“He did what!?”
“Felix sent a picture of himself holding the picture of us that we sent him!”
I was amazed at my wife’s words. After forty years of sponsoring children in different parts of the world through different agencies, this was the most personal response we had ever gotten from a child we sponsored. It was evidence that Felix had gotten our picture and he looked excited. So, of course, we sent a picture of us holding the picture of Felix holding the first picture we had sent him!
This all began in 2012. We had sponsored children all our married life, but our last child had aged out of the system and we hadn’t decided what to do next. I was serving as an associate pastor, and missions was one of my areas of responsibility. When I met Dave Kase, he told me about a new Christ’s Hope’s Child Sponsorship program. That was God’s timing! Our church became a Partner Church with Christ’s Hope and my wife and I decided to sponsor a child.
We chose Felix, an eleven-year-old boy who had been orphaned. Over the course of nine years, we received many letters from Felix with many cute pictures. We even heard reports from Dave Kase and church members who went on mission trips to Namibia and met him. He always prayed for us, his sponsors, to be protected and provided for by God – and we prayed the same for him. What a rewarding experience!
*For safety and privacy, the name has been changed.