Angeline and Tide

 No, not Tide as in the laundry detergent.


These are two girls' names. And not potential names for Baby Sjaarda, either (we don't know if baby Sjaarda is a girl or a boy--but plan to find out in the next month).

Angeline and Tide are two girls Eric and I have sponsored for the last several years. I started sponsoring Angeline in college, I think. Our sponsorship with Tide started just few years ago as I 'went through' several sponsored kids who aged out or left the program before we got Tide.

Tide

 This is Tidde. She's 19 years old, in grade 12 and lives in a city of 50,000 in Tanzania. Her guardians are an aunt and her grandpa. Her grandpa is unemployed and her aunt is sometimes employed as a bun seller. Their average monthly household income is just over $7.00. Just imagine a difference sponsorship makes in the lives of children in Tanzania!

Angeline

This is Angeline. She's fifteen, in grade 8 and lives in a town of less than 3,000 people on one of the Philippines islands. She likes to sing and is in choir. Her parents are divorced, her father supports her, and her grandparents are her guardians. All of the adults in her life are unemployed.

Karissa

This is me about a year ago. I'm 28 and live with my husband in a beautiful city of several hundred thousand people in the south/midwest. I work part-time as I'm physically able with my growing belly and Braxton Hicks. My husband works full-time and we're pregnant with our first child. Not only are we financially 'stable' but so are all our parents and siblings. I live in a temperature-controlled apartment, with carpet and a stocked fridge and shelves.

I'm telling you all this simply to encourage myself to write to my sponsored kids more often.