Recently, in preparation for a letter writing party and
while talking with a new sponsor, I have been searching for resources to help
with building a relationship with your sponsored child via letters. My husband
and I are hosting our second letter writing party! We hosted our first in July
and it was so fun to join with other sponsors and to help provide inspiration
and fun extras to send in the letters. It was so much fun that we’re doing our
second one this month and then we plan to do it every-other month in the new
year (instead of having one in November, we are going to host a shoebox packing
party for Operation Christmas Child .
I wanted to collect information to help sponsors write
meaningful letters in order to build a relationship. So I was looking through
my lists of resources and saved blogs and found some things that I thought I’d
share with the Compassion Family also! Most of these resources are older, but I
still find them so helpful!
First of all, Compassion’s Blog has some
wonderful letter writing prompts! If you are ever at a loss for what to write,
I would work down these prompts for ideas. I love Compassion encourages us to
share about our lives and to encourage our kids in their walks with God.
I also have found Kim’s blog, Three Little Larks,
to be full of helpful ideas and information! Check out her Kim’s Compassion page for tons of resources! She has so many ideas for fun extras to include in
your letters.
And finally, if you are writing to younger children, I
encourage you to check out the blog Connected: Writing to Kids Around the World.
Svea has some wonderful tips for writing to younger children and she even
created some simple templates! Although Compassion’s prompts are wonderful,
sometimes I feel like they are a little advanced for the little ones. Svea made
some very simple templates for corresponding with young kids! Her two posts
are: Form Letters for Younger Correspondence/Sponsor Kids and Tell Your Younger Sponsor Child About Yourself (Form Letters Included).
I hope you find these resources as helpful as I have! Even
though I have been writing over 15 years, I find these ideas so inspiring. It
helps me from falling into a letter writing rut! God bless you in building a
relationship with your child!
About Hannah Hinojosa...Hannah is a long time Compassion sponsor and writes about her sponsorship journey at Because of Shamim. In addition to being a wife and mother, she is a part-time math professor and loves to read.
