Birthday Package for Nsenzeni in Zambia

Barbara's posting. Today, I finally received the photos of Nsenzeni in Zambia showing off her birthday gifts. The DP was sent sea-mail in April 2009 and did not arrive until 22nd March 2010 - talk about a 'slow boat to Zambia'!! However, I was relieved to see it had arrived safely, if somewhat battered, because an earlier Christmas DP still has not arrived.

In an earlier letter, Nsenzeni's grandmother, Lontia, advised that Nsenzenie wanted to be a doctor when she grew up so, for her birthday I bought her a toy doctor's kit with doctor's box, stethoscope and other doctor's tools. Also, I sent a blouse that could be made into a pretend doctor's white coat if it didn't fit Lontia. As you can see from the photo Nsenzeni might not get it until Lontia finishes with it!

Here is the thank you letter that Lontia wrote for Nsenzeni.

Dear Barbara

How are you? Back to us we are all fine. Nsenzeni she is very happy to receive the package that you have sent for her. Thank you Barbara and she has also received some card [Birthday card]. She feel proud with you. She has liked everything that you sent for her. Nsenzeni said I' be a doctor when I' grow up and I'am happy to receive this medical kit and cosmetic pads [sent to use for play] so that I must be able to use them. Greetings to your friends and your family. Yours Lontia and Nsenzeni Tapiwe.

The additional comments from the local CI staff read. "The child was very glad to receive the parcel from her sponsor and the grandmother has sent her thanks."

After years of pleading I was delighted to see that Lontia no longer lists all the articles included in the package - so determination won out this time.

However, just in case anyone is interested the package also included.

Medical kit
Schrek bandaids
Children's tylenol
Ear swabs
toothpaste
shampoo
vaseline
white blouse for doctor's uniform
Purell hand sanitizer
travel wipes.

1 Olympic 2010 T shirt with four mascots.
1 Pink and white T shirt
1 white long sleeved blouse
1 navy pleated skirt

panties and socks and Dora shoe appliques.
plus a small bag of sugar to make a birthday cake - but arrived too late!!
Birthday card, postcards and photos.

I think the photos show how pleased she was with her belated birthday gifts since she rarely smiles in her photos."

Paola will turn 5 on Sunday!

'Dear B.Rogers

Paola wants to thank you for all the gifts that you sent for her. The singing heart, bracelet, candies, bag, Dora lunch box, clothes, pictures, birthday card and everything else.

Paola likes it a lot when you send photos, she likes to know more about you, your friends and family. She also hopes that you like the photos of her which CI takes. Paola likes the paper crown a lot! She coloured the drawing on this letter with lots of affection. Paola sends you lots of kisses and hugs and again would like you to know that she loves you a lot.

The additional comments were. 'Paola and her family were very happy for the gifts the sponsor sent for them.'

Maria seems to be the happiest!

Here is the actual list of contents sent for Paola's birthday.

- 1 two piece jeans & pink/white/navy top.
- Lavendar coloured top with purple hearts
- 2 piece white blouse and pink/orage checked pinafore dress
- Multi-coloured hearts/stars tank top
- Turquoise and pale blue jacket and pleated skirt
- 1 pair of white socks and 1 pairs of dark fairy socks.
- 1 - striped underwear
- 'Just Like Home' toy cooking set.
- 1 Singing Heart
- Dora purse
- little bracelet for Maria
- Dora lunch box
- My little pony book colour book and glitter stickers

And out of all of the above gifts what did Paola like best? - the paper crown from a Xmas cracker!! Aren't kids funny?

Kids Can Change the World

My youngest daughter turned 3 yesterday, and we had her party today (my birthday is the same day, but we won't talk about that *wink*). She had a Princess and the Frog party. Family and friends all came to celebrate with us. It is always fun to celebrate a life!

For those few short hours, as I rushed around to set up the games & make everyone happy, the world was perfect. Every one ate the food I fixed, plus cake and ice cream afterwards. Morgan opened a mountain of presents and tossed each item to the side after she pulled it out. It was raining outside, but it didn't matter because we were dry and warm completely covered from the elements inside a sturdy brick home with all of the amenities.

It is so easy, as we go about our lives doing the things we do, to forget about those "other" people. They are not there where we can see them. If they were, I imagine we would do things differently. Right? I mean how could we throw away food and indulge in all of these excesses if the children who hadn't eaten in days were watching us?

That is why, though I don't have much (by US standards), I am constantly moved to help. I have to remind myself of those children. The fundraisers give a great reminder of the needs of some of our families. I, also, am moved to read books that open my eyes to what is going on in the rest of the world.

Haiti being the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and now suffering more than we can even imagine since the earthquake, has been my book focus this month. If you want to read about the people of Haiti and one woman's passion to feed the people, even when the task looks so big it is impossible, check out the book I am reading now:
"On That Day Everyone Ate: One Woman's Story of Hope and Possibility in Haiti" by Margaret Trost
Another eye-opening book about Haiti involved the enslavement of the Haitian children. It is estimated that 300,000 Haitian children are slaves (known as restavecs). Jean-Robert Cadet wrote a book about his life as a restavec. You can find my post about that here

To bring this party to a helping the world type of ending, I will tell you what we did. About 2 years ago, I started a children's philanthropy organization called "Kids Can Change the World" (it came before Make a Change). The idea behind KCCW is that children learn how great it feels to help others. We do projects to benefit those is need. In 2008, while it was just getting started (and only my two girls in the group), we made gift bags for Christmas. You can see the post here. With Haiti needed the most help right now, our organization will be doing a benefit for them. While still at the party, I spoke with some of the children to see if they would like to join us in our plight to help Haiti. I was able to get 3 more helpers!

If our organization is approved for the "party", Hasbro will be sending us a box of board games. The children will go around collecting pledges from people for a "playathon". They will get $X (whatever the person pledges) for every 15 minutes they spend playing a game. The party will go on for about 2 or 3 hours, and then, the children will go back to collect the funds from what was pledged. The money will go to help Haiti's orphans (for those who know this organization, the money is going to S.O.S. Children's Villages in Haiti). It should be a very exciting time for all. It will happen some time at the end of February or beginning of March. I will keep everyone posted!

By the way, only one of the Danda children that I posted yesterday now has a sponsor. That means there are more than 15 left waiting. Check out yesterday's post to see who is left. Remember to let me know who you choose, as we will be doing a special project for the Danda children later this week.

A Real Tear-Jerker

Barbara wrote:

"To those CUS sponsors who may be feeling very disappointed at not hearing anything from their newly sponsored children I want to advise you not to give up on them as things work very, very slowly in and from Uganda.

You may recall the sad story about my own sponsored child Jonathan O. who I began sponsoring last April. I did not hear anything for months and was beginning to despair of ever hearing anything about or from him. Then, I had the awful news that he had been taken out of school and was being starved and kept in chains in his own feces by his disturbed aunt. Fortunately, Hellen, the CUS director managed to persuade her to let Jonathan return to school where she fed him a special diet to build up his strength. More bad news followed when it was learned that the same abusive aunt was using him as child labour by forcing him to carry enormously heavy loads of cans of water for almost a kilometre every day.

In order to bring a little hope into his, so far, sad life I sent some funds to provide him with a cake and soccer ball for his birthday which was on 21st December. I hoped that there was enough there to also pay an adult to carry the water for him for at least a while.

As mentioned above it takes a long time to hear any news from Uganda but eventually I received the enclosed photos. These showed an obviously over-whelmed Jonathan with his cake and the disposable cake plates, serviettes and balloons which I had provided.

Then, just today, I finally received a drawing of a sun, tree, animal, car and a figure with arms outstretched. But the tear jerker part was finally receiving the hand drawing which Jonathan had been colouring in a previous photo. And, when I turned over the page there was a beaded THANK YOU MUM worked on it. Knowing that his own mother was deceased it was so touching to know that he now thought of me as his new mother. How touching is that?? In the same package I also received a similar beaded Merry Xmas card from Alice who was last heard of back in northern Uganda.

Two other examples from Katelyn was the trembling thanks of Macky's child for his new set of clothes and two other children breaking down in tears when they did badly in their school work fearing that their sponsors wouldn't want to sponsor them anymore. So, please don't give up on your newly sponsored children because it obviously means so much to them to have a sponsor."

Cheers

Barbara

Little Diego turns 7 & gets a bike!

Heather G wrote:
I sent Diego money for his 7th birthday and he got a bicycle and a birthday cake.

Letter from Diego's mother:

Hello dear sponsor,

Dear sponsor, greetings and I hope you are in good health and may God bless you and your dignified family always. Thanks to God your sponsored child and family are doing well. I thank you very much for the gifts that you sent to him, a bicycle and his birthday cake. He is very happy and cheerful as he has always dream to have a bicycle and now his dream has come true. I don't have words to thank you, as he has always asked me for a bike but I didn't have the possibilities to do so, but now he has one.

Thank you from all my heart for being a wonderful sponsor! I say goodbye with a strong hug
Flor

Happy Birthday!

I told you I would tell you about this cute little guy... This is what happened on my end. I looked over at my Merry Christmas message on the Google Group, and saw Lisa's post. She had posted that her mother passed away right before Christmas. I posted that I was sorry to hear of her loss, and if there was anything I could do to let me know.

Then, Lisa e-mailed me directly. She wasn't asking for any help (but any one who knows me knows that I help even when my help isn't requested! LOL!). She told me that she decided to sponsor another child, but she wanted one with the same birthday as her mother. I told her I would keep my eye out for one with the Jan 2nd birthday. That is when she told me that she had already looked through all of the kids' profiles on the web-site, and none of them had that birthday!! That means she looked through close to 1500 profiles!!! Talk about dedication.

Since she had already looked on the web-site, I knew it would be a waste to scroll through the profiles (and VERY dangerous because I would hate to find one that was calling my name! LOL!!!) I e-mailed Greg at CI and told him what was going on. I asked if he knew of any child available with that birth date. Five minutes later, I had this picture in my inbox!!!

I forwarded the info to Lisa. She was so excited! Now she had a child in time to honor her mother on her birthday, and a little something to help in the healing process!

Here is what Lisa said:

On December 22, 2009 I lost my mother unexpectantly.
This was the hardest day, probably of my life, as we were very close.
A couple days later I was thinking about how I would like to do something special in her honor. Since Children International is my newest passion I thought what better way to sponsor another child in her honor.
And if I could find a child that shared her birthday it would be even more special.
With help from Heather and Greg (from CI) I added little Brayan to my family.
He turns three years old today, January 2nd, the same day my mom would have turned 63. Brayan lives in Colombia with his mother, step father, 2 sisters and brother.
I look forward to getting to know this little guy and watching him grow up.
He will always hold a special place in my heart. I know he will have a special angel up in heaven looking down and protecting him.