Love beyond the grave: Lelia continues the family tradition of sponsorship

Lelia holds up photos of Oumou (right), the young woman her parents sponsored as a child, and Fanta (left), Oumou’s daughter – whom Lelia now sponsors.

Two photos, two women. One of them is a young mother and talented seamstress from Guinea, a small country in West Africa. The other is a grandmother and seasoned traveler from a suburb near Atlanta. But according to Lelia, a longtime ChildFund sponsor, she and Oumou share an important childhood experience: They were both raised with the tender love and care of Bob and Jean Hamilton. 

“My parents sponsored Oumou since she was about 4 or 5 years old,” Lelia recalls. “They just loved her.” Lelia wasn’t surprised by their devotion to a little girl they had never met; growing up, she says her mom and dad were people of great faith, the kind of people who spread kindness and joy to others at every opportunity, regardless of what they might receive in return.

Bob and Jean Hamilton.

Over the years, the two families corresponded frequently, sending gifts for birthdays and holidays. As Bob and Jean got older and Oumou grew into a young woman, their lives became deeply intertwined. 

Then, in 2015, Jean passed away at the age of 84. Bob fell ill not long after. But he couldn’t leave the earth without knowing that Oumou would continue to be supported by their family. Lelia remembers helping to arrange a wedding gift for Oumou while managing her dad’s final affairs.

“About six months before my dad died, he asked me if I would continue to sponsor Oumou,” Lelia says. When he passed away, she made the phone call to have the sponsorship transferred to her name – continuing the Hamiltons’ relationship with Oumou and her family into the next generation and passing on her parents’ legacy of love.

An intergenerational connection

At that time, Oumou was 18 years old – officially a grown woman. The process of getting to know each other was sweet, new but also a little bit familiar. “I made copies of all my letters I sent her that first year,” Lelia says. “I travel a lot. So when I would go places, I would pick up postcards and send them to her so she could see different parts of the world.” Lelia sent monetary gifts, and Oumou sent handsewn trinkets: a little purse, a set of doll clothes. The two also swapped family photos. Oumou got to see pictures of Lelia’s daughter and 7-year-old grandson, and Lelia got to see pictures of Oumou’s baby daughter, Fanta. 

Then, in April 2020 – just after the COVID-19 pandemic swept over the world – Lelia got a letter in the mail saying that Oumou would soon graduate from the ChildFund program.

Lelia felt reluctant for their relationship to end. After all, she says, “the person doing the sponsoring is the one that gets the biggest blessing.” She picked up the phone again and asked if she could sponsor a new child: Fanta, Oumou’s daughter.

It wasn’t a typical request, and some strings had to be pulled. “They had to enroll her in the program,” Lelia laughs. “But we got her enrolled!”

‘As long as I’m alive’

Today, Lelia still writes to Oumou. “I just got a letter on Friday saying that she had gotten the Christmas money and that she had bought some new shoes and clothes and food for her family,” Lelia says. Little Fanta is now 4 years old, the same age that Oumou was when Lelia’s parents first sponsored her.

Lelia credits her parents with beginning this connection that has come to mean so much to her. Somehow, in supporting Oumou’s family, Lelia finds a way to connect with her mom and dad too.

“You just don’t realize until your parents are gone how much influence they really have,” says Lelia, smiling reminiscently. “We miss them, but that’s why you have to love on people while you’ve got them here.”

As for Oumou and Fanta, they continue to stay connected to all the opportunities that sponsorship provides.

“I don’t know what her family may have done if the sponsorship had stopped,” Lelia says. “But I plan to sponsor Fanta as long as I’m alive.

“I’m just hoping that it makes a real difference in their lives and that they can have a better quality of life. It would be important to my parents that I continue doing this for them and for this family. They wanted them to know that their love went beyond the grave.”