Honoring a memory

Last week Mark and I were struggling to come up with a way to honor the memory of Bryan for the boys in a meaningful way.  We knew they wouldn't care about flowers, and a simple donation to a church or charity just didn't seem to be the thing to do.

For years we have sponsored children through Compassion International.  We've sponsored kids from different countries, with different backgrounds and ages.  Some were in the program for a very short time.  Others much longer.  Our very first sponsored child was Fiorella.  We started sponsoring her when she was 4 years old.  She has now grown up, graduated and is off to university (she wants to be a vet).  Our other long-term sponsorships had also aged out this year, so for the first time in 14 years we weren't sponsoring a child.  

I logged in to the Compassion website to get the instructions for writing a goodbye letter and wandered over to the "available children" link and searched for children with special needs.  In the first row of available kids to sponsor was a young boy in the Dominican Republic.  His name was Bryan.  I burst into tears thankful for this sign from God.  I contacted Mark to share the idea with him and he said to do it.  Sponsorship is not much, only $38 a month.  But, Bryan was 4, so we were looking at a commitment of 14 years if we took him on.  But, I felt this was the thing to do, so we sponsored him.

On the day of Bryan's service we presented both the boys with a certificate of sponsorship for little Bryan and explained what we had done.  It is our way to continue the spirit of their Dad in a positive way.  I think they both liked it.  

So now I'm thinking about this for others we love and miss.  I searched Lazaro (Mark's Dad) and Kenneth (my Dad).  All these beautiful faces popped up.  I may need to select one for each of our Dad's to honor them too.   In the meantime, welcome to our family Bryan.  We are looking forward to watching you grow.