Pen Pals, Language Arts, and Reaching Out to Lonely People
I admire my friend Olive for so many reasons. I recently learned something new about her that increased my admiration even more.
Olive has established a sweet relationship with the grandfather of her son-in-law. This elderly gentlemen lives with Olive’s son-in-law’s parents. He is a widower and a retired minister. When Olive learned that he was organizing his many years of sermons, she asked him if he would send her copies. What a wonderful way to honor this man.
Olive lives in Ohio and the retired minister lives in Mississippi. These two people (who share a mutual love for Olive’s daughter and son-in-law and their children) now enjoy a long distance relationship as pen pals. Olive gains spiritual teaching from a wise man. That wise man experiences appreciation for his life’s work at a time when he could feel as if his useful service is all in the past.
When we were homeschooling our children, I looked for ways to make their language arts practical. One way was by encouraging them to write letters and send them by old-fashioned snail mail.
Many lonely people are even lonelier in these days when they are isolated because of health concerns. Some of them aren’t even able to connect electronically. I don’t want you to feel any more pressure than you already do. However, if you are looking for a way to make your children’s language arts practical, encouraging your children to connect with some of those lonely people could be a blessing both to your children and to the people who would benefit from their kind attention.
 So, as those who have been chosen of God,
holy and beloved,
put on a heart of compassion, kindness,
humility, gentleness and patience . . .Â
Colossians 3:12
How do we connect with others to find a pen pal?
Good question! This is a bit delicate because you always want to make sure your child stays safe. As I think about how to advise you, I keep thinking that in this world it can be scary to make connections with people you don’t know and might not be able to trust. I would definitely pray about it. I got connected with a Japanese pen pal when I was a child and that was a nice experience, but I don’t know how much I would trust a complete stranger in this world of today. Here are some ideas that might work.
Some of our grandchildren write to each other.
Our grandchildren (who live in other states) and I write to each other.
I have a friend who is a grandmother, too, and one of her granddaughters and one of our granddaughters have been pen pals. You might ask your parents or your husband’s parents if one of them has a friend with a grandchild who might like to be a pen pal.
You could ask grandparents at your church if they have grandchildren who might like to do this.
The children of missionaries might like to have a pen pal.
One of my favorite ideas is to see if you can set up a pen pal relationship with one of your or your husband’s older relatives who is shut in or lives far away and might need some encouragement.
In any case, I would try not to go beyond a friend of a friend kinda thing to make sure you can monitor things well. Do these ideas help at all?