Family Takes Initiative, Sponsors Foreign Child
Throughout the world and even in this country, young children suffer from poverty or live on the streets — homeless and without proper shelter.
To help lessen the amount of damage poverty is having on this world, people such as senior Austin Simpson and his family sponsor children, sending them funds monthly to help support them as they grow.
“There was a group called One Life Matters that came to our church five years ago. We were very impressed with their program because 90 percent of the money goes to the child. We felt compelled to sponsor a child, so I raised my hand and they gave me a packet,” Austin’s father, Kevin Simpson said.
Since that day in 2011, the Simpson family has been sponsoring 9-year-old Mapalo Mahleka, who was four at the time. Through the funds that the Simpson family send him, Mahleka is able to lead a better life than most children in his situation.
“The funds we provide him enables him to attend school and have a warm meal each day, ” Kevin said.
Not only do sponsor families have the opportunity to give money to help a child, but as they continuously support their children, they are able to grow closer to them, even though in most cases the child lives thousands of miles away. Many families exchange letters with their sponsor children and are able to watch them grow and benefit from the money sent to them.
“I get a new picture of him every year and exchange letters as well. He wants to be a godly man and a police officer when he grows up. He is a very handsome African boy,” Kevin said. “Watching him grow up through pictures and writing a few times per year has been special. I have a picture of him on my desk at the office.”
The Simpson family hopes to eventually take letter writing to an entirely different level, by actually traveling to visit Mahleka in his home. Kevin feels that being able to see Mahleka in the flesh will be a life-altering experience for not only himself, but for his family and Mahleka as well.
“This year our church is now taking a group of the sponsors to visit the child or children they have been sponsoring. I’m looking forward to getting to see him possibly next year,” Kevin said. “I’m sure it will be a life-changing experience when we are able to visit him. Who knows, we may even invite him to visit the USA someday when he is older.”
Sponsoring Mahleka the past five years has been an eye-opening experience for each member of the Simpson family. As they have given the money, they have grown to understand the importance of helping those in need and see the positive impact they can have on a person’s life, even from thousands of miles away.
“I think they felt like [others should sponsor children] because there are many people that aren’t as fortunate as us in the United States so they wanted to help out how they could to make at least one person’s life better,” Austin said. “This has made me want to better other people’s lives in any way I can because everyone deserves it.”