By Jake Lyell, Sr. Content Producer for ChildFund

Sarah sponsors 23 children through ChildFund.

Yes, 23.

She would probably prefer that we not make a big deal about that. In fact, when Sarah recently visited ChildFund’s office, she was reluctant even to say how many children she has sponsored over the years.

“My concern with that is it instantly becomes about me,” she says. “And the focus to me needs to be on the programs and the kids.”

And perhaps that explains how someone ends up sponsoring 23 children in the first place.

Sarah’s connection to ChildFund began long before she became a sponsor herself. Her father began sponsoring through what was then Christian Children’s Fund in 1967. Growing up, Sarah always knew there was a child in another country her family was helping through sponsorship.

When she began her own career in the military, Sarah had the opportunity to become a sponsor herself. She started in the mid-1990s and has been sponsoring ever since.

For Sarah, however, sponsorship has never meant simply sending a monthly contribution.

Letters matter. Photographs matter. And whenever possible, meeting the children and families matters.

I first met Sarah nine years ago in Timor-Leste, where I was traveling for ChildFund and she had come to visit two of her sponsored children. We got to know each other during that trip, and in the years since, I’ve watched her continue to build relationships with sponsored children and families around the world.

As Sarah approached retirement from the military, she kept a small photo book of her sponsored children on her desk. One day, a colleague suggested she should go visit all of them.

Sarah thought the idea was ridiculous.

“They’re all over the world,” she remembers thinking. “Some of these countries are not exactly tourist countries. I wouldn’t even know how to get there. That’s a silly idea.”

About a year later, however, she had “an absolutely brilliant idea”: She would go visit all those kids.

She has since met most of the children she sponsors and hopes to visit the rest in the coming years.

One of those visits produced a moment Sarah still remembers.

The 3-year-old sister of a sponsored child was wary of the stranger who had suddenly appeared. She stayed close to her mother while Sarah talked with the family.

Then the interpreter burst out laughing.

The little girl had looked at her mother and announced: “She is real!”

“She had decided that I was in fact the person who had been sending hugs in all of the letters,” Sarah remembers.

For the little girl, the person behind those letters had suddenly become real.

Walking a little farther

Over the years, Sarah has found ways to walk alongside some families beyond her regular sponsorship. As her sponsored children come of age, she generally helps cover the cost of college or vocational training, depending on the path each young person wants to pursue.

In Brazil, Sarah remembers sitting down with one sponsored family and talking about what they hoped for their children. Today, their daughter Leticia is nearing her college graduation to become a physical therapist.

“It’s fabulous now to have seen that basically all come to fruition,” Sarah says.

What that support looks like is different for every family. Sarah has helped a family in Ecuador build a new home. In Indonesia, she helped a family purchase a fishing boat. In Mozambique, she helped another establish a small street shop to earn an income.

Sarah visits a family in India.

Several years after meeting Sarah, while traveling for ChildFund in Ecuador, I unexpectedly came across her again — or at least her name. Outside a church in a small town, I noticed a tree with a plaque beneath it:

“In honor of a dedicated sponsor, Sarah.”

She wasn’t there. I hadn’t gone looking for it. I just happened upon it.

But somehow, thousands of miles from her home, there she was.

“I can do for one”

Sarah doesn’t think other sponsors need to sponsor 23 children, travel around the world or provide additional financial support to make their relationship meaningful.

The scale of poverty and hunger can sometimes make an individual feel powerless, she says.

“I personally am probably never going to fix world hunger,” Sarah says. “That is not something that is going to happen. That’s just not how this works, but I can do for one.”

One child. One family. One relationship.

And when asked what she would say to a sponsor who cannot afford to give anything beyond their regular sponsorship, Sarah’s answer is emphatic.

“It’s not about the money,” she says. “Sponsorship at its core is relational and about developing a relationship with that child and their family.

“If that is the only thing that is possible, don’t give up on that,” she says. “Dive into that. Write more often. Use the digital communication tools that ChildFund makes available and send pictures. Let them into your life the way they let you into their lives.”

After nearly three decades as a ChildFund sponsor, Sarah has watched children she first knew through photographs and letters grow up. Some have gone to university. Some are beginning careers. Younger children are just starting to discover what they might want their futures to look like.

Her hope for all of them is simple:

“That they feel completely supported to reach for whatever their dream is,” Sarah says. “That’s different for each kid.

“It’s not about deciding for them what that is,” she adds, “or even necessarily pushing for anything other than reach for your dreams.”

23 children. 23 different lives, families and dreams.

And, for Sarah, 23 relationships worth showing up for.