baby steps

In keeping with my last post, over the past week or two we have taken a couple of itty bitty baby steps in the fight against poverty.

1) this was our second year to be involved with Operation Christmas Child.  Kiddo had a lot of fun shopping for items to put in the shoeboxes and then packing them up.

  

We put together boxes for three 5 to 9-year old boys.  I love doing boxes for boys, because I hear that boys don't get picked as often, and, frankly, I know a whole lot more about little boys than I do about little girls. 

Some of the things we packed in our boxes:

matchbox cars

small pads of drawing and construction paper

markers and crayons, glue and scissors

t-shirt

marbles
kazoo
play-doh
rubber ball
kids bandaids
toothbrushes and toothpaste

We did most of our shopping at Target and at the dollar store.

Kiddo also wrote a little note to the children that would be receiving our boxes and included some pictures.

After we had filled the boxes, Kiddo stood back and looked at them for a few seconds.  "Mommy," he said, "I think they're going to like the boxes I'm sending them.  They've got some pretty cool stuff in there!"  I hope so.  We've been praying that they will go to kids who will really enjoy the things we picked out.

2) We have sponsored a child through Compassion!  I have been thinking about sponsorship for a while, particularly after seeing this video (sorry, it's a little long - the most powerful part for me is the first three minutes):

Hubby and I talked it over, and a day or two later Kiddo and I were on the website, picking out a child to sponsor.  Kiddo wanted to sponsor a boy the same age as he, with similar interests.  He also wanted to sponsor a child who spoke Spanish, since Kiddo is learning Spanish in school.  My only stipulation was that I wanted one of the children who had been waiting a while for a sponsor.  Eventually, we picked out a little boy from Central America with a birthday just a few days before Kiddo's.  We just received our referral package in the mail yesterday, and I was inexplicably excited when I saw it sitting in the mailbox.  I took the card of information about our little guy to school when I went to pick up Kiddo, and he talked about it all the way home.  We've already got his picture hanging on the fridge.  Kiddo doesn't have school on Friday, so we are planning on putting together a letter and some pictures to send off.  I'm hoping this can grow into a special relationship that will bless both our family and our sponsored child's family. 

Baby steps - fun ones.  Looking forward to seeing where they lead.  :)