by Jeff Larcombe
When our children were small, my wife and I decided to sponsor a 5-year-old child in the Philippines through World Vision. Over the next 8 years we enjoyed receiving updates about this young boy – who was one of 10 children.
From time to time, we received report card updates, updated photos and information from World Vision about the family and their situation. In addition, we received notes from the boy as he grew older.
After some 8 years our sponsorship ended, and we no longer had any contact with this boy for many years. However, it was always our dream to one day contact this now grown man (Sonny) to satisfy our longing to know how his life and that of his family had progressed.
For several years we tried off and on to find a contact for Sonny but alas, all leads led nowhere. After several more years my wife decided to try Facebook! Within 5 minutes she had found Sonny, and a photo of him (then around 53 years of age) surely matched some of the childhood photos we had treasured and kept all those years!
Sonny soon confirmed that indeed he was the “little boy” we had been searching for.
Meanwhile on this side of the ocean, my wife and I had met, and have remained friends for over 20 years with a family originally from the Philippines. Once this family learned of our story regarding Sonny, they offered to host us in their family home north of Manila this past February, so that we could try to meet Sonny and his family.
Soon after we arrived in the Philippines and settled in the family home, we had an emotional meeting with Sonny, his wife Dr. Irene and son Neil. Tears were hard to hold back – but they flowed later on!
Sonny and his family turned out to be some of the most gracious people we have ever met. They could not do enough for us, hosted us for a weekend, and took us on trips to different parts of the Philippines. We felt like royalty!!
We also had the privilege of meeting three brothers and one sister of Sonny while in the Philippines and had previously met a brother of Sonny a couple of years ago while visiting Calgary.
We will remain in contact with Sonny and family and hope that one day we will meet again – don’t know where, don’t know when – but we hope and pray we can once again break bread with this amazing family!
