Letter Writing

In September, I had the opportunity to learn more about Compassion's letter writing process! I found some of the information very helpful and wanted to pass along what I learned.

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Do you ever wonder why it takes so long to receive a response from your sponsored child?

Once you mail your letter to Compassion headquarters, your letter is processed and this can take from one week to one month. You can speed up the processing by making sure to label your letter and all fun extras with your child's name and number and your name and number! If not everything is labeled, it could take your letter a month to leave Compassion's headquarters since the processors will have to label everything.

Then, your letter leaves Compassion and is mailed overseas, where it arrives at the country office. Typically, this is where your letter is translated (unless your child speaks a rare dialect, in which case, your letter might be translated at the project). Translators usually have one to two weeks to translate a batch of letters.

Next, your letter is brought to your child's project--via plane, boat, hand, whatever is necessary! Some children live in very remote locations and this can lengthen the time it takes your letter to arrive into your child's hand.

This whole process can take two to three months! And then the process is repeated in reverse to get your child's letter back to you.

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Do you ever wonder why your child writes almost the same thing every time and doesn't answer your questions?

In some cultures, letter writing is a new concept, even to the adults! And so sometimes even the tutors don't really know where to begin. I learned that for younger children, often times a tutor might write a sample letter on the board and many children will just copy the letter. And sometimes the tutor doesn't change his or her sample letter from month to month, which explains why children can write almost the same thing every time. So be patient with your child and with the tutor!

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Some helpful hints:

* If you don't know what to write about, Compassion has a Letter Writing FAQ!

* Children love the extra paper goodies that can be sent--the guidelines for those are here.

* Try to avoid slang and contractions as translators can have trouble with these.

* In many cultures, expressing a wish to visit is interpreted as a plan to visit.

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And some helpful blog posts:

* 10 Motivating Reasons to Write to Your Child

* More Reasons to Write Your Child

* Are You Ignoring Their Prayers?

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A Letter Writing Idea

Thanks to inspiration via Blogging from the Boonies, I decided to write to our kids about the letter writing process! Here's what I shared:

Dear Earl John,

Greetings in Jesus' name. How are you and your family? We're doing well here, thanks to God!

I wanted to share with you how important your letters are to us! Receiving letters from you reminds me of Proverbs 25:25, "As cold water to a weary soul, so is good news from a far country." Whenever we receive one of your letters we are so excited! Your letters are a treasure to me. I have a book where I save every one! I have your name on the front, then pages of photos of you and then all of your letters. I included photos of the book pages for you to see!

Once your letters arrive to the United States, they go to the state of Colorado. And then the letters are brought by truck from Colorado to my state, Florida. Once in Florida, the letters are loaded on mail trucks and the mail truck goes from house to house. In front of each house, we have a mailbox. The mailman leaves the mail in that box. Juanito enjoys walking to the mailbox with me and opening the box! I also included a photo of a mailbox that looks similar to ours.

How often is mail delivered at your Child Development Center? And how are you told that you have a letter from us? Is your name called or does a staff member deliver it to you? I would love to hear about how you receive letters! And what is your favorite thing to hear from us in our letters?

I love you dearly and I'm praying for you! May God bless you and your family!
Love,
Hannah

Since I wrote online and was able to attach photos, I included three photos. I have binders with letters and photos from each child, so I included two photos of their section of the binder (the following photos are from Jhomary's section). And I also included a generic photo of a mailbox that I found online.

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I hope that this post both inspires you to write and encourages you in your letter writing. And if you have any questions about the letter writing process, please feel free to ask! If I don't know the answer, I'll try to find it for you.