New Photos!

 Here's twelve-year-old Cristine, our group-sponsored child from Quezon City in the Philippines! Photo taken April 11, 2014.

And here's fifteen-year-old Joyce from Tabaco in the Philippines! Photo taken April 10, 2014.

Letters from the Philippines

It's a weekend of letters! First, I received word from Holly that a letter had arrived from Cristine, once again addressed to me! Then I found a CR letter from Joyce in my mailbox this afternoon.

 Dear Miss Shannon,

Hello! Thank you for nice card and letter to me! Last Halloween we just stayed home with my family yes in our tradition we celebrate the all soul’s day and all saint’s day. We usually go to the cemetery to visit the tomb of our loved ones, offer candles and flowers and then pray we also have trick or treats and Halloween parties here but I seldom joins. I am now in grade four and learning a lot in school. We are now on third grading.

Thank you for your continuous help to me. May God Bless you always! Take care!

Your sponsored child,

Cristine

Dear Ms. Dillon,

Hi! Good day! I hope that you and your family are in good condition. May you are in good health.

I thank you for all the benefits you had share to me. I really appreciate them. I'm so very proud to have you in our life, because you continue to support me till now. You are big help not only to me but also to my family.

By the way this month of October I joined a Dance crew. I meet a friends in a crew that I joined. They are kind and they take care of me.

Then we dance in a place that have a fiesta on any occasion that have in our Locality and we joined in a dance competition. We practice every day for it to make our performance to be beautiful and to be a winner in a competition and I promise to you I always study hard to my all lessons to my future goal in my life.

Once again thank you very much for the continuous support for me. I'm praying that God will always give you guide and protection. Take care always. God bless.

Sincerely yours,
Joyce

Letters!

Two special letters arrived in two different destinations today. The first was from Cristine, my group-sponsored child. This letter was physically mailed to our group's Lead Sponsor, Holly, who emailed me directly to share the surprise: she had received TWO letters from Cristine, and one of them was addressed specifically to me!

Dear Shannon,

Hello there! I'm very happy to received your letter, photos, and some postcards of your friends. I really love the stickers. Spongebob is one of my favorite cartoon characters. I will put your photo and your dog in my photo album. I will share some of the stickers to my friends and cousins. Wow! Its nice to know that you we will be traveling to your favorite place. I hope you will enjoy your vacation with your family. We are now on rainy season. Many Filipinos affected by the typhoon but thanks God that me and my family are all okay until here.

Thank you for spending your time writing to me as well as to your friend. I really appreciate it. God Bless you and happy trip.

Cristine

What a wonderful letter! I've been scouring the local stores for Spongebob goodies to include when I write to her again, so it's very good to hear that she's still a fan of Mr. Squarepants! And I'm glad that she wrote about the typhoon and assured me that she and her family came through the storm safely!

The postcards she refers to are from my Postcrossing Project, inspired by my fellow Sponsor, David!

When I got home from work, I found today's third letter waiting in my mailbox--a CR letter from Yulliana.

Dear Ms. Dillon,

I want to say hi you my dear Sponsor! We start doing multiplication in our math. My teacher gave us many homework in multiplying numbers. We will be having a long quiz this week. I am preparing for it.

Thank you for all your gifts to me.

Love,
Yulliana

Math--ugh! Haha Hopefully she enjoys the subject more than I did at her age. I'll have to keep an eye out for a multiplication activity book that I can send to her the next time I write!

Cristine Receives a DP!

Of my eight girls, Cristine is unique in that she is Sponsored by a whole group. I joined the group a few months ago, and I have enjoyed this new experience so far! I've written to her twice--a letter of introduction when I first joined the group, and just last month I sent a letter along with my Sponsorship contribution (because it's a group Sponsorship, I only make two contributions a year). There are no replies to my specific letters (yet!), but today we all got to see the response to a package one of her other Sponsors sent!

That's quite a pile of goodies! Cristine has, in previous letters, mentioned that she likes Sponge Bob, so a lot of the gifts are Sandy Bottom-themed!

Postcrossing

I have been an on-again, off-again participant in Postcrossing for over five years. It's a really fun project for people who like to receive mail and see other parts of the world. The basic premise is that for every postcard you send out, you will receive one back from a randomly-assigned participant somewhere in the world. And there are thousands of participants ... including my fellow Sponsor and LiftOner, David.

David came up with the idea to change his Postcrossing profile to include a request for people to send him cards for his sponsored children instead of for himself. I thought this was a brilliant idea! So I updated my Postcrossing profile as well, requesting that people send me cards for my girls. And send they have!

The first cards I received were from a direct swap with a lovely lady named Helen--she had already sent card for David's kids, and he recommended her to me. She lives near Disney in Florida, and sent me cards for Cristine and Yulliana:

From Helen, for Cristine!

From Helen, for Yulliana!

Next, I received cards from Katya, who lives in Belarus--she sent cards for Chris and Cristine:

From Katya, for Chris!

From Katya, for Cristine!

Then I received a card from Vihbash in India, sent for Hazel:

From Vihbash, for Hazel!

 So I would say that, so far, this experiment has been quite successful! I can't wait to send these on to my girls with their July letters ... and I can't wait to see where we receive postcards from next!