#Spend20K Challenge with Britmums and The National Lottery

Letters from our sponsored children

The National Lottery's The Lotto game is changing on 5th October to give even more chances to win and more guaranteed 20K prizes so when I saw the #Spend20K Challenge over on Britmums, asking bloggers to share their wildest dreams of what they would do if they won 20K, I knew immediately exactly what I would spend it on...

I'm afraid there's no flash cars for me, no house improvements, no wild parties or trips to Disney. All those things would be nice but none of those would make my dream come true.

Here's a little known fact about me...most people know I have 3 children. You see them mentioned on this blog often. They even write some of the blog posts on here themselves. But what a lot of people don't know is that we have 4 more children whom we have never met living hundreds of miles away from us.

Through a child sponsorship programme we have sponsored Walter (now 14), Amni (now 17), Reyna (now 14) and Rayssa (now 9), ever since they were each around 3 or 4 years old.

We have watched them grow and develop from little toddlers into wonderful young men and women, receiving letters from them throughout the year and the occasional photo once every few years. Although these children do have their own families (some are orphans but our 4 children all live with either mum / dad or mum and dad), the charity we sponsor through selects those children who are truly living in poverty and need the help most. Some would have regularly gone to bed hungry and not known where their next meal was coming from or when their next meal would be.

We have had a peek into their lives as they have told us about the country they live in (they are all based in South and Central America), local culture and tradition, their siblings, their hobbies, their sponsorship project where they receive healthcare and education.

A trip to Central and South America to meet 'our' children

The eldest is nearing the end of her time in the sponsorship project. Soon she will be able to move on having been educated and equipped to hopefully get a job, and make a contribution to her local community. She wants to be a doctor. All those years ago when we first started writing to her, she (and we) would not have thought it possible - but seeing her progress over the years, we now believe she can and will do it!

In her latest letter, she told us that there had been overseas visitors visiting her project and how she wishes that we would visit.

I want to write back and tell her that we would love to. But I know that we are not to get the children's hopes up with something that may not happen.

That's where the 20K comes in. If I was to win 20K in the lottery, it would be a trip to South America for our family...First stop Peru to meet Amni. Then we'd make our way around Brazil, Nicuaragua and Bolivia to meet the other children.

I dream about the landscapes, history, culture and geography that my own children would experience on such a trip, but most of all I dream about how it would really feel like meeting long lost family to finally come face to face with those precious children who have meant so much to us over the years.

I will always remember about how one of the principles of child sponsorship done in this way by being able to write letters to and fro is for us to be able to encourage and support the children in the things we write. What has totally amazed me is that on so many occasions they have encouraged me with their words of wisdom and just by being the amazing kids that they are!

I would dearly love to meet each one of them. To look them in the eye and tell them what an inspiration they have been to me. To thank them for their letters over all these years. To tell them how proud I am of them. For my children to kick a football around with them or to run around playing a game of tag. I know for the kids language will not be a barrier because smiles and laughter and playing together is a language that every child understands wherever they are in the world.



This post is an entry for BritMums #Spend20K Challenge sponsored by The National Lottery, with more ways to win more money on the new Lotto game. Find out more about new Lotto, which starts in October, here – http://www.national-lottery.co.uk