Gift Guidelines
You haven’t seen excitement until you see a Chain of Love child receive a gift or some mail. You are most welcome to mail letters or gifts to your sponsored child, but please remember—
• keep letters short because they must be translated
• children really like photos from their sponsors—pets, children,
home, etc.
• Please keep parcels less than 1 kg. We have been warned, especially
during the holiday season, that we might get charged for parcels over 1
kg. Please allow 3–6 months (surface mail) or 3 weeks (air mail) for
packages to arrive.
• Please don’t send valuable or expensive things to your sponsored child. These parcels are much more likely to get charged and your child will not appreciate the value of what is sent.
What can you send to your child?
Good gift ideas: sports equipment, clothes, baseball caps, puzzles, sunglasses. The language is Portuguese. Poor gift ideas: English books, toothpaste, Imperial tape measures, Valentines cards, things that require reading instructions, English games, soap (never put soap and candies in the same package), things that require batteries that aren’t sent with batteries.
Please, please, please: never send money in any form to our Brazil address. We cannot deal with it here and must send it back to North America for processing. Also, we don’t want postal employees to know money is being sent to our address. Since some mail mysteriously gets opened, we don’t want the risk of money going missing.
A good process
• send a small package or card to Brazil.
• send a money gift to NAB Home Office in Canada or the States (see blelow for giving options)
• designate it to your Chain of Love child
The US or Canadian office sends the money gift to the housemother; she determines what is best for your child. Many children get clothes or shoes, or take their friends and family for pizza.
All Christmas money is pooled and used to send COL kids to a Christian camp for a week and to give the family a couple of weeks’ holiday at the beach (usually January or February), our hottest months. More than tangible Christmas presents, the kids prefer amusement parks, water parks, or going out for meals with their families.
Thank you for your consideration. More questions? Please ask.
Our address
Chain of Love Homes, CP 2040, Novo Hamburgo, RS 93.511–970, Brazil.
Contributing to Chain of Love
Please make checks payable in the currency of your residence to North American Baptist Conference and send to North American Baptist Conference, 1 So. 210 Summit Ave., Oakbrook Terrace, IL 60181 USA, or to the Canadian office at North American Baptist Conference, PO Box 57235, Station A, Toronto, ON M5W 5M5.
To make a donation via credit card or Electronic Funds Transfer, request this service from Louise Seemann at North American Baptist Conference, 1 So. 210 Summit Ave., Oakbrook Terrace, IL 60181 or (630) 495–2000, or lseemann@nabconf.org.
Online giving to Chain of Love is now available through the NAB website www.nabconference.org/give