Why Sponsorship? Sandy's Testimony
POSTED ON Jan 31, 2012
Sandy made the decision to sponsor Katiuska on a Venture trip last fall, and was overjoyed to get to meet her before she left.
Sandy tried to learn as much as she could about Katiuska in the short time they had together.
Thanks to their translator, Katiuska and Sandy got to know each other a little. Katiuska began calling Sandy her grandmother, and Sandy was thrilled.
Ten-year-old Katiuska dreamed of one day having a sponsor. As an unsponsored child in Children of the Nations’ (COTN) Village Partnership Program in Don Bosco, Dominican Republic, Katiuska received all the same benefits as the other sponsored children, but she knew something was missing. She longed to write letters to someone and to get letters back. She longed to have a name, and maybe even a photo of a face, to pray for, and to know she was being prayed for by someone far away—someone who loved her and sacrificed a small amount on her behalf.
Katiuska's dreams came true last November. At the same time that she was hoping for a sponsor, a COTN Venture participant was arriving in the Dominican Republic for the first time. Sandy Anderson was considering sponsorship before her trip, but hadn’t made the commitment yet. Then, after visiting COTN’s ministry sites and serving as a volunteer writer in the Dominican Republic and Haiti, she was convinced to invest in a child's life through COTN. "Every day I was there I saw other people with their sponsored children—how they interacted," she says. "When I saw other people with children they had sponsored since they were very young, and how that relationship had developed, I really started wanting to be a part of a child's life in that way."
Sandy wasted no time—while she was still in the Dominican Republic, she marched up to COTN's Dominican sponsorship coordinator and asked him for a child to sponsor right away. Her fast decision meant that Sandy had a chance to meet her newly-sponsored child before she returned to the United States.
The morning she was to meet Katiuska, Sandy could hardly contain her excitement. "It's like adopting a child—I love her already," she said, in anticipation of the moment they would meet. When Sandy's translator brought out a slightly shy, but smiling Katiuska, Sandy's whole face lit up. "That's her," she said to herself.
In the next fifteen minutes, Sandy set about learning as much as she could about the new child in her life. "My favorite food is spaghetti, and my favorite Bible story is Noah's ark," Katiuska shared, still feeling shy from the surprise of learning she had a sponsor, and getting to meet that sponsor, all in the same day. But soon Katiuska warmed up. When it came time for Sandy to leave, Katiuska had moved up close to Sandy, and put her arm around her. "Gracias, abuela," she said in Spanish. "Thank you, grandmother."
Sandy is overjoyed to know Katiuska considers her a grandmother. It reminds her of a time when her own grandchildren were young. "I love being a grandmother, and I didn't have any little grandchildren any more. Now I do!" But Sandy knows she now has the responsibility of living up to this role as grandmother. "It will be a bit of a challenge," she reflects. "It's one thing to send money, but it's another thing to have a little person in your life."
Sandy feels privileged to have had the time and resources to travel and meet her sponsored child. For her, it has made an enormous difference in what sponsorship means. “I wish every sponsor could not only see their child, but see their community, the streets they walk on,” Sandy reflects. “To know for sure that through COTN's care they are getting enough to eat, and that their lives are being changed.”
For those of us who cannot make the trip to meet a child, we can trust Sandy's witness and read some of the beautiful stories she wrote on her trip, about other children and how their lives have been transformed through sponsorship.
Many unsponsored children like Katiuska are still waiting for sponsors! Sponsor a child today.
If you already sponsor a child, find out how you can be a bigger part of that child's life, by writing a letter or visiting a country.