Laurie's Everyday Notions

Are you skeptical of sponsoring a child from some far off land?  I get that. I work very hard for my money and the money I do have is stretched very thin some months as I try to make the house payment, pay the bills and feed my family. Some may argue that the $35 sent each month to a sponsored child isn't much but some months, when the bills are piling in and unexpected expenses such as a chipped tooth needs to be extracted by an oral surgeon (yep, this happened this month), an extra $35 seems hard to come by.  Yet as I look at the extras that I seem to manage to add each month - you know, ice cream, movie rentals, and coffee - isn't investing in the life of a child so much more important than the extras. I can live without a trip to Dairy Queen for my favorite banana split blizzard because I've seen hunger.  Are you afraid that the child that you are sponsoring isn't a real live human being?  I got to meet my sponsored child last month  and I can te...

It's been just over three weeks since I returned from Guatemala. Three weeks and I'm still processing that trip. In returning to the normal, everyday grind I forget. I forget the little girl whose front yard is littered with broken glass and cast away shoes and a burning pile of rubbish.  I forget the little girl whose meals show  up three times a week , served by pale skinned people with a funny language. I forget the little girl whose home is made of a dirt floor and walls made of sticks and found objects. I start to forget all that my eyes witnessed, all that I loved. I start to forget how she, this country and her people, changed me. So I visit the pictures often to remember. And as the tears fall I remember the laughter of the children. I remember that there is no language barrier when cuddling a child. I remember that I needed Guatemala more that Guatemala needed me. And my heart aches and longs to return. Sharing over at Jennifer Peterson's, No Words are Ne...