Story time.
My mom used to sponsor a family in Uganda through CCF. She'd give them like $25 a month or something like that, and my mother and the mother of the family in Uganda used to exchange letters. I used to write to the daughter who was around my age. We wrote back and forth from when I was 8 years old to about 11. Every couple of weeks I'd get a letter, and every couple of weeks she'd get one from me. The organization got out of the area and the letters between our families stopped.
Two weeks ago, this woman with broken English messages me on facebook saying "Hi Brian. Are you sponsor? Please respond so I know". I immediately dismissed this as a scam and just let it be. Two days ago, the woman messages me again. This time she says. "Hi Brian. Are you the son of Linda and Joe, and Kelly is your sister? This is you? [attached photo] Please respond so I know". She included a picture of me at the age of 9 in my baseball uniform. It was then I realized who this girl was, and instantly recalled writing a letter to her describing the game of baseball in response to her writing to me about a game called Seven Stones that her and her friends used to play.
We got to chatting a bit and she at one point said "You gave me hope when I was hopeless". I was completely taken by it. It kind of blew me away that something I wrote to a complete stranger twenty years ago had that kind of an impact. A person, a poverty stricken child, thousands of miles away, who I never actually met, whose name I admittedly didn't even remember, hunted me down to tell me I made some kind of imprint on their life. Who would have ever thought? She wanted to tell me she ended up going to college and got a degree in Economics, though she can't find a job where she lives. She asked me to thank my mom for the financial contributions for those few years because it allowed her to go to school, get a backpack, and do homework. The power of words, man.
It really makes me want to sponsor a family, and if I ever have kids, I kind of like the idea of a pen pal, even if they could just message them on Facebook (or whatever the platform will be when that time comes).