Letters of Love

Each CarePack of gifts for the people we would meet needed something more… We had less than a month to collect thirty letters per person. With six of us coming from one small church, that seemed impossible. Besides, how could we fit another project into our packing and preparation?

The answer is people like you. An overwhelming number of friends and family said they would help! Bible study groups, Sunday school classes, a children’s choir, individuals, and families started writing.

My Uncle, Aunt, and their four children (ages 9 to 21) even made it a family event! They sat down at the kitchen table together to write their rough drafts. Then each person copied five letters by hand and found a photograph to include.

A few here, a few there, thirty from a family… And we exceeded our goal!

On the other side of the ocean, 880 letters were piled together! My lifelong friend, Kristi, and I worked to divide them between the sites we would be visiting. Then into a CarePack they went on the assembly line.

The real fun began when we put those CarePacks in the hands of the children. They didn’t waste any time in discovering their very own letter and picture. What a clamor there was to find out what their friends in the US were telling them! We even had to try to translate a few words into Russian.

One of the interpreters reported later that the children were surprised at that personal gift. She emphasized that, “A letter from that person is very important.”

A teenage girl at the first orphanage we visited wrote a reply letter on the spot to send back with us. While our sorting may have seemed haphazard, God had made sure that this girl who dreams of becoming a doctor got the letter from an individual in the medical field!

Those 880 letters were written without a specific recipient in mind, but now they are treasured possessions in the hands of real children who needed to know what love means. Through your letters they have seen a glimpse of Jesus. Thank you!

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- Read of the ongoing need, find month-by-month reports, and get writing guidelines