Dear children,
Hi my wonderful young people. How are you? I think about you so often throughout the month, wondering if you are doing well in school, if you are making good friends, if you are eating properly, and if you are staying happy and healthy. Since I don’t have any children of my own, I suppose I think of all of you as my far-away children. I think of you with the heart of a mom.
My own mother passed away 2 years ago, and I still miss her very much. She was so loving and kind. It makes me feel very sad when I know that some children in the world don’t get to experience a good mother. Perhaps many of you at the shelter know what I mean. I am so sorry if that is true for you. I am so grateful that Tefsa and Kal provide a safe place for all of you children to feel like family together. I have heard that Kal is loving and kind like my mother was, and many of you think of her as a mother to you. Isn’t that wonderful?
You know, I do like that our organization is named “Hearts for Ethiopia”. Although some of our volunteers are wonderful men and boys who do a lot of work to support all of you, many of our supporters are women and girls. Whether they are young or old, they approach our work with a heart of love. That is why the current name of our organization seems so right to me. In a way, I also get to act motherly towards all of you when I write my letters, and when I read the letters you write to us. It makes me smile.
The people on the Friends Ink! writing team have a very important job to do on behalf of all of the volunteers. It is our job to make sure each and every one of you know that you have the love of a whole team of mothers here in Canada. And, on top of that, we have father-figures as well who love you just as much. I know we are far away, and can’t throw our arms around you and squeeze you tight the way good mothers and fathers can. We really appreciate that Tefsa and Kal can give out good hugs. We also appreciate that Grandmother Shelley can come to see you and hug you for us. She shows us the pictures of her hugs with each of you, and it makes us feel like we are right there with you. We all have to depend on our imaginations a bit to make it more meaningful, but that’s kind of fun too.
Why don’t you take a moment and close your eyes and wrap your arms around yourself and imagine it is a hug coming all the way across the ocean from all of us here in Canada? I sure hope you can squeeze tight. Hey, while you are at it, maybe you could give a hug to one another just to take our places for this one time. Only if you are comfortable with hugs, of course. I can picture it now, and it makes me so happy.
I want to tell you some more things about me. I love to read books. Reading has always been a bit harder for me because I am very, very slow at it. It was always my most difficult subject at school. I had to work very hard to get a good grade in reading, and sometime all that work didn’t pay off. That made me sad because I did try my hardest. I simply had a difficult time with reading. I had a friend who had the same problem with mathematics. I was very good at mathematics, and always scored a high grade in that subject. My friend would ask me for help to study her mathematics, but she still had a difficult time getting a good grade. It seems like sometimes even when we try hard, we can struggle to do well at certain things. It isn’t always possible to be good at everything, is it. I think the important thing is that we try our hardest.
What do you think? Do you have a subject at school that you struggle with? Do you ask for help from your friends or from Tefsa or from the teachers? I sure understand how frustrating that can feel.
I remember when our friend Lisa from Friends Ink! told you how many books she read in a year and I actually said “wow” out loud. That was a lot of books. I heard about a project that Grandmother Shelley and the organization is working on that will result in your shelter having access to over 100 books. You are getting a library. I have to say “wow” once again. Isn’t that great news? There will be so many opportunities for all of you to read and read and read. My fingers are crossed, my toes are crossed, and heck, even my eyes are crossed that this project will launch very soon.
Can I share some fun news with you? I am actually writing a book and it has just gone off for publication. Although we haven’t settled on the title quite yet, the story is about a young girl who meets a dragon and they become the best of friends. They go on a grand adventure which involves elves and dwarves and magic spells and even some danger. The girl and her dragon are very brave. Do you know what a dragon is? I will send a photo of some dragons from other stories. Dragons are fictional characters, so my story was a lot of fun because of all the imagination I had to use to make the story sound real, even though it could never come true. I am pretty excited about writing my very first book. Do any of you like to write made-up stories?
I have been learning a new sport. It is called Pickleball. Now, there are no pickles involved in the sport, so the name sounds funny. The name actually came from the inventors who had a pet dog named Pickles. The game is played on a court marked with lines to indicate in-bounds and out-of-bounds. I think soccer has lines like that, only on a much bigger scale. Pickleball is played with a paddle that is held in the hand. The paddle is used to strike a plastic ball that has many holes in it called a whiffle ball. Most often the game is played with two people on one side of a net against two people on the other side. There’s even a place on the court called the kitchen, which is also funny, because there is no cooking or eating going on in this kitchen. I think the inventors were just really fun people who love silly names for things. The game is mostly played outdoors, but in Canada, we really have to play inside in a gymnasium during our winter months because of the snow and the cold. I have so much fun playing pickleball. I show up 4 or 5 times a week to play. One time, I actually got to play with another member of Friends, Ink! and we had a great time. I was out of breath after just a short time of playing, and my face hurt from smiling so wide. Has that ever happened to you? The game is helping me to get healthy by moving my body, and I am making lots of new friends at the same time. The game of pickleball is getting so popular, I wonder sometimes if you might even see it played in Ethiopia some day. That would be amazing.
I also want to tell you about a new hobby I am starting to love. I have started to do puzzles. I have heard that Efnan is good at puzzles. Way to go young man! The last puzzle I completed had 1,000 pieces to put together. Wow! That’s a lot of pieces. The reason I enjoy doing puzzles so much is because every time I find a piece that fits in the right place, I celebrate just a little bit. I actually cheer out loud. It feels like I have solved the greatest of challenges each time I find a puzzle piece that fits. On my last puzzle, that was 1,000 celebrations. Can you imagine that?
Now, to be truthful, it can be a bit frustrating to work away at the puzzle for some time and not find a piece to fit. Working on puzzles required a lot of patience. We aren’t all full of patience, just like we aren’t all good at mathematics. I guess that means that puzzles aren’t for everyone. It seems to me that puzzles could teach us a lot about patience, and celebrations. If you get a chance, why don’t you try working on a puzzle and see how your patience grows. Don’t forget to celebrate when you get a piece to fit.
Well, I think that is enough stories from me for this month. Please feel the hug I am sending you, and when Grandmother Shelley is there, try to picture me just once when you are getting a hug from her. I sure do appreciate Shelley for bringing my hugs all the way across the world to my favourite children.
Be Happy and Healthy my dears.
Patti McDonald of Friends Ink!