultural lesson for my children!)  One child got off the bus and he made eye contact with me right away.  And in my head I heard the words, “That’s your boy.”

And, oh heavens! The tears rushed to my eyes.  I didn’t know why.  I didn’t know what that meant.  But I watched him as he walked around and gather up his bags.  And come to find out, he was one of the two boys who would be staying in our home.

And I knew.  John was going to be “our boy”.

We enjoyed our time with the Darajas and as our time drew to a close, I made it very clear to anyone I could talk to, that we wanted to sponsor John when he came available for sponsorship.  I sent emails attaching our name to him as much as possible.  All I knew was that he was supposed to be “our boy” and I needed to claim him, not unlike what I would do for my own children.

We did “get” him.  Shortly after he left, I got an email asking if I would like to sponsor John, and I jumped at the opportunity.  Because he wasn’t just a boy from Kenya.  He was “our boy”.  A boy who had laughed with our children, who had eaten his first s’more around our fire, who danced and sang in my livingroom.  A boy who had broken my heart with his first hello and with his hug goodbye.

We have heard from him a few times in the year since he was here.  He tells us about life in Kenya and how he is doing in school.  We write to him and pray for him and talk about him.  His latest letter is on my refrigerator where I read at least a portion of it everyday.

And my heart misses “my boy” who is a world away.

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