Personal agape comes in the form of personal letters to the pilgrims written by family members, friends, and sometimes members of the Emmaus community in general. Personal agape letters are powerful evidence to each pilgrim that he or she is personally loved by those who know the pilgrim best. For some, the personal agape has the greatest impact of The Walk to Emmaus. Each sponsor quietly requests and collects eight to twelve letters for his or her pilgrim and delivers them to the agape coordinator of the Walk. The personal agape letters are delivered on Sunday afternoon after the packets have been reviewed.

If the sponsor receives more than twelve letters, he or she will certainly include family letters in the twelve. All the letters above twelve can be delivered as a Fourth-Day surprise. Limiting the number of letters delivered on the Walk for each pilgrim has several advantages. The main advantage is that the pilgrim can usually read all twelve letters within the time allotted. Persons trying to read more than twelve may be frustrated by their inablility to read them all. This frustration will detract from the special experience of having read the letters.

A second advantage is to ensure that a disparity between the quantities of letters each pilgrim receives does not distract from the quality of the message that the letters convey. Since twelve is the number of letters that most pilgrims receive anyway, we ask sponsors to avoid exceeding the norm for the sake of "their" pilgrims at the expense of others. Sponsors aim for twelve well-chosen letters. In doing so, everyone can be confident that manifold expressions of grace for one pilgrim will not become an obstacle for other pilgrims who appear to receive less.

A third advantage to limiting these letters to twelve is that it reduces the burden on the sponsor; the agape people are not overwhelmed with handling large volumes of mail; and the community is not placed under pressure at the last minute to generate more letters for pilgrims just so they can have more letters.

Personal agape should not include personal gift items or bouquets of flowers that are given to one pilgrim but not to all. Such gifts should be returned to the sponsor for delivery after and away from the weekend. The agape chairperson should coordinate all agape; individuals in the community should not enter the facility, secretly or otherwise, during the Walk to leave agape in a pilgrim's room.

For last-minute colletion of agape, the Agape (Mailroom) Coordinator should make an agape box available to collect letters from sponsors at the community Gathering prior to Candlelight. When a pilgrim's letter count is low, the Agape (Masilroom) Coordinator can ask members of the community at candlelight to write letters for that person. The agape (mailroom) coordinator must organize the personal agape letters for each pilgrim and team member into a tied stack in preparation for the Sunday afternoon delivery.

Sponsors sometimes ask., "Doesn't asking people who have not been through Emmaus to write letters spoil the surprise of the letters for them if and when they attend Emmaus?" This certainly has not proven to be the case. In fact, for many, the opposite has been true. The request for letters introduced them to Emmaus in a positive and interesting way because it gave them an opportunity to do something special for a friend or loved one. Most people who write letters do not understnad the letters' purpose on the Walk, and when they go to Emmaus, they forget about the letters by Sunday afternoon. Even the pilgrim who anticipates the Sunday afternoon delivery of the letters is neither prepared for the content of the letters nor their impact. Awareness of the letters is not an obstacle to receiving the love they represent.

The only potential problem in asking persons who have not been through Emmaus to write agape letters stems from the manner in which they are requested. For instance, "bulk mailing" agape request letters to every member of a pilgrim's church (for either lay or clergy) or sending a great many letters as possible to persons who have not participated in Emmause simply to amass as many letters as possible are inappropriate. These practices elicit more curiosity than caring, make people weary of Emmaus, and may be a disservice to the pilgrim who did not intend that his or her participation become public knowledge and everyone's business.