The concept of “filling buckets” continues to be on my mind this week. Wednesday brought the much anticipated arrival of a letter from our “sponsored child” Nathalie Jean. The kids love to hear from her and this letter was not a disappointment. Nathalie is almost exactly the same age as Sarah and she lives in a small town in the Phillipines with her mother and 3 brothers. From what we have learned about her over the past year is that she is smart, sweet, very pretty and a very good student. Her life is tough but she has a very positive attitude.
We first crossed paths with Nathalie when a representative from World Vision came knocking on our door last spring. Like most people, Blaine and I are always looking for opportunities to teacher our children about being giving and charitable. Let’s face it our kids live a blessed life and we need to take every opportunity to discuss those who are less fortunate. We knew the day would come when we would make the commitment to take on this responsibility as a family but we were waiting for the kids to be the right age so that they could be a part of the process. As the four of us met with the wonderful young man from World Vision a year ago, we all listen intently to the details about World Vision Sponsorship. We picked Nathalie because of her age ans story and we picked the Phillipines, well for many reasons. Our hope was that our children could correspond with this child and develop a relationship of sorts. Sarah and Nate both write individual letters to Nathalie, which go along with our family letters. They are so proud to do this task.
Nathalie’s recent letter was so heartwarming. She was thrilled to receive some pictures of the kids and she writes,
“Dear Sarah, Your very very beautiful in your picture. I'm 9 years old and in grade 3 too. I like puppies”.
“Dear Nate, I’m so happy when I read your letter and also when I saw your picture your very very cute.My hobby is reading books sometime i play badmenton with my cousin and brother” The kids were tickled pink.
The section addressed to Blaine and I went something like this,
“Thank you so much for sending me a letter again. I’m so very happy when I received your letter and also the letter of your two kids. I’m so very proud when I heard that you are a teacher because my ambition is to become a teacher someday like you. And I’m an honor student in our class.” She goes on to later say, “ I hope and pray we will meet someday together with your family.”
As we fill Nathalie’s bucket with our monthly contributions to her community development programme in an attempt to help her family attain self-reliance, in return Nathalie fills our buckets with her heartwarming words and her gratitude. Her picture on our fridge is a daily reminder of just how important and rewarding it is to give.
“Love only grows by sharing. You can only have more for yourself by giving it away to others.”
-Brain Tracy