Esaru Joel

I was talking with Amoding Cecilia a couple weeks ago. She's this beautiful, talented, brilliant 15 year old girl who's friendly and outgoing. I was walking back to the mission wit her and one of the girls I sponsor, Agiro Diana. I don't know why I hadn't said anything about it yet, but I hadn't really told anyone that Kati was coming to visit me.

So as we were walking, Cecilia asked me if I knew when Kati would be coming to visit again. I gave her a smile and said that Kati was actually coming to visit in just over a week and that she'd be staying in the village for about five days. Cecilia's face lit up and she clapped her hands in excitement, "She's really going to come?! You know, for us, your sponsor is like your mom or your dad." Diana shared in Cecilia's excitement and added, "When we hear one of you is coming to visit, we all get so excited. We really love our sponsors so much!" We kept walking as Cecilia added a happy bounce to her step and continued to ask me details about Kati's trip.



This is Esaru Joel. He's a sweet but quiet 14 year old boy who I see almost every day but is a little too shy to ever come up to me. He has a younger brother (Ongwara Aaron) and a 17 year old sister who goes to school in Soroti. Their father died about five years ago in Jinja so he and his brother live with just their mother. Their mom currently sells bread at the center of the village - what little money is left after her daughter's school fees, she uses to care for her two other children.

Joel is unfortunately one of our little peanuts in the program, he's right around the 5th percentile for his age group, so please pray that Jesus would put some meat on his bones. Joel is also unfortunately one of the children at our carepoint who does not have a sponsor yet. I would so love for Joel to have that same excitement and joy that Cecilia and Diana talked about that comes with having a sponsor, that even if that sponsor never gets the chance to visit, there's someone who loves them, supports them, and prays for them, who gives them a reason to work a little harder in school.

If you ate in instead of going out to eat a couple times or if you decided not to get that one new shirt, you could be the one to show Joel that you care about him. If you can give $35/month, then I'd really love for you to be the one. Please let me know if this is something you'd be interested in and I would love to help you get started.

Love you all!
Caitlin