Like you, I remember being a child at Christmastime…the excitement and anticipation that would start to build after Thanksgiving until it reached a crescendo on Christmas Eve and I would toss and fidget most of the night. (I even remember trying to stay up all night to “catch” Santa, but I never did succeed!)
For the poor children we help, becoming sponsored is a lot like those childhood Christmas mornings.
It’s not uncommon for children (or their mothers) to weep with joy when told they have officially become a part of the Children International family. For the child, it can be one of the most thrilling moments of his or her young life.
They know what it means to become sponsored because they usually have friends or even siblings who’ve been in the program for years. And they have watched as others received new clothes and gifts on holidays and other special occasions. They have seen others who are able to visit a dentist when their tooth hurts…a doctor when they are ill.
And often, they have seen other children happily pouring out of the community center; clutching letters from someone they haven’t met…someone who makes all these benefits possible.
When children learn that they have been enrolled in the sponsorship program and that they have a sponsor – a real-life Santa – they are filled with hope and joy.
They know there is someone else in the world that cares for them.
Posted on behalf of Deron Denton. Please be sure to watch for an upcoming article Deron wrote for the next issue of Journeys, arriving in mailboxes around Christmastime, titled, “A Year of Firsts.” It’s about a boy named John Darren, recounting his first year of sponsorship.
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