Dear Juniu,

Hello from America! We’ve had a very busy week taking the kids to the beach on spring break so I’m just now getting around to writing this letter to you. Once your school is done being built and your parents have enough money to take you somewhere I’m sure you’ll understand exactly how busy all these trips can keep you!

Unfortunately, the real reason for this letter is that I have some bad news. You see, some people you don’t even know decided to make a change in who they allow to work for them and then a couple days later they changed it back to the way it was before. I’m still unhappy about it, though, and so is my wife and so are our twins who are your age (which is why we picked you in the first place) so in order to punish those people you’ve never met for their bad decision we’re going to have to stop being your sponsors.

I don’t want you to worry about the effect this decision is having on our kids because we’re going to start sponsoring another little boy in Uganda where all the companies have really good hiring policies and they’ll have a new friend to write letters to. You don’t have to feel bad that we’re dropping you but if you do remember that a lot of other kids are going to be losing their sponsors too (you may even know some of them!) so know that this isn’t personal and it’s really just the right thing to do. I mean 10,000 other American Christians are dropping support for their kids too so we can’t all be wrong, right?

We’ve definitely enjoyed sending you letters and care packages — the pictures of you smiling at your birthday have been some of our favorites. Along with this letter you’ll find one last gift, a book by a man named Mark Driscoll on how to have a great biblical and traditional Christian marriage even though you’re a Buddhist. You may want to wait until you’re a little older to read it because it’s got some grown up stuff in it and it’s unfortunately not available in your language but I’m sure that you’ll learn English once that school gets built by whomever is still giving money to your area.

I truly hope you find a place to stay and have plenty to eat — you’ll just need to get them from somebody else now. You may be sad but it’s making Jesus happy that really counts.

Love in Christ,

Your Sponsor

I know I’m probably going to be accused of turning SFL completely off-topic and making it a platform for my own loudmouthed crusade but I’ve walked around for the last few days with such a heavy heart about this situation that I couldn’t help but say something more. Hopefully I’ll be able to move past it now. Lord knows, there’s a lot of healing that needs to be done in so many different places.