Compassion Family: Hondy in the Dominican Republic

Hondy

March 27. 1998

Hondy started out as one of our correspondent children in late 2007/early 2008. Our first letter from him was dated January 25, 2008. Somewhere along the way (I can't remember exactly when), his financial sponsor dropped and we were able to pick up his sponsorship. During our correspondence/sponsorship of Hondy, we received 47 letters from Hondy. He completed his time in Compassion's programs in March of 2019. His final letter indicated that he was studying accounting in a local university and was employed selling purified water.

He lives in the eastern part of Dominican Republic with his mother (Yajaida Altagracia), step-father (Marcos Ramirez) and two siblings yodaris Madrid and Joan de Jesus).

In one of his first letters Hondy told us that his mother had a baby in January 2008, but sadly the baby died 19 days later.

Miscellaneous info from letters:

Bible hero - David
real life hero - mom
favorite month - March (because of his birthday)
likes baseball, soccer and basketball
favorite foods - rice and beans, fried chicken, fried potato
sleeps with mosquito net
attends Compassion project 3x week
threw his teeth on the roof when they fell out
hometown is historic - was the first to be independent in national independence
May 2017 - going to attend college to study accounting
visits grandmother over summer vacation
likes to memorize Scripture verse for competitions held at Compassion center

Used extra $ from gifts for the following:

pants, socks, sandals, underwear, pencil set, trousers, t-shirts, polo shirts
In 2010 we were able to send a gift bag to Hondy - ball, soap, t-shirt, crayons, photo album (in one letter to us he mentioned asking his mom for an album to put all the stickers and letters we were sending him)
pants and slippers
backpack, tennis shoes and t-shirt

letter highlights:

"I want to tell you about the hero in my life. It is my mom because she works to feed me and my siblings and she is hardworking, brave and gives us too much love. "

"Thanks for the letters because I liked them a lot, as well as the verses that are in it, which give me and my friends from the center a lot of learning, and they like your letters a lot. Thanks! Thanks for being my sponsors."

"I get very excited every time I read your letters, since I know I have another family in another country and they worry about me. Sometimes I imagine what the day in which we meet each other will be like. We will talk about so many things and will laugh. I know it will be very special if it happens. I'm going to pray so that this happens."

"I'm happy and very grateful to God for having helped me finish high school, and I'm planning to enter college very soon now. My family is very happy for my achievement and because a new member will come to our family soon, and it's a baby girl my mother is expecting." - (August 2016)