I signed up to sponsor Josie on the day of my father's funeral, which was also the day of the devastating earthquake in Haiti. The priest mentioned a parishioner who had recruited several people to sponsor children in Haiti through a small organization (one that in fact may have been His Hands for Haiti - it certainly sounded like it, but I didn't ask).
Funnily, my aunt mentioned that she might sponsor a child in my father's memory. I was a little too amused to inform her that my father thought child sponsorship was a scam designed to prey on liberal guilt. Needless to say he never liked my sponsoring kids as a youngster (or as an adult, but he had less to say about it then!), but I offered to send her some websites if she was really interested. Strangely enough (yeah, I'm a bit cynical) I never did hear from her about that.
All the same, I took it as a sign that I should at least visit the HH4H website and consider sponsoring a child through them. When I saw a girl named Josie, I knew what I had to do. The name is very special to me, as both a good friend and a beloved cousin have adorable daughters with that name. Josie is also the name of the youngest (very premature, fragile, frail, barely clinging to life) Duggar child.
My friends can tell you that I have an odd fascination with the Duggars. Despite my genuine affection for the youngest eighteen children, I strongly disagree with many of the parents' values and lifestyle choices. One of the ones I have the greatest problem with is their refusal to properly educate their children, especially their daughters, who are expected to raise their younger siblings in their mother's stead (Mrs. Duggar cares for the babies for the first six months, then hands them off to a daughter and gets to work on making the next one) and are expected to follow in their mother's footsteps as a wife and mother right out of the gate rather than go to college and/or find a career path. There's nothing I can do for Josie Duggar, or any of the Duggar children, but hopefully I can help this little Josie get an education to help her be anything she chooses to be in the future.
Josie is eight years old. As I mentioned before, she's sponsored through His Hands for Haiti. I have sponsored her since January of 2010.
