We have had a wonderful campaign with our Meridian readers seeking sponsors for the children in Bihar. I want to explain a bit about what sponsorship means to you, and what it means to the child you support. To illustrate, I start with a letter from one of our sponsors who traveled to India to meet “her” child:

This summer I had the opportunity to participate in the Rising Star Outreach program in India. We have been sponsors for many years…. In fact, Abinaya, the first darling little girl we sponsored, graduated from Rising Star last year. We loved receiving her letters and photos over the years and sharing the joy of her accomplishments with our children.

We have a new little girl that we sponsor now, and it was such a sweet experience to be able to meet her and spend time getting to know her better. We are besties now and I am so excited to exchange letters and FaceTime calls with her! I miss her already!

While in India this summer, I inquired about Abinaya and how she was doing. I learned she was studying to become a Physician’s Assistant. And I had the surprise of my life when during a trip into town, Abinaya surprised me and came to meet me! It was the sweetest moment that I will never forget.

Sponsoring these beautiful children through Rising Star has been such an enriching and rewarding experience for my entire family. We love the sweet relationships we have built and have found so much joy in helping them receive a quality education and helping them reach for the stars!”- Wendy Buhrley

Another sponsor shared this,

When my friend, Christine and I were in Bihar as volunteers, Rising Star had just started sponsoring the school at Little Flower. On this trip we met Kushbu and Rajnandani, two of the older girls. We watched those two girls. They were strong girls! They were leaders. They were the captains of the cricket teams. They both had a fierce determination to succeed.

At one point they came in and were telling us about their lives. We were sitting down with each kid and getting information about them for the sponsorship program so they could get sponsors. Kushbu had such a great desire—a spark—she wanted a better life.

Her father is dead. Her mother lived in her colony, which was very far away.  Kushbu had to leave her widowed mother to come to the school. It made her heartsick because she felt like she was abandoning her mother. She and her brother, Israel, moved in with her auntie in the Sunderpur colony, in order to attend the school. She seemed a little guarded in talking with us. But Christine and I grew to love these two girls!  In fact, we decided to sponsor these two girls ourselves.

In 2023 when I went back to volunteer again, Christine and I got our picture taken with Kushbu. It was so sweet. She was one of the kids chosen to go down to the Chennai campus. It was a difficult transition because another language was spoken at the Rising School in Chennai: Tamil. Also, the food was different, and the culture was very different. Kushbu went through all those struggles. When some of the other kids complained, she said, “I’m so grateful for this opportunity. I would never complain!” It was so sweet and tender. She gave us big hugs. She had tears running down her face. “Thank you, thank you, for giving me this chance. I love you.” Her guard had come down completely!  We felt the deep joy of being able to be such a meaningful part of her life. I could feel, clear down to my very core, that we are really making a difference. It was a touching moment in my life. I was truly changed that day! – Claudette Jones

It is my fervent desire that each of you can have that same sweet experience.

Thanks to our wonderful Meridian readers, we have 136 new sponsors for children at our school in Bihar. Incredible! This makes it possible for us to add the children that had been on our waiting list to enter kindergarten, first, and second grades. This is phenomenal!  Every time I talk to our office staff about this campaign, someone inevitably comments on how remarkably generous Meridian readers are. I couldn’t agree more!

I often get asked by people how sponsorship works. Your money pays for their food, their housemothers, (the students live on campus because the leprosy colonies are far too spread out for the students to come and go every day.) It pays for their teachers, their school materials, their medical and dental care, and everything that happens while they’re at the school.

When I talk to the students it quickly becomes apparent that they don’t understand how sponsorship really works. Since the students never actually see the money, the whole concept is a bit abstract for them.

However, here is what they do understand. They know that their own families don’t have enough money for them to have food every day or for them to attend school. They understand that they are getting food every day—three times a day!—and are attending school. They understand that they now have a future to look forward to. They have dreams. They have hope. They know that their sponsors make this possible for them.

They understand is that there are families in America who love them and care about them. To these kids, their sponsors are important people. They are people who not only have enough money to feed their own families, but they have enough to help someone else’s family. They must be very important people!

This is a big deal to our students. In their society they are at the very bottom of the caste system. They are despised and outcast. But they know that some very important people from America think that they are important. They know their sponsors believe in them. When the students write and tell their sponsors they have learned their times tables or how to ride a bike, they are excited, and they understand that their sponsors are excited.

Each student wears a nametag. On the back of their nametag their sponsors are listed.  Each child in Bihar has three sponsors. Whenever I get a chance in India to interact with our students, they invariably turn over their nametags and eagerly ask me if I know their sponsors. They get so excited if I happen to know one of their sponsors. They can never hear enough about their sponsors!

We encourage the sponsors to send their sponsored child a picture of themselves and their families. These pictures are precious to the children. Often, you’ll see these pictures on the wall above their bed. It’s the first thing they see in the morning when they wake up and the last thing they see at night, before they go to sleep.

The funny thing is I hear similar stories from the sponsors. I have seen many sponsored children on their sponsor’s refrigerator.  When they say their family prayers, they pray for “their” child.  Scot and Maurine Proctor sponsor five children.  Scot sent me a picture to show me how he has their faces on his bulletin bord above his desk.  He said, “I see their faces 30 times a day!  I feel so close to them!”  Hearts are being knit together from across the world.

The children love to write their sponsors and are thrilled if they get a response. Every now and then we arrange a Skype or FaceTime call. Sponsoring a child builds one of the sweetest relationships. There is a bridge of love that extends across the oceans.

One of the sweetest phrases in the Book of Mormon is found in Mosiah 18, where Alma asks his followers to have their hearts knit together in unity and in love one towards another. That to me is what sponsorship is all about – an extraordinary opportunity for each of us to knit our hearts with another in unity and love.

You have been so generous, but we need more. We still have more than one hundred children without a sponsor. We are looking for some very important people who will love and value these incredible children and give them the opportunity to build a live of hope and dreams. Won’t you join us and help?