Distance melts away for penpals

Emily Sprouse and Silver-Joy Prout were sitting on a couch in the Sprouses' living room in Columbiana. There was not an inch between them. As I wrote down the responses to the questions I asked them, they whispered and giggled with each other.
It was hard to believe they had just met the night before.
Emily is 13 years old. Silver-Joy is "twelve and a half." (That "half" is very important at this age.) For nearly two years the girls have been penpals; Emily writing from Columbiana, Silver-Joy from her home in Kodiak, Alaska.
So, when Silver-Joy's family van pulled up to the van where Emily was waiting at the McDonald's in Columbiana the night before, these two girls who had never seen each other face to face went running to hug one another.
"It's like we've already met," Emily says, looking at her friend.
"She's like my sister," Silver-Joy says, smiling.
How it began
Two years ago, Emily submitted her name and a brief description of herself to a home-schooling magazine that was pairing children up with penpals.
"Emily needed to improve her language arts skills," Melanie Sprouse, Emily's mother and teacher explains. "I thought writing letters to penpals would be a good way to do that."
At the same time, across the country in Alaska, Alta Prout, Silver-Joy's mother and teacher, had the same thought for her daughter.
"My mom said I would probably like her," Silver-Joy says while recalling reading about Emily in the magazine. "She told me to try it."
Silver-Joy wrote to Emily. Since then, the two young girls have been sharing their lives with each other letter by letter.
At first, Melanie and Alta, as part of the home-schooling curriculum, would correct the girls' letters before they were sent.
"They have come such a long way with their writing skills," a beaming Melanie says. "It was a better exercise than I had hoped."
Occasionally, Emily and Silver-Joy will e-mail each other, but the two prefer putting their thoughts on paper.
"When you get a real letter," Silver-Joy says, "it's like you get a part of somebody."
Improved skills
The letter writing has not only improved the girls' writing skills, each of them has found a soul mate.
"They are so much alike in personality," Melanie says, thrilled with her daughter's friend.
Living thousands of miles away I asked the girls, in between giggles, how their lives are different.
"They're not, really," Emily determines after thinking a moment. "Except she's got brothers."
With that, I join in the giggling. Silver-Joy is the third child of six. She is the only girl -- five brothers! Emily has no brothers. She is the second child with two sisters.
Despite the differences in siblings, the home atmosphere is very similar.
"They are really involved in church, and so are we," Melanie says in sharing the similarities of their lives. "And they are both home-schooled."
As the Prouts visited in the Sprouse home, Melanie and Alta realized that their daughters weren't the only ones with similar interests.
"We have the same bathroom wallpaper," Melanie says while laughing at the likeness. "The walls are painted the same color."
After our conversation, the girls were heading out for a shopping trip before the Prouts continued on their journey across the country. (Truly, girls are the same everywhere.)
The families said their goodbyes with an invitation for the Sprouse family to visit Kodiak. While Emily and Silver-Joy cherished their time together, both families marveled at the wonderfully divine occurrences that brought their two families together as friends.
gwhite@vindy.com