marylee62

Hello from Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, USA! I've been married for over 26 years, have 3 sons, 6 cats and 2 grandchildren. Yes, 6 cats that stay indoors but I’m also taking care of 3 outside cats. I’m retired from the US Army after 23 years of service to my country. I also worked for the Army Corps of Engineers. I sponsor 2 kids thru Compassion International (www.compassion.com) and write to 6 others whose sponsors do not write to them. I started buying cards to send to the kids and I soon found Postcrossing was also a great way to use and collect cards, so I overdid it and have 1000s of cards. I have also supported a school for troubled girls in St Lucia, and I've been there 3 times but recently I started helping a very poor family in the Philippines.
I suffer from a very rare nerve condition that has made life very difficult for me for 10 years. It's called pudendal neuralgia. It's so painful that it's hard to live. My doctor is actually 1000 miles away as there are less than 10 doctors in the US. I'm in so much pain and have taken pain medication for so long that I now have pain in parts of my body that has never been injured. It's all due to damaged nerves. But I have to keep fighting.
I want to tell you about the family that I’ve adopted in the Philippines. I met their teen son through a religious organization but I decided that I wanted to help his whole family one on one, not send money to a charity. I’ve been sending his family money for food, paying their school tuition and sending them boxes of school clothes for about 3 years. I recently had a successful Go Fund Me campaign where enough people donated that I could purchase the young man and his sister a laptop computer, software, some hardware and a good travel bag for school. Now I’m trying try to raise enough funds to bring their oldest son to my home town to visit next summer if we all have Covid19 vaccines and flights are back to normal by then.
I also sponsor 8 children through Compassion International. They live in El Salvador, Thailand, Tanzania, Uganda, Haiti, Kenya, Ethiopia and Rwanda and range in age from 8 to 20! I am truly blessed with a large extended family that I will never meet but I correspond with them often and feel like I know them, some better than my own family.
As for what cards to send me, you can send me a card with any kind of animal or view of your city on it. I’m easy to please. We have to start taking care of the less fortunate among us so a card that conveys the spirit of giving would be wonderful!!!!
I have thousands of cards and no one to send them to since I can no longer send them to my Compassion kids. If anyone wants to swap a few at a time, let me know. Mary Lee