Have you ever given to a cause or a project and wondered what happened to your gift?
Sometimes you get organizations that accept small things, like the Canadian Nurses for Africa group, for whom Marnie Bernard collected 160 knitted teddy bears last year and were sent over to Kenya; well, what happened to those bears that some people spent many hours making?
Or with Operation Christmas Child, for which people pack up shoeboxes of gifts for children in Third World countries - do the kids who get those really appreciate them? Do they know where they were sent from?
Recently, I had a visit with Gail Wolters (daughter of Edith Bernard of Khedive, sister-in-law to Marnie Bernard) who is a nurse and who has been over to Kenya with the Canadian Nurses group.
Her group provided much-needed medical help for poor, rural people in Kenya - and they also handed out the bears sent from Weyburn, and brought back photos of some of the kids who received these bears.
As Gail told me, the children just love these little knitted bears - but their appreciation comes through best in the photos of the children who received the bears. For some of these kids, this is the only toy they've ever received, but the joy on their faces is unmistakable.
One heart-wrenching story of a bear recipient was a 14-year-old boy who was carried in by his mother on her back, as he was unable to walk. He has since been diagnosed with muscular dystrophy, but this group were able to have him fitted for a wheelchair made by a company there in Kenya. And yes, this boy got one of the bears, a bright pink one.
Do you think he appreciated the love and effort that went into making the bear? You bet he did, and I'm sure the bear will help provide him with comfort as he goes through a difficult medical problem.
On a similar note, Bev Alexander recently provided a photo of children receiving a box that had been packed by Sheryl Ehman's class at St. Dominic, and in a similar way, you could see the big beautiful smiles of those children who received the gifts.
You can be sure those big smiles will be repeated this year, whether it's from a small box of gifts, or even from just one small gift, a small knitted teddy bear.
Never think that something is too small to deal with, or to go through all the trouble to find material for, a pattern to make it, and getting it in to the right place to collect it. Any and all efforts expended in this way will be worth it, and will be appreciated when they're handed out to children in rural Kenya who know daily what poverty and despair is all about.
