Cows and our little Tewabech

This is our World Vision child, Tewabech Teketel.

This is the dress we bought for Tewabech and we also bought one for Tiz.

Tewabech Teketel is the little girl we sponsor through World Vision in Ethiopia. When you choose to sponsor a child, you can go through pictures and choose a child based on any preferences you may have. You can also choose the country where your child lives. Well, for us, the country was a given. We chose Ethiopia because of Tizita, but it took some looking to find just the right child for us.

We finally chose Tewabech because her birthday is one day before Tizita's so we figured as we watched Tiz grow up and meet milestones, we would know exactly what Tewabech was doing.

As a sponsor we send $35.00 a month which goes a long way to help Tewabech, her mom, dad, two sisters and a brother. We can also send letters and small presents as long as they fit into a padded 9 by 6 envelope. We have sent her two dresses and we bought Tiz a matching dress like the last one. We actually then sent a picture of Tiz in the dress> (It is the picture at the top) We have sent little books, stickers, toothpaste and brush, tablets, a pencil sharpener and pencils, cards, and most recently we sent four necklace kits so each of her siblings could make a necklace. We had also sent three little purses for the girls and a beach ball for her brother. I do a lot of shopping at the Dollar Tree and the dollar aisle at Target and Joanne's. I know those are cheap little trinkets to us, but I am guessing they are treasures to Tewabech and her family.

I have also been sending photo albums, the little dollar ones that hold about 30 photos and then I send pictures of our family, my preschoolers, and of course, Tizita. Well, in the last package, I sent some photos of the animals at the farm we visited on our field trip. There were some pictures of bunnies, chicks, pigs, horses, and cows. We just got a letter from her dad today and he said that Tewabech was so interested in the cows. He said they are different from their cows. It made me feel so good that something so simple like cows is bringing us together on some common ground.

A number of sponsors actually visit their children. I don't see that happening any time soon for us but Courtney and Paul will visit Ethiopia in the years to come and maybe they can arrange a meeting. How cool would that be and just think of the things I could pack up and send along with them. And you never know, maybe John and I will get there one day. In the meantime we will continue to build bridges between two very different cultures with some cows.