I became a mother (of sorts) at fifteen.
Posted by | Filed under My Life, Poverty
Day 1: What is a changing moment in your life?
A changing moment in my life was when I got to know the little girl I sponsor through Christian Relief Fund. We'd corresponded through letters for two years, but when I actually met her in person, my entire world seemed to spin out of control.
Lavin is beautiful, smart, and heart-breakingly sweet, but she lives in a world of poverty. Everything around her seems dead set on keeping her poor and hungry and uneducated. Her father died from AIDS years ago. She lives in a mud shack. Her one pair of school shoes (when I met her) was tattered and torn. It was painful to see this little girl I had gotten to know surrounded by so much hurt and sadness.
When I agreed to sponsor Lavin, I agreed to take care of her as an adoptive parent of sorts. I provide food, clean water, medical care, clothes, and an education to a little girl I've grown to love so much. The picture to your left is of dorky-freshman-in-high-school me eagerly holding up my first picture of Lavin.
I remember the first time I saw Lavin in person. I was standing in a crowd of uniformed children who were all chattering in Swahili and broken English. "Do you know Lavin?" I asked them, searching the crowd for a familiar face... for the face of the child who called herself my daughter. "Is Lavin here?"
"Lavin, Lavin. Where is Lavin?" Voices ricocheted through the group of children and heads began to turn, searching for my sponsored child.
Finally, a young girl with a painfully shy smile was nudged to the front of the group. Lavin. She looked at me with hesitant brown eyes, obviously unsure of what to say to me in person.
"Lavin, do you know who I am?" I asked quietly.
She nodded her head. "Emily," she whispered. I had sent her a few pictures of myself each year, which is how she would recognize me by sight.
We embraced.
By the end of that week, we weren't only acquaintances anymore. Lavin wasn't just a stiff-looking child from a photograph. She was my daughter, my sister, and my friend. I loved her. I loved to talk with her and sing with her and see the look of pride that fell over her face when other kids would watch her enviously. Lavin's sponsor had come to visit her.
Sponsoring Lavin was a huge step in my life. Meeting her was even bigger.
Lavin has taught me to be unselfish and joyful, no matter what circumstances have been thrust my way. In her last letter to me, Lavin said she wanted to be a lawyer so she could stand up for the street children. If that's truly what she wants to become, then I'll do whatever I can to help her get there.
I love Lavin.
If you've met your sponsored child, you know the feeling. If you don't sponsor a child yet, you can do so here, at Christian Relief Fund's website.
Here are today's questions for you to answer:
1. Do you sponsor a child? How has that changed you?
2. What's a changing moment in YOUR life?
A changing moment in my life was when I got to know the little girl I sponsor through Christian Relief Fund. We'd corresponded through letters for two years, but when I actually met her in person, my entire world seemed to spin out of control.
Lavin is beautiful, smart, and heart-breakingly sweet, but she lives in a world of poverty. Everything around her seems dead set on keeping her poor and hungry and uneducated. Her father died from AIDS years ago. She lives in a mud shack. Her one pair of school shoes (when I met her) was tattered and torn. It was painful to see this little girl I had gotten to know surrounded by so much hurt and sadness.
When I agreed to sponsor Lavin, I agreed to take care of her as an adoptive parent of sorts. I provide food, clean water, medical care, clothes, and an education to a little girl I've grown to love so much. The picture to your left is of dorky-freshman-in-high-school me eagerly holding up my first picture of Lavin.
I remember the first time I saw Lavin in person. I was standing in a crowd of uniformed children who were all chattering in Swahili and broken English. "Do you know Lavin?" I asked them, searching the crowd for a familiar face... for the face of the child who called herself my daughter. "Is Lavin here?"
"Lavin, Lavin. Where is Lavin?" Voices ricocheted through the group of children and heads began to turn, searching for my sponsored child.
Finally, a young girl with a painfully shy smile was nudged to the front of the group. Lavin. She looked at me with hesitant brown eyes, obviously unsure of what to say to me in person.
"Lavin, do you know who I am?" I asked quietly.
She nodded her head. "Emily," she whispered. I had sent her a few pictures of myself each year, which is how she would recognize me by sight.
We embraced.
By the end of that week, we weren't only acquaintances anymore. Lavin wasn't just a stiff-looking child from a photograph. She was my daughter, my sister, and my friend. I loved her. I loved to talk with her and sing with her and see the look of pride that fell over her face when other kids would watch her enviously. Lavin's sponsor had come to visit her.
Sponsoring Lavin was a huge step in my life. Meeting her was even bigger.
Lavin has taught me to be unselfish and joyful, no matter what circumstances have been thrust my way. In her last letter to me, Lavin said she wanted to be a lawyer so she could stand up for the street children. If that's truly what she wants to become, then I'll do whatever I can to help her get there.
I love Lavin.
If you've met your sponsored child, you know the feeling. If you don't sponsor a child yet, you can do so here, at Christian Relief Fund's website.
Here are today's questions for you to answer:
1. Do you sponsor a child? How has that changed you?
2. What's a changing moment in YOUR life?
Tags: 30 day blog challenge, africa, christian relief fund, day 1, kenya, lavin, life changing moment, sponsored child, sponsoring a child
1. Sponsoring a child has been on my to-do list for YEARS, but I've never been able to hold down a job long enough to afford it, and my parents are no help financially. Some day...
2. I usually refer to my St Louis mission's trip in 2009 (specifically, Thursday night), but I'm not sure what I'll talk about when I write about it in my blog. We'll see.
1. Sadly... No.:(
2. I'm not really sure!! Maybe my First Communion? :)
Catie
1. Sadly, I don't sponsor a child by my self, fortunately, the youth group I'm in does and I give money whenever I can.
2. I have yet to experience a changing moment in my life, but I will tell one of my dad's. Last summer I went to Alaska on a mission trip, it wasn't an interactive mission trip, but a trip where you do a lot of hard work. There were a few people in my group that had to opportunity to be interactive, my dad included. Mark Hill, the guy in charge of the place we were working at gave a few of us an opportunity to help build a swing set for a kid that his parents were taking care of. This kid wasn't an ordinary kid, he was born with some defects, when his mother gave birth to him, she abandoned him at the hospital, they didn't think he would survive a year. This kid had problems with breathing, his breathing had to be voluntary unlike our breathing is involuntary, he has to take each and every breath one by one. 22 hours a day, he has a breathing machine that attaches to a hole in his throat, and this machine isn't small either, Mark Hill's dad has to follow the kid around to carry it. When my dad and a few others arrived at the place, the kid was 5 years old. They built the swing set that had been sitting in the back for months and stayed around for a few hours just to hang out and watch him play on the thing. My dad really enjoyed his time there, he gave the kid his old Twins Baseball hat that he's had for years and the kid loved it. The kid had a little toy car to ride in with his breathing machine in the back and he would run it over my dad's feet for fun and my dad would pretend that it hurt really bad so he could make the kid smile some more. When Mark Hill's parents took this kid in, they knew it would be a full time job, and it is. They told my dad that it costs 5 million dollars a year to keep this kid alive, he is a true miracle. I don't remember the kids name, but I will find out from my dad and post it in another comment later.
Your story almost made me cry. How neat is is that you got to meet your sponsored child?! Your relationship with Lavin sounds awesome, she is so blessed to have somebody like you who cares so much.
1) I am not sponsoring a child, but I have always wanted to. I guess I am afraid that I will not always have a stable job and will have to stop my support. I am also going to college next year, and will have to quit my job now. These are just excuses and I can see that as I'm typing them out. I will look into it for sure!
2) I kinda feel like I am going through a changing moment right now. Our house is in the middle of foreclosure so we have to quickly find a new home, I am graduating high school and moving away to college, and I am trying to figure out who I am and what I am supposed to do in life. Its a hard and exciting time and I'm caught right in the middle!
1) Sponsoring a child is something I'd love to do. I've looked into it, through the organizations you suggested, and some others I know of, and whilst I could commit to doing so now if I took on some more work, I'd be doubtful that I'd be in the same position financially in a few years time when the time comes for me to leave home- I'm not willing to begin a sponsorship I cannot commit to, because it wouldn't be fair on the child I sponsored, so, for now, I'm having to settle for donating money to charities when I can!
2) I'm not going to talk about it in great detail, but for me, a [positive] changing moment in my life would probably either be the first walk I took with my youth leader when I was honest with someone, and I asked for help [a choice which has changed my life, so much!] or my summer camp, where I truly understood so many things for the first time.
1. I just started sponsoring a child named Erika. :D She has already broken my heart, her little smile, even amist all the poverty.
2. I know you read this on my Susie blog! :]
I have loved reading your responses so far. Your stories warm my heart. I love reading about changing moments.
1. I sponsor a little girl from my birth country. Its really neat because we have a similar heritage. She's not old enough to write, so her aunts or mother does it for her. But it makes me think, since, for example, one of their crops did not do too well this year.