Here are a couple of videos from our trip to India.

The first one is a short overview of our trip.

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This next one is Pastor Abraham talking about the work of Hephzabah Ministries. Pastor Abraham, his wife Ruth, and sons Daniel and Benjamin live in a small village outside of Dindigul. They minister to the people in the surrounding towns and villages.

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This video is about the work that the Sangita Trust does with destitute widows in the Padappi area of Tamil Nadu. Paul, Grace and their team provide support and food for widows of 6 villages.

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This last video is about Sangita Orphanage. The orphanage provides a home for 65 children at present and they are between the ages of 2 and 5, you can read more about the orphanage in the previous posts.

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I had an email from Grace moses today and they have had some bad news about the orphanage. Please read what she has said:

“We have been asked to vaccate the house opposite the orphanage that we are using for the children to bathe ,washing ,storing . The land lord needs the place. We need prayers. Its a difficult situation. The kids will not be able to bathe in the orphanage house . Their clothes cannot be washed here. There is no sufficient water supply at the orphanage house to take care of the cooking ,washing of plates utensils for all 70 persons and to do the washing and bathing.

We believe that God will open doors and he will not allow these His special kids to suffer. Please pray along with us for this need.

We are struggling with the government authorities to give us approval to build the orphanage on the land. The authorities are delaying to give the necessary approvals to build and more so because we are a christian organisation. Prayer is the only thing that breaks these barriers. We have faced a lot of struggles in the past in terms of getting licences, approvals to get foreign funds, to run a christian orphanage etc. Every step forward is agreat challenge and thats where we experience the power of christ. Its been months since we applied for building approvals and we expect it to come soon.

We will let you know once the approvals come the money we need to build the orphanage. We have saved up some money and so we will let you know the deficit once we get the building approvals.

As regards the home that we need to vaccate ,we need to really plead with the land lord to give us some time. Nothing is available closeby and most people do not give their houses to run orphanages. Please uphold this need in your prayers. Will keep you posted on the developments.”

Please pray for them and for the children, that they will be able to find adequate accomodation and that the building approval comes through soon.

Thanks

Rae

I’m sorry this has taken me a while to write. I had such a great and worthwhile experience that it has taken time for me to be able to put some of it into words. Here goes…

During my third week in India I was fortunate enough to spend extra time with Raj, Michael John and Danny doing a little bit of extra tuition on editing. I am looking forward to seeing the movie that they will produce in the next few months especially now that we have seen some of the areas that they work in.

By far the best experience I had during my third week was the time I spent with Sangita Charitable Trust. This is run by Paul and Grace Moses. I am grateful for the time they let me spend at the orphanage and also with their widows programme. The widows program provides food to widows so that they can take back to their families. For many widows the only value they have to their family is this little amount of food that they provide each month. The widows programme reaches out to 6 villages and about 150 widows attend.

The children at the orphanage are from very tormented, traumatic backgrounds. They are either orphaned, destitute or abandoned due to many of the prevailing social evils and they become victims through no fault of their own. Most of the children are from very poor backgrounds, children of leprosy patients, beggars, criminals and destitute women.
On Monday morning I arrived at the orphanage and met all the children. There are 65 boys and girls all between the age of 2 and 5. The first thing I learned is that when you take a photo you don’t say ‘cheese’ you say ‘chipatteeee’. The children love getting their photo taken and are constantly wanting to see themselves on camera and saying ‘chipattee’. I brought over some craft things for the children to make so we got straight into making bracelets and monster faces. I think they had more enjoyment sticking bits of stuff to themselves.

After they spent some time doing craft it was time for lunch. The children are very well behaved and all have their position to sit in for meal times. They all sit in rows on the floor and then the orphanage staff serve them their meals. Everyone eats with their right hand even the children. Meals basically consist of rice, Dal and meat. The children get a couple of nutritious drinks throughout the day. Grace says that it takes about 3 months to build up a child to a healthy level, this is the reason for the nutritious drinks and they also get vitamin tablets each day. They have medical check ups routinely to make sure they are in good health.

After lunch the children have a little nap. The boys go into one room and the girls another. They lie head to head on the floor, snuggle up to the person next to them and fall asleep. Some of the girls take a bit longer to fall asleep as they like to chat. ☺

In the evening we all ventured across the busy road to a field where the children can run about freely. We played with bubbles, balls, and a frisbee. I was dizzy from constantly burling round lots of children. We spent a couple of hours there and then headed back for dinner. After dinner the children sat out on the porch and sang songs. They love to sing and even sang some English language songs, the Tamil songs sounded great though. It gets dark really fast in India and soon it was pitch black. The children go to bed at about 9 pm and get up at 6:30 / 7 am. They have their drink and then brush their teeth. The children live in the ground floor of a rented house. The trust also rents out the lower floor of the house directly across from it and they use this as the washing facility. A couple of times each day the children cross the busy road to the other building to get washed. The road is busy with lorries, motor bikes, cars, animals, bikes and people. The staff wait for a gap in the traffic before allowing the children to cross. In the morning the children strip out of their clothes from the previous day, a lady is employed to bath the children and then they get a fresh set of clothes on.

The children are all so happy and have adapted to life in the orphanage quickly. I consider myself very fortunate to have experienced the short time I had with them. If it wasn’t for this place the children would be on the street. Paul and Grace have land that they are planning to build a purpose built orphanage on, along with a home for widows and elderly. This will be a great benefit for all and the children will have more space, better facilities and an area to play freely and safely. If you’d like to read more about the work of Sangita Trust and/or donate money please go to Sangita Charitable Trust

This is just a wee film we’ve put together to go along with our theme tune. Hope it gives you glimpse at the experience we all had.

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I can hardly believe that we are nearly a week back from India. I’m looking forward to meeting up with Stephen and Lauren and Rae tomorrow evening. Did you know that we travelled well over 100 hours during our 13 day trip. We certainly were time travellers. Travelling in india is never boring or dull, there is always something to see. for instance we had an amazing train journey when we travelled down to Dindigul. Have a look at these pictures Johnny and Beatty were really enjoying the spacious seating arrangements. What you have is three beds all suspended together on the wall. When you feel a little bit tired you just go and lie down and have a sleep.

Unfortunately the trip back was an overnight one and it was much less enjoyable. The train was a bit older and the sheets and blankets…well… lets say they could have been a bit cleaner. But hey we managed! All part of being a world traveller. If you keep logging on I’ll post you a story about the trip we made to the beautiful area known as Kodaikanal. this was a breath taking experience high up at 7.500 feet above sea level. This is place where you feel cool and have a sense of amazing tranquility. here’s a picture but i’ll tell you more about it later.

Hi Brothers and sisters back home,

 We are on a journey up to the tribal village for a service but the road is winding a bit too much as we have fragile stomachs (jackie,Beatty, and Lauren),  and  its another 3 hours to go ,  two hours too get to where we are so we thought we’d grab the chance to update the Blog.     Train journey was really good,  we all had a wee bunkbed so we were able to catch up on some much needed sleep,   Took about 8 hours, then were met by Brother Abraham and wife Ruth,   some went to his house and other to a really nice hotel.    Had lunch in hotel then went to Abrahams house to lay the foundations for the new clinic.   We had a service in the church  ,   the worship there was something really special,   the Holy Spirit was amoungst us and the worship singing was the best weve ever heard,   very powerful praying and a couple brought their baby daughter Eunice forward for Baptism,  it was a very special moment and what did we sing?    Welcome to the Family of course.       After service we were taken to the land to lay the foundation for the clinic,  we each laid a trowel of cement along with prayer.    We then had a wonderful dinner in Abrahams garden which you could call the equivalent to the garden of Eden,  a very peaceful garden where you easily encountered  the Living Christ.       Had a really good sleep in hotel,   then breakfast, then a walk around the town of Dindigal,    purchased a few gorgeous indian outfits  for Beatty to take back to the pupils to dress up in, who had a made a huge contribution of fundraising for the many causes out here that we have visited.  In the afternoon we visited  village people up in the mountains,   its was like stepping back in time,  kids with no shoes, very simple way of life, a bit like the days of old in the Bible.    On from there back to Abrahams,  Jackie and Lauren both had upset tummys so had to go back to hotel the rest stayed.   It was raining very heavy and Beatty thought the art class for that night may be cancelled,  but 6 made a huge effort to learn some craftwork,  and Beatty had a real enjoyable experience with the small group,  the lights kept going off but this did not deter them in any way,  their passion to learn is unbelievable,  the craft matrials were left for the sunday school kids.      Had a nice lunch and we are away for a wee stroll around the market,  Kodaikanal is a lovely place , in the middle of the jungle,  monkeys all around, beautiful flowers and fruit trees in abundance,   as we drove in it was quite funny as there was washing out on the line everywhere, and we discovered that it is a big laundry place.   

Love to all our family and friends back home and we will see you all soon.

God Bless and take care.

goodbye (Vanakkam)

Beatty, Lauren and Jackie xxx