The Importance of Names

At the very beginning of my journey into child sponsorship I wondered what it was like for these children living in poverty to have nothing to call their own and to have few or no people to look out for them.

I read stories on Compassion’s blog where poverty was the devil’s lie that made them feel worthless and it really just broke my heart.

Could my sponsored child be feeling worthless? Does my child spend her days feeling like nobody cares, nobody wants her, and that she is alone in this world? What could I do to help her besides prayer, letters, monthly sponsorship payments, and family gifts?

I thought really hard about it and decided that if she has nothing then I will send her something (letters) with her name on it in bold giant letters so she would see that I thought she was important enough to put her very special name on these mini pieces of art I made.

I wanted the card to shout, “This is for you, Felicia! And nobody else. Just you, because I think you’re that special. Yes, you are somebody special and important to me.”

There’s just something about the importance of names that made me feel like this would work. Like how people love to get things “personalized” – things printed with their names. To have a name is to not be a nobody.

This post was inspired by Compassion’s post on the importance of names and I have finally gotten around to rounding up pictures of some of the cards I have made since 2011.

I believe this was the very first card I made for my sponsored child, Feli.

I also tried to include “I love you” a lot on the cards and in the messages. She eventually switched from writing it back in Indonesian to writing it back in English – so cute.

I made this card for my (former) older sponsored child, Lina.

Here’s the inside of the card, meant to inspire her and make her feel special (as is the aim with all my cards). The words are based on the word search I made here.

It makes me smile to think about the smile of an 11-year-old as she reads this message.

This reads “Justine loves Felicia” in Indonesian, which I learned how to write from Feli’s letters to me.

A name pop-up card I hope she found to be totally awesome, ‘cuz I sure did!

An “under the sea” theme card with the focus on Felicia.

The card on the right is actually a birthday card glued on top of a larger homemade card.

Cards made for my mom’s sponsored child.

An animal-themed card I made for my mom’s sponsored child again. The name is cut from leftover party streamer. It had an awesome texture!

A cool card my friend made for his sponsored child. Very artsy and I love the heads on paper bodies. Why didn’t I think of that?

For this card I used real cotton balls for the cloud and wrapped the whole card in clear packing tape.