Meet Joyce

This is Neumbe Joyce. She is 13 years old and lives in the Kaptololwo Village of Uganda. She just recently started the 7th grade. Joyce lives with her uncle and several of his children. We're not sure what happened to her biological parents, but because there is a high rate of HIV, pneumonia, and malaria in this area, we imagine that it's something like this that took them from her. Joyce has a lot of responsibility around the house. She does things like gardening & farming, gathering firewood and carrying water. And even though these are not typical responsibilities of a 13-year old as we know them, she is a typical 13-year old in many ways. She has some trouble with certain subjects in school, loves to read, and swim, and listen to music.

Ryan and I have been blessed to sponsor Joyce through Compassion International. The sponsorship allows Joyce to attend the local Compassion Child Development Center where she receives Bible teaching, health screening, health education, games, nutritious food, physical exercises and academic support.

We are just as blessed by our relationship with Joyce as we hope that she is. We receive letters and pictures from her 4 times a year, and we are able to write her letters and send her pictures as much as we want! I have a soft heart for children in need like Joyce, so getting her letters is wonderful and difficult all at the same time. Sometimes I just sit and cry after receiving her letter, wishing that we could do more for her.

We love hearing about her culture, and we love telling her in return about what is going on in our lives. In a recent letter, she told us about all of the crops that they were planting that time of year. Then she asked us what we were planting! It's difficult to explain that we get our food from a grocery store to someone in such a different culture. Talk about feeling lazy!

Joyce's first language is not English, however, she has learned to speak and write English very well. Many of the sponsored kids' letters are translated by a Compassion worker, but because she is older and fluent in English, we are blessed to receive letters actually written by her.

Here is Joyce drinking a soda that she bought 

with a portion of the Christmas money we sent to her!

Most importantly, as sponsors of Joyce, we get to tell her how much she is loved, and how much God loves her. We get to encourage her in her relationship with Jesus Christ and tell her about our relationship with the Lord. In each of her letters, she includes a memory verse from the Bible and asks us to pray for specific things.

We hope that one day we can actually go to Uganda to meet her in person. She asks us in every single letter when we are coming to visit! Haha. We finally had to tell her in a letter that it was very expensive, but that we hoped one day we could come see her.

I don't share this story so that Ryan and I can get a pat on the back. I want to share about her because we are so blessed by our relationship with her, and we're so proud of her too! So if you think about her, we would appreciate your extra prayers for her. I love being able to tell her that our friends & family read her letters, look at her pictures, and pray for her as well.

If you are interested in sponsoring a child like Joyce, you can go to www.compassion.com. Compassion has sponsorship programs in many different areas. You can search for a child by country, age, gender, and even birthday! I promise it will be just as much of a blessing to you as it is to the child in need.