Compassion Share & Tell

A while back, here on my blog, I started sharing monthly what I was mailing to my Compassion kids. Then life just started getting a bit busy, and my little ole blog here was sorely neglected. 

So, here is to a new year and a new start to my Compassion Share & Tell posts!

This month, since I have been going through Kathi's Kickstart to Clutter Free eCourse, I found I have quite a few (okay, a lot!) of the stationary we receive from Compassion when they send us a letter from one of our kids. Rather than throw them all in the recycle bin, I want to make good use of this resource that Compassion has invested in and mailed to us.

Here is what I mailed to my kids this month:

• a simple letter answering some of their most recent questions
• the most recent photo of our family
• nativity stickers I found half off after Christmas

This year, I want to do a better job of responding to letters as I receive them. Then sending a more generic letter with stickers and other things I find which meet the mailing guidelines once a month.

Have you mailed a letter to your Compassion child this month? I would love to hear what you are mailing to them!

Compassion Share & Tell 2015

Last year, I wrote a lot of letters to my Compassion kids. But I know I can do better.

Sometimes I really struggle with what to write to them and what to send to them.

Writing to seven children now (I just added two correspondent girls from Kenya!), I have been trying to think of ways that I can still share something with each of them every month, but still keep the letters somewhat personal.

I really love the letters that my friend Hannah shares with her kids each month. Last year, she was sharing missionary stories and games with her kids in each letter. My friend Jill has been writing to her kids about the different fruits of the spirit. 

But while I am still pondering what to focus on each month to share with all of my kids, I put together something simple to mail this month.

After Christmas, I found these cute cards and decided to just write a simple message to each of my sponsored children. I want them to know that I love them! Most of my sponsored children live in Spanish speaking countries, so I wrote 'I love you' in Spanish and looked up John 15:12 in Spanish to share with them. Then to each card, I added a strip of heart stickers.

Simple...yes!

There is no 'one way' to write to your sponsored children. They just want to hear from you on a regular basis. And it can be as simple as writing 'I love you' in a card and dropping it in the mail.

Don't you miss the days of handwritten cards in the mail?

I hope you can take a bit of time this month, and quite a few times this year to let your sponsored child know that they are loved by you.

November Compassion Share & Tell

Last month, since I sent my Compassion kids handwritten notes and a few extras, I decided to do online letters for each of them this month. I had just been to Yosemite again, so I knew I wanted to share with them a photo from my most recent trip. Here is what I wrote to each of the kids:

I loved this fall template so much, that I used it for each of my kids this month since it went perfectly with the fall photo of the deer we saw in Yosemite.

Have you taken the time to write to your child lately? If you are still new to letter writing to your Compassion child, you can follow the tips I shared on the Compassion blog this month. 

October Compassion Share & Tell

To say I have been busy this month would be a big understatement! But I never want to be too busy to write letters to my Compassion kids. And since I sent a pretty quick note to each of them last month, I wanted to take the time to go back through some of their older letters and answer some of their questions I may have overlooked in the last couple of months. Plus, I wanted to send them each a couple of extras with their letter.

First off, I pulled out all of my binders which contain all of the letters I have received from my kids. In these binders, I like to keep a copy of the letters I mail out also. This way, I can remember what I wrote to each one of them, and I make notes of the extras I mail with their letters.

One of the extras I am mailing this month are these abstract coloring pages I found on Pinterest. I colored one for each of my kids (that took a bit of time!), and I am mailing them a copy to color for themselves. I know I love when they take the time to draw pictures for me, so I thought they might appreciate something colorful from me in their letter.

I also included these stickers I found at the dollar store recently. For each child, I put all of their items together, made sure their name and sponsor number, as well as my name and sponsor number, were on each item, then I just stapled everything together for each child. All of the letters were put into a 9x12-inch envelope and mailed off to Compassion.

As far as the content of each letter, I know I usually share that with you each month. But this month, each letter was so different. So I am not going to share a letter this month. But I am going to encourage you to write to your sponsored child. Your words matter to them, and they appreciate the time you take out of your day to jot down those words of encouragement.

September Compassion Share & Tell

Blogging is taking a back seat in my life right now. So many things going on in real life...school started, volunteering a lot of Compassion events, a big sewing project, and a big baking project! Phew!

But I don't want to miss out on sharing with you what I wrote to my sponsored children this month. I was hoping to put together a few Christmas items to mail to the kids, but I will have to put that together in a couple of weeks once these crazy few weeks have passed.

Anyway, I decided to write my letters online this month and quickly share what I have been doing during my Bible time. Here is one of the letters:

Compassion makes it so easy to write to your child online. Once I had signed into my account and had written the first letter, it was really quick and easy to have letters sent to my other Compassion children. Since I was sending the same letter to each child, I was able to duplicate the letter, just change the name and template, and click send. It really is that easy!

When was the last time you wrote to your Compassion child? Has it been a while? If it has, I encourage you to log into your account and write to your sponsored child right now. These children love getting letters from you. They are encouraged by your words and your prayers.

Not sponsoring a child yet? For $38 a month, you can choose to be a blessing to a child. I pray you choose to make a difference today.