An Early Christmas with Kimberlie

I've heard that most of the time, people on sponsor tours wait until the last hour or so before their children leave to give them the gifts they have brought.  Since I only had a short time with Kimberlie, Jeannot suggested soon after we met that I start giving her my other gifts.  (I had already given her the stuffed dog and photo album to break the ice).  

Like any little girl, she was happy to see what else I had brought.  After the toys and school supplies, etc., I gave her the clothes.  Picking out clothing for a child you've never met was challenging... but everything seemed to be a good size for her and she liked them.  

Especially the socks, as you can see in the next two photos!

We each picked out our favorite sock design... hers were the ones with the bird on them, mine were the turtles.  She said birds are her favorite animal when I asked.  That's so neat, since I also love birds.  The backpack I took for her was covered with owls.  I wished I had brought her a jacket, because the one she was wearing was so small.  Maybe she can get one with the birthday money I sent her later.  When you sponsor with Compassion, besides the regular monthly support, you can send birthday, Christmas, and family gifts.  You can suggest what you want the money spent for, then Compassion staff helps the family decide what is most needed and oversees the purchases.

After she had seen all her own gifts, I told her about the bag of gifts I had for her family.  Because we didn't have much time, we didn't take them out of the bag.  However, I told her about one special gift.  It was a Christmas ornament.  As I described it to her, I told her about the Christmas story and how Jesus was born, and then died for us on the cross and rose again the third day.  I wanted to make sure she knew about Jesus.  Here's the ornament I gave her family:

 About that time, Jeannot told me that the hotel rules were that no unregistered guests could stay on the grounds after 10 pm.  It was about 20 minutes til 10!  I had thought we could visit longer, even though it was late.  Remember the notebook I took with questions I wanted to be sure to ask?  I never took a minute to get it out of my pack... I didn't want to waste any time!  Later, after Kimberlie had left, I got the notebook out and wrote down the answers to the questions I had asked... to make sure I didn't forget.  Luckily, there were only a few questions I had not asked!  The rest will have to be asked in letters.

Since I only had a very short time left, I knew I wanted to pray for Kimberlie.  I did that next.  Praying with a translator is actually a kind of neat experience, because you have time to pause and think for a few seconds between each sentence.  Here we are when I was praying for Kimberlie:

After I prayed for her, I spent a few minutes showing her how to play the recorder.  I brought mine and one for her, originally thinking we'd have lots of time during the day when I could show her more.  
Here's Kimberlie with her new recorder:

I gave her a little booklet for her to learn on her own, and a laminated fingering chart -- so hopefully she can learn to play.  She seemed to really like to hear me play (one of her favorite things according to her bio is singing so I know she likes music).  After I played "Jesus Loves the Little Children" once, we did it a second time with her singing with me, then she sang it for me by herself.  What a sweet time!

Child - Sponsor Visit Day!

Saturday morning, there was a lot of excitement in the air!  Everyone was eagerly awaiting the arrival of the children!  

On these types of trips, all the children travel from wherever they live in the country, to one location to meet the sponsors.  Sometimes, it's at an amusement park, zoo, or similar type place, where the sponsors and kids can have fun together.  After I had signed up for the trip, I thought about this day, and hoped it wouldn't be to an amusement park, because I'm terrible at rides - I get dizzy on the Merry-Go-Round!  So I was very happy when I got the trip guide and it said we would be staying at our hotel for the Child-Sponsor Day.  (It was one of those "answer to prayers" that you hadn't actually prayed for, because it seemed selfish, but I was thankful!) I love the beach and thought playing in the pool and the ocean with Kimberlie sounded wonderful.

Our group all gathered in the open-air foyer of the hotel after breakfast to await the arrival of the children... who would be coming in one by one.  That is, except for Jason' boy, Loulou, and Kimberlie.  Jeannot had told me that morning that "it didn't look good" for them to be able to come. Becca was a little more upbeat about it, and said "they are still working on it".

The flooding in Cap Haitian was the worst they had in years.  A tropical storm had centered itself over the area and torrential rains were coming down.  I was praying hard... mostly for safety for the people there, including Kimberlie and her family, but also for wisdom for the Compassion staff to know what to do.  I prayed that Kimberlie would be safe and her home not damaged.  And that she would not be too disappointed.  I know I was.  

But I was determined to try to enjoy the day as best I could.  In just a few short days, I had come to feel close to the other people in our group, and I wanted to share in their joy when they met their kids.

Everyone was waiting and super excited as the children began to arrive.  

Hugs and smiles!!!

One by one the children came...and those still waiting took photos.

Letty hugged her Pastor's sponsored child who came to spend the day with her.

Lots of group photos were taken of the sponsors, kids, family member, and Compassion staff who had traveled with them, as well as photos of more candid moments like these:

Even Jason had two boys who came... his newly sponsored child, and his mother's sponsored child, who is in the photo below.

It really was amazing and fun to be there to watch.  But of course, it was also terribly sad not to have Kimberlie be arriving as well.  As each child arrived and went off with their sponsors to spend the day together, the group waiting got smaller and smaller til it was just me.  So, what was I going to do?  I decided I was in a tropical paradise, I should try to enjoy it.  More about that in my next post.