Letter Quotes: Rwanda, DRC, and a sponsor

Rwanda:

“I was so pleased with your support in that whenever I think about you, I look at it and kiss it. This makes me so happy. Thierry also knows that he has a person who loves him and sent him birds; he always tells me that we should come to visit you, but I tell him that it’s not possible and show him the picture.” —Jeanne Marie

“What one can say is that about the genocide effects; am an orphan and lost almost all my relatives. What hurts me the most is that I didn’t have any chance to go to school like other children. Because the one who could have taken care of me wasn’t there; and this brings me great sorrow. But now we are living in total peace and security and unity with people who killed our families.” —Olive

“Embrey I love you soooo much!!!! Because you improved my life from deep poverty and now am doing well, and my children have enough they need for school; they have no problem; they have uniform, books, pens and shoes, they have no problem. Even the one who is in high school, we are looking for his needs and soon we shall get them, no problem. This is all because of you Embrey!” —Donatha

“I am very thankful for what you have sending, on another hand I was very sad when I learnt that you don’t have a child, if that was God’s plan there is nothing else you can do about it. I thought that if would be possible I would give you one of my children, and you stay with her, so that when you come back home you find someone at home, when you go for work you leave someone at home. But again where shall we meet and talk about it?” —Fatuma

DRC:

“I’d like to tell you that there were many things that I learned and which is too interesting for me, such as women’s rights and DRC constitution; I didn’t know that a woman can speak in front of many people, that she has the right of being educated as a man.” —Jeanne

From a sponsor:

“I am so happy to get your letter…. I am ashamed that I did not send you letters. In the past month I have had some troubles—I lost my job and I had to move away from the town where I lived, and away from my family…. I thought of you many times when I was afraid and lonely. I thought: Noella has troubles too, and she has the courage to face them. I can do the same. So you have helped me, even though you are far away and we have never met.” —Nichelle

A message to Women for Women International from a Sponsor – Ljubica Petruc

Hello,

Thank you so much for this (and other updates) email. As I read your email my eyes became teary because I feel so blessed to be living in the USA, have a good job (and will continue to be employed inspite our bad economy), and for choosing to give small part of my salary to a total stranger across the world. It made me so happy to hear that Helene Musafiri will be graduating and hopefully will have a better life thanks to our help. I wish her nothing but the BEST in life!

I am looking forward to assisting another sister.

Sincerely,

Ljubica Petruc RN (Registered Nurse)

Sponsor Letter: “It has been an amazing journey”

Hi,

One of the first women I sponsored was from Kosovo. Because we didn’t have translation services after that year, our contact was minimal but this woman had amazing persistence and a will to stay connected. Sometimes I would get a letter, none of which I could understand. But, I still felt the connection and it reassured me that she was ok. Sometimes I got an email that just had a flower or happy face icon. There are no words for how touched I was with her efforts to reach out. But then an amazing thing happened and she somehow became connected with another Albanian who was doing a doctoral research project in England and agreed to intercept and translate our letters.

It has been an amazing journey to really be able to communicate; to find out that my sister has married, risen from poverty and had a baby! She now sends me pictures of her sweet baby!! This year she sent me a Christmas present. It was the most touching gift ever. She sent a pair of socks her mother had knit for her baby daughter, along with an identical pair which her mother knitted for me! I hung the baby socks on my Christmas tree and will do so each year as I hold them dear in my heart.

Nancy Oyloe

The Power of Letters

“I like to think that each and every letter has ‘wings’ attached and flies into one another’s hearts. It is a vital program and you are to be praised for putting enormous effort into this part of your WFW program. Truly I commend you.”

–Sharon of Maryland