three girls waiting for a sponsor

Since part of Compassion September is a goal of getting 3108 children sponsored, here are three young ladies I've been checking on from the Compassion International website. I just thought now about possibly looking at kids from the Compassion sites of other countries, but we'll start with these three little girls. ,roxana is 11 years old and lives in Guatemala. She lives with her father and her mother and 4 siblings. Her father is employed as a farmer and her mother maintains the home. Roxana helps at home running errands. She enjoys singing and running and participates in choir. Her performance in primary school is average. Where Roxana lives, typical houses are constructed of dirt floors, wood walls, and tin roofs. The regional diet consists of maize and beans, and a common health problem is respiratory illnesses. Some adults work as day laborers and earn the equivalent of $75 per month. Mayde is 9 years old and lives in Bolivia. I found her by searching for kids from the projects my kids are from. Mayde goes to the same project as my Jimena...I wonder if they know each other. She lives with her father and mother and two siblings. She also runs errands for her family. Her father is sometimes employed and her mother maintains the home. Mayde enjoys playing with dolls for fun. She attends church activities, and her performance in primary school is average. Typical houses where Mayde lives are constructed of cement floors, mud walls, and tin roofs. the diet consists of chicken, beef, rice, potatoes, eggs, and noodles. Common health problems are diarrhea, colds, coughs, malnutrition, and infant mortality. :( The average income is equivalent to $67 per month. Isabel is 8 years old and also lives in Bolivia. She lives with her sister and possibly 4 other siblings. Her sister is sometimes employed as a laborer. Isabel helps in the kitchen and runs errands at home. She likes to play with dolls and playing ball games for fun. Her performance in primary school is average and she attends church activities. Typical houses in Isabel's area are constructed of dirt floors, tin walls, and wood roofs. The diet consists of maize, chicken, bread, beef, potatoes, and rice. Health problems include diarrhea, tuberculosis, coughs, colds, and stomach infections. Employed adults in the area earn the equivalent of $91 per month. If you feel led to sponsor any of these girls, I'd love to know about it. Feel free to leave me a comment. You'll see on the Bolivian girls' pages that it says that they live in an area with higher risk for exploitation and abuse. This tends to mean there is more risk of gangs or drug violence, but I don't know all the details. A number of countries have recently received this designation, but it's somewhat unclear which areas are truly higher-risk since all children in affected countries have the designation.

since I am officially a Compassion blogger

I feel I should introduce my Compassion kids. But let me back up a bit. I just read on Twitter about Compassion September and thought I would really like to help out. I love Compassion International and the work that they do "releasing children from poverty in Jesus' name," so thought I would use this blog, which has been lying dormant for too long, to get the word out. As a first post, I feel I would be amiss if I didn't introduce my own sponsored and correspondence children. I apologize beforehand for the lack of pictures, but I don't know how to upload them. before I tell you about my kids, I have some explaining to do. About 6 years ago, I heard about Compassion at a Ginny Owens concert that my mom and I went to. That night, I went to Compassion's website and chose a little 4-year-old girl named Priscila from Peru. I sponsored her for about 3 years, and probably sent her as many letters. Then I got notice that her situation had improved, and so I was assigned another Peruvian girl, Mirella. Another couple years with few letters from me, and then for some reason I can't even remember now, I was no longer sponsoring Mirella but had been assigned Rowena, a girl from the Philippines. I had her for maybe a year, and then got notice that she had not been attending the project and was excluded from Compassion's services. Thinking back on that now, I might have had something to do with that, as children who don't receive letters can feel that their sponsors don't care about them and lose interest and leave the program. Jeza Mae: The girl assigned to me to replace Rowena was Jeza Mae, who was 12 years old when I agreed to sponsor her in 2010. It took me just short of another year to get my act together and really begin writing letters to her. at first, I didn't know what to write at all, but since I had just started a new job, I asked her about what she wanted to do when she grows up. When she responded with a letter saying that she wants to be a nurse, I was thrilled. Finally, I had the feeling that this was a real person writing to me. To be fair to her, I'm so glad she gave me the benefit of the doubt. Her first letter to me said how she hoped I could be her sponsor for a long time, and she always wrote (and still writes) informative letters to me about what she is doing in her project and at church. Wana: About the time I started writing to Jeza Mae regularly, I was led to sponsor other children too. I have since had to let the youngest (and next sponsored) of these, Shelsy from Nicaragua, go, but a friend of mine graciously offered to take over the sponsorship. The next child I was led to was Wana from Indonesia. I was drawn to her because of her special needs, though it appears she doesn't like to talk about them, which I can totally understand. Wana is a delightful girl who will be turning 12 next week. She also writes beautiful, loving letters with lots of information, which thrill me to no end, since at first I thought she was shy. For all I know she might be, but she has a beautiful heart and strong faith in Christ. I was so happy when I received her second letter in which she had drawn a picture that said "I love you, Jesus." I had been curious about her beliefs, since she lives in a primarily Muslim country and has a Muslim last name. I don't know exactly what she wants to do when she grows up,but somehow I can imagine her as a pastor. That would be really neat, but I'll wait to see if she says anything about the plan that all kids set up about their dreams for the future. Jimena: i sponsored Jimena at the end of June 2011. I was drawn to her mostly because I think her name is beautiful, but when I read about how her community needs drug and alcohol intervention programs, it clinched it for me. Jimena lives in Bolivia, and I will be getting to meet her in something like 10 weeks. I am really looking forward to this trip and am planning the goodies I'll take to her and her large family. Jimena is one of six children and seems from her letters to be a very happy girl. Lately her letters have been very informative, giving me the names of her siblings, friends, pastor and teachers. I am so happy to know about all of the good role models that Jimena has in her community, not only because of the info I'd read when sponsoring her, but also because Jimena wants to be a teacher herself. She's already started writing letters on her own, even though she's only seven. Denis: Denis was assigned to me as a correspondence child in November of 2011. Correspondence children are kids whose sponsors cannot write to them for whatever reason, and therefore they are assigned a person who will write them letters of encouragement. Denis is currently the youngest of my children, having just turned 5 in May. He lives in El Salvador with his young single mother . In his first letter to me around New Year's, he said he wants to be an engineer, but given that he's so young, that may change. I haven't gootten many letters from him yet, so don't really know much about his personality. Angel: I sponsored Angel from Mexico a few days before Christmas of 2011. Angel is my oldest sponsored child, turning 16 in March of this year. He seems very friendly, but again I haven't gotten a lot of letters from him yet. He works in his family's business as a photographer at weddings and other celebrations. This sounds very interesting to me, even if he has to miss some Saturdays at the project in order to support the family. Twice he has said that he is hard-working, and I can believe it given this detail. Solange: i requested to be a correspondent to an African child over the age of 8 sometime in February or March of 2012. In March I was assigned 13-year-old Solange from Rwanda. Unfortuately, I know almost nothing about her as I've received no letters from her yet. I called Compassion about the lack of letters, and they are currently checking on it for me. Boncoeur: In April I sponsored Boncoeur, a 9-year-old boy also from Rwanda. I don't know exactly why, but my heart was drawn to him from the moment I found him on the CI website and I sponsored him the first day I saw him. I've gotten two letters from him so far and he seems like a delightful little child. I have know idea why, but I think of 1him as my baby. He is not the youngest of my children, but there's something about him that just enchants me and makes my heart melt just thinking about him. I know that when I almost had to give him up due to finances, I just couldn't do it. I understood this as God's leading me to just trust Him to provide what I need to cover Boncoeur's sponsorship. I know that Boncoeur likes school and helping his family with chores.