Do you remember receiving your first letter?  Do you remember holding it and seeing your name printed on the front of the envelope?  Then carefully opening it, sliding out the contents, and asking your mom or dad to read it to you?  Do you remember the anticipation, the excitement?  Someone actually sent you a letter!

That’s the same excitement a sponsored woman or girl in Malawi experiences when they receive correspondence from their sponsor in the USA.  The Y-Malawi program is different.  Sponsors get updates on their woman or girl by email each quarter.  They always include a message to the sponsor.  Then to communicate back the sponsor just replies to the message.  Field Officers in Malawi print out the message, even photos that are included, and hand deliver them to the woman or girl.  They even read the message as many don’t read or speak English.

It’s a great way to develop a relationship, and it puts a smile on faces both in Malawi and in the USA.  In Malawi these letters are treasured gifts.  They often end up pinned to a wall in the house.  They are shown all over the village to anyone and everyone.  We have even heard that some sleep with the letter under their pillow.  In the USA, the emails end up pasted on refrigerators, put into a scrapbook, or shared at Bible studies.

Even more importantly, these emails and letters are reminders to pray for each other.  Hundreds in Malawi are praying everyday for their sponsors in America.  Sponsors are responding by praying for individuals and families in Malawi.  Y-Malawi’s program to empower women and girls in Malawi is changing lives, but not just in Malawi.  A recent sponsor letter to her sponsored included these words, “I have been blessed to be your sponsor and hearing from you has enriched my life in ways you cannot imagine.”

Not empowering someone yet?  Learn more by clicking on of the photos below.