"I felt lifted up when I read this," Rampuru says, carefully refolding the letter. She was touched by Powell's generosity, and astonished that a white woman in America would care so much about a stranger in Africa. "She wrote from deep in her heart, and I felt better. And I felt I owed her an apology," Rampuru says. "When that journalist talked to me, I had just heard that a white man had killed my husband and I was so scared and shocked and hurt. I was sorry right away about what I said." When Beverly Powell opened her mailbox and saw an envelope with foreign stamps, she says, she started jumping up and down and crying. Reading the letter brought her great joy, and she answered it immediately. The friendship deepened with every exchange. "We've never met, but she's my sister," Rampuru says. Powell relies on thoughts of Adelina and the boys to keep her going. "I feel so loved," she says. "Now I know what all the hard times have been for—so I could make a difference in someone's life."