postman came calling

I have a sponsored child.

There was an excellent article in the last week's monthly supplement of Helsingin Sanomat about a reporter, who had gotten a cow as a x'mas present. The cow in question was donated to a family in Uganda through the World Vision organisation and the reporter had travelled there to see how his cow was received. He managed to convince me that one cow truly made a huge difference to a family down there, so I did some useful surfing for once and went to see how much donating a cow would cost.

I didn't buy a cow in the end, but decided to become a sponsor through World Vision instead. I was a little hesitant about World Vision, since they are a Christian organisation and on their english website you can't avoid noticing that. For obvious reasons I don't want to promote converting people. The Finnish site on the other hand emphasised that they are a charity organisation, not a missionary one, and I decided to take their word for it.

I got a package from them today.

And so now I have a sponsored child. Her name is Sheila, she is seven years old and from Kenya. In the picture she doesn't have any hair, but she is very beautiful. She smiles like Mona Lisa, as if she knew all the secrets of the world.

Beautiful child.