It's Better to Light One Candle

Happy New Year! If you are like me and many others, during this time you may be compiling a list of resolutions for the new year. By the way, have you ever wondered how this tradition started?

Some say it goes back to the Babylonians who made promises to their gods at the start of each year that they would return borrowed objects and pay their debts.

But being Italian, I prefer another explanation connected to the Romans who began each year by making promises to the god Janus, for whom the month of January is named.

One of my favorite resolutions each year was to be more present in that scary place called “GYM.” I learned over time that it’s one of the most attended places each January 2 … but it turns into a forsaken location only a few weeks later.

This year my resolution is different. We have 1,000 children in our program without a sponsor. I want to find a caring sponsor for each of them. Someone who can change their lives with less than a dollar a day. But 1,000 is a big number and I felt discouraged at first. Then I remembered the old proverb …

“It’s better to light one candle, than to sit cursing the darkness.”

So, instead of complaining, I lit the first candle and sponsored Tedege, a girl from Ethiopia. Then I asked my colleagues, my parents and my friends to do the same. In no time fifty candles were lit. Fifty children are receiving a chance in life. A dark place all of a sudden is becoming filled with light and hope.

If you have room for another resolution this year, one that will not require you to go the gym, would you consider lighting a candle and sponsoring a child?

One person at a time, we can do that. One needy child. One life. One hope. A thousand candles. Light.

When you sponsor a child, you give them the gift of a brighter future. You have the opportunity to witness a young life transformed. Sponsoring a child is a meaningful and personal experience that will change the child’s life and yours too!

Unlike going to the gym, sponsoring a child will require minimum use of muscles. Just move your mouse over this link and click on it. That’s it! You will change the life of a child forever …

Thank you for your amazing support. And as the modern Romans say, Buon Anno Nuovo! (Happy New Year!)
 
Gabriele Delmonaco