Sweet Greetings from Peru and Ecaudor

Happy Mail Call Monday!

It feels like letters have been so slow lately. It's a little discouraging. With 70 sponsor and correspondence kids, many of whom joined our family about five months ago, it's a little surprising to not have more letters coming in during the week- and the Kenya kids are due for letters this week, too! I'm hoping that more will be arriving as the week goes on. Letters are a huge encouragement to me, and it would be nice to have some of that this week. 

I am happy that we did at least hear from two of our kids since my last post, though. The day after I shared about Carlos' letter, we heard from Mishel in Peru. 

Mishel always writes lots of answers to my questions, but the answers are usually pretty short and I don't always know which questions they go with. :) But I did learn that she has dogs, cats, chickens, and turkeys. Her mom makes pachamanca for Christmas dinner, which is a dish she has mentioned before- really, it's more of a cooking method, and involves cooking lots of different ingredients in a stone oven in the ground! Mishel also said that she's never seen a tapir before, but she really likes giraffes. I am going to write her a letter about giraffes soon! She closed by saying she likes all the letters, stickers, and notebooks I send, and she is sending me "a big hug and many kisses."

On Saturday, I checked the mailbox and found a long-awaited letter from Erick inside. 

I've heard from several sponsors that letters seem a little slow getting out of Ecuador lately. When we got Erick as a correspondent, he wrote a few letters in a short period of time, and then we didn't hear from him for 6 months. In fact, the day that I emailed about an inquiry, I heard back that a letter from him had arrived at the Colorado office that very morning. I hope that everything is going OK at the country office level and that they are able to get back into the groove of things soon. 

Erick's letter was a form letter about his family. I learned that his dad's name is Cesar and his mom's name is Monica. They live in a rural area and Erick has a four year old brother (one year younger than he is) named Dilan. Erick also shared that he was able to buy a mattress with a recent financial gift. That's great!