Category Archives: Stories

[Bolivia bloggers] Day 5: What it means to really grow your family

Posted on August 4, 2011 by Nish Weiseth in Child Sponsorship, Stories

Nish with her sponsored child Maria and her family. ©2011 Amy Conner for World Vision

I saw her as soon as I walked into the room. Her bright yellow name tag held her name, but I didn’t need to read it to know it was her. I knew that shy smile from the picture I was given when I first chose to sponsor Maria. We made eye contact. She blushed and smiled a wry smile, one corner of her mouth turned up. Just like I do. The half-smirk. I laughed. Did she know? Did she know that it was me?...

[Bolivia bloggers] Day 4: Six months ago she couldn’t have done this

Posted on August 3, 2011 by Joy Bennett in Child Sponsorship, Stories

I want to introduce you to Lizeth. She latched onto my Flip camera at the Special Needs Center where she is a student. Lizeth is just like my kids — figured out the camera’s buttons in about half a second. For the next half hour, she ran around recording everyone she could find, her bubbly laugh echoing around the center....

[Bolivia bloggers] Day 4: A world apart but the same at heart

Posted on August 3, 2011 by Carla Swanson Gawthrop in Causes, Child Sponsorship, Stories

The following was written last night, on day 4 of the Bolivia bloggers trip in Cochabamba. Tonight I got an email from a colleague with a note from Charles Owubah, World Vision’s regional leader in East Africa. All I could thinks was this: my mind has been consumed with the people we’ve met here in Bolivia. Now I’m reminded of the 11.5 million people there affected by the drought. Charles tells the story of one of them: Atabo. “Yesterday I was in Lokori, Turkana East, in North Eastern Kenya where I met Atabo Ekaale. Atabo is one-year-old but looks like six months old because he has almost nothing to eat. His mother, Lorenyi, is desperate because she wants her son to...

[Bolivia bloggers] Day 3: Trickle-Up Economics…

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Rachel Held Evans in Child Sponsorship, Stories

The terrain of Cochabamba, Bolivia is both breathtakingly beautiful and violently rugged. In the shadow of its snow-covered mountains are hundreds of arid rocky hills, where horses and cows perch as skillfully as mountain goats upon the steep slopes where people too make their homes. The high altitude (over 12,000 feet in some places!) leaves even the most skilled climbers breathless. It takes most children over an hour to walk the winding gravel roads to school. Women who want or need to deliver their babies in a hospital typically face a three mile walk…while in labor…to the nearest health facility. The average income is just $450 a year....

[Bolivia bloggers] Day 2: The dread and joy of leaving & arriving.

Posted on August 1, 2011 by Nish Weiseth in Child Sponsorship, Stories

Day 2 | Bolivia Bloggers | World Vision Blog

The following was blogged last night in La Paz, Bolivia by Bolivia blogger Nish Weiseth at The Outdoor Wife and Deeper Story. Erik had the car running outside in the garage. It was early. 4:00am-kinda-early. My bags were loaded in the trunk of the hatchback and I quietly slipped back inside the house and made my way to Rowan’s door. I put my ear against the cold painted wood and listened – I could hear him breathing heavily in his sleep on the other side. I turned the knob slowly and walked in, the hallway light just barely warming the room. Standing next to the crib, I saw his back rise and fall with each deep breath he took....