This is the report from the FETCH Mission Trip in 2009.
January 31 2009:
We have been so busy and stayed up late to get the next days projects ready that I haven't had time to send anything off to you. One night I seemed to loose the web and had trouble getting back into Daniel's emails to start a new one, so gave up hoping to do it in the morning, but others needed to do something with the computer and then it was time to go out the door. Wow, we have just Sabbath here and then we fly out tomorrow night for Delhi. There are four of us going and we verified with the tour guide that they are still planning on us. There is Dave, Karen & I and Pansy is joining us, but flying on a different plane within about 15 minutes of our schedule. She speaks the language, so that will be nice.
Here is the
update for the last 4 days.
Tuesday, Jan 27, Day 7
We hurried away to start
the clinic in the Indresam church. We got set up and then worked on
making the cloth boxes. The people were so slow to start coming to
the clinic, but it did give us a chance to get organized and then we
sat and made about 50-60 boxes. We were so glad to get all 300 of
those made. Finally about 12:00 a few people came. Then we saw the
school children. Daniel who is 16 sure does a great job at the
vitals on each person. We ended up having Karen hold the children
behind her chair until a doctor was ready and also they would see
her afterward to put cream on their arms. Dr. Dave had our car
driver, Mohahn, who works for the Conference Office in Hyerabad
interpret for him. Dr. Delbe had Pastor Chittybabu interpret, who
is the pastor of I think three churches near this area including
Indresam. Penny sat between the doctors to write down the Dr.
information on each patient.
While medical clinic was
happening upstairs, Bhagyam was downstairs doing a Foot Clinic for
two groups of 12 ladies each. They enjoyed soaking their feet while
visiting and learning some good mother and wife suggestions. Their
feet felt so good after they had scrubbed and put special ointment
on them that Bhagyam teaches them to make with simple ingredients
that they can get here.
It was a busy couple hours
from 12:00 to 2:20. Then we had a graduation for the Ladies
Tailoring Classes. There were 18 of the 27 ladies who had taken a
month-long class who came. We helped the Moses congratulate them
and give them their Certificates. It was exciting to see their
books they had made showing all of the different sewing styles. The
book had miniature little clothing like doll dresses, punjabes,
men's shirts, and sahree tops. They had done a wonderful job.
There was one more special service that followed. The school
children came and the teacher had the best student in each class
perform a song, a little action or reading and then Bhagyam pinned a
little ribbon on them. We finally ate our late lunch and got ready
for our evening program. Our craft activity was simple tonight. We
took half sheets of pretty colored paper that Delbe brought and we
cut up her stickers into little bunches for each child. They folded
the paper and wrote on the outside "God Loves You" and on the
inside "And I Love You Too." Things are going a bit more smooth for
the program. We had about 250 kids we think. After the program we
hurried home to work on getting ready for the Hospital visit. We
had 200 special thin towels that were folded as 4 together that we
needed to separate and then to reroll putting a toothbrush and
toothpaste inside of and then tie with a ribbon on each end to hold
it in. We had bought 200 wool blankets to take and give to each
person, They were also in groups of 4 that we needed to separate and
refold.
Wednesday, Jan 28, Day
#8
We loaded all of the heavy
things into and on top of the cars. We're off this morning for our
big adventure to the Government Hospital in Karmanghat. It is about
1 1/2 hours drive going right on past Indresam. It took us a while
to get the officials available to help with the gurney that we
needed for all of the blankets. While waiting at about 11:00 am a
young man came up to Dr. Delbe and Penny at the car and said he
worked for the hospital. It turned out he was the head of the
hospital nutrition and is in charge of the one meal a day they
provide. He invited us to come look at his "Kitchen" called the
Canteen which was in a small building across from the hospital
entrance. He had two huge pots of rice made and 2 big pots of dahl
with vegetables and a potato-vegetable curry. It smelled and looked
really good. His place which looked like a garage with cook stoves
in one corner and a wash area in another had no counter space. It
was a very clean facility and he seemed very organized. Just as we
were leaving, the rest of the group showed up, so we introduced them
and they all took a look too. We enjoyed the goats walking by in
the front yard. He also had bread and milk for the bland diet
patients.
The hospital had about 80
mental patients whom we didn't go visit and then about 200 other
patients. We loaded the 200 wool blankets on the gurney and started
delivering those in each big room with beds lined up on both sides
of the room--army style. We were just about done and then Dr. Dave
took a stack to the TB isolation section of the hospital. Karen,
Daniel and Penny went to the car for the children's suitcases and
the bananas. We gave bananas, a stuffed animal, coloring picture
sheets and crayons to the 20 little children, then bananas and
little stuffed animals to the mothers in maternity. The burn
section was the hardest to see. One young lady had so much of her
body burned that Dave said she might not make it, considering the
type of care that hospital was giving. We decided we had given
enough and spent enough time and headed to Indresam to eat our lunch
and get ready for the program.
It was nice to be to the
church early and get the foot washing going as children started
arriving and have the craft ready. The kids did the little basket
made with a slitted paper and yarn. It was really busy helping to
get a lot of the baskets started. We maybe had 220 kids. We left
the extra basket supplies for the school teacher to use. The kids
really did a good job and enjoyed doing those. (Thank you Sharon
for all of your prep work.)
We have many older boys
that stick around to help carry things down to the storeroom and out
to the car each night. It is such a help to us. We usually leave
the church about 8:00 pm. We made a quick stop for some groceries
on the way home and had our bite of supper. We did some sorting and
prep for the next day and then Franklin, Bhagyam, Pansy and Karen
went to the airport to pick up Olivia Moses, their daughter who has
come for 12 days with them.
Thursday, Jan 29, Day #9
We were all tired this
morning and got up late, but raced and went to the Elim Adventist
Home orphanage in Karmangha. This is the same orphanage that the
FETCH group went to 5 years ago. It has grown from about 45 to 85
orphans and then they have many come in from the community to have a
school of about 400 students. It was a special Olympic day with no
school. It was interesting to watch them run a couple races and do
ball throwing, tossing etc. We went upstairs to a couple rooms and
set up a clinic in one room where they saw about 40 students. Pansy
and Penny blew up about 150 balloons and made them into dog shapes
which we gave to the orphanage kids and then others as far as they
went. We also took oranges, grapes, bananas & melons for the 85
children. We hurried away as we had 1 1/2 hours to drive back home
and then get to our meeting. We were running late and started our
meeting almost an hour late. We had a full church with close to 300
kids as we ran out of most of our craft which was the bird puppet
with feathers.
Friday, Jan 30, Day #10
Part of our group went
shopping and picking up some music instruments that we ordered,
which was way across town and took many hours. Part of the group
stayed home and shopped for the evening program and helped to put
that together. We went early to set up meeting and had a wonderful
final program with about 280 children. We pray that the children
have learned about Jesus love to them and some ways that they can
live healthier, happier and more like Jesus would live. There is so
much that they can still learn.
Sabbath, Jan 31
We are going to the big
church in Kukatpalli and coming home for dinner. Then most of the
team is flying tonight. Daniel and Delbe are heading for the states
and Dr. Dave, Penny, Karen and Pansy are flying to Delhi for 5 days
to tour there. The time has gone so fast here and there is always
so much that you wish you had time to still do. God has been good.
It is very peaceful here and we have met some wonderful people.
Reported by Penny
We finally had time
tonight to upload our pictures onto the computer so we could send
some. I will try this and see if it works. Dave is our official
photo gatherer into the computer and has spent a couple hours
working on it. I will get some information typed in as to our
activities and send that off to you in a bit.
| After night # 10 These two girls were there every night with their little sister who was very sleepy. |
| Thursday (day #9) at the Elam Adventist Orphanage, Penny Messenger and Pansy (Franklin's sister) making about 150 balloons for the kids. |
|
Night # 9 craft of the Elijah raven. |
| Thursday (day #9) at the Elan Adventist Home with 3 young ladies. |
|
The church at Indresam |
| The children inside the Indresam Church waiting for the program to begin. |
| The children arriving for the meeting and lining up to wash their feet. |
| A few of the young men who made the Moses basket craft (day # 8, Wednesday) |
It was a busy day again,
but seems like more to write about for our Monday.
I wrote a bit about the
clinic in downtown Hyderabad Sunday AM, but didn't have a lot of
information. There is an Adventist Dr. Ernest Daniel Parsad who has
taken his deceased parents house and property and made a medical
clinic near the historic area of Charminar. He planned his grand
opening for the week we were here and had banners up around that
area telling that American Dr. David Cheek and Dr. Delbe Meelhuysen
would be there. He is a wonderful man and looks like he will have a
wonderful program here in India to help the people and it will help
our program also. We supplied almost all of the medications and
vitamins for the day. About 120 people came during the day.
Clinic was 9-1 and we had to leave at 1:30 with many many patients
left not being seen. There were 6 doctors including 4 native to
also help and they stayed until about 3:30 to finish. Delbe & Dave
saw about 15-20 patients each. Dr. Parsad's wife saw all of the
children who came.
Today was Republic day and
we went to Indresam for the flag raising ceremony with the children
at our little church school. They were so cute all lined up and did
a number of reciting things for us and walked around a flag pole set
up special for the occasion. About an hour after we got there the
President of Indresam came walking up the little dirt road from the
edge of town with his special attendants and two drums beating and
maybe about 40 or 50 school children from the public school and a
few other town people. They came and joined the 40 students of the
FETCH SDA school at our SDA Church in Indresam. It was a nice
celebration and so special to hear them all sing their national
athemn. The President untied the India flag and we watched it flow
in the breeze. Then all of the guests left and we gave the children
a special treat of a small cupcake and banana and flowers for their
hair or to carry home.
As we left the Ceremony at
the Indresam Church, we stopped at one of the church member's little
tailor shops which was down one of the little housing streets in
Indresam to have Delbe get measured and pick what she would like the
pattern to be for some fabric she bought last night. Then we
decided to go visit the Pastor at the Kuketpalli Church as he wasn't
there on Sabbath. He is in his 40's and has two sons who are at the
boarding school. He seems very nice. We toured his little house,
which was what FETCH had built and set up to be the community
Center. We asked about some of the big pots, pans, stoves and other
things that use to be in there. He said they were not using them
and had no need for them, and said that it would be good to take
them to use some place else. So we started carrying out lots more
things than we had pictured. The pastor was very helpful and found
things in different rooms, and closets. We put a lot up on top of
the jeep vehicle and filled the back. We managed to get most of us
back into the car to head home. Our second car came to pick up
Franklin and Dave. We took that stuff all over to the storage at
Indresam church in the afternoon.
We came back to the condo
for lunch and quick shopping for the evening give away of crackers
and for tomorrows snack mix, also little bags to divide stickers
into. Karen Patterson had spent the day at home today because of a
slight sore throat. It has been nice to have one person stay home
some of these days because they help do last minute prepping of the
craft project. She spent a lot of time today working on our fabric
boxes. Penny worked on them an hour tonight. We have about another
100 to make tomorrow during our travel, clinic and whatever else
comes up.
Daniel usually does
activities with the early children until we are ready to start the
program, but tonight he was the one who was in charge, so Dr. Delbe,
Penny, and Bhagyam tried to fill his shoes. Delbe started out with
a copy game and then follow the leader. Then we started London
Bridges Falling Down. The kids thought that was great. Then the
young girl who was working with Penny took her hands and started the
spin where you hold hands and lean back and walk fast in a circle.
She didn't think she could do it for very long because of getting
dizzy, but by alternating directions of the spin, lots of kids had
fun. Kids started doing it with each other also. Tonight was maybe
the biggest night of children and we stopped letting children come
in because it was really crowded, particularly at the door area.
Kids were having a hard time being quiet and listening, so Franklin
started taking one by one out if he saw them talking or causing a
problem. It quieted down a lot when he started sending kids out.
We told the Bible story
and Dave was trying to give his health talk when we heard this very
loud voice. It was some lady from the village who said we were not
fair to not let everyone in. She would not be quiet. Dr. Dave
started getting the kids to repeat the words to the song "God is so
Good" and then we sang it. The children sang it so loud that it
drowned out this mad lady and she got quiet for a bit. Bhagyam went
to the door and talked to her and took her and the children who were
standing at the outside, downstairs to the lower level and helped
them do a bit of one of the other night's crafts. Upstairs was busy
with about 250 kids. We ran out of stickers for some of the
children but at least they could write the words Jesus Loves Me on
the outside of their little colored paper card and write I Love
Jesus on the inside. They do beautiful coloring on the Bible Story
coloring paper.
After the evening program,
we went shopping. I think everyone bought a few more things tonight
and we came home to show each other our good finds. We have clinic
tomorrow, graduation for the Tailoring School Ladies, and teach the
ladies about foot care and then the evening children's meeting.
Wednesday is hospital visit day, Thursday is orphanage visit &
clinic and evening meeting. Friday we are shopping and doing the
final meeting and we fly out Sabbath evening.
Reported by Penny
January 27 2009:
Hi to all our Family & Friends ,
I slept well for my
short night as I woke up early about 5:00 and hurried to the
bathroom. After several trips to the bathroom, I got up for
worship and Delbe gave me some enzymes to get my digestion going
normal again and Dave gave me a special drink to pick up my
electrolytes. Delbe and I aren't quite back to normal, but are
up and functioning and doing OK. Thanks for forwarding the
email as I haven't figured out if there is a way to set up a
group on his computer, so I would have to type in each address
as I did the first couple emails. Daniel does his chat time and
emails and then brings the computer in for Dave or I to use.
Dr. Dave was first tonight. Could you call Jan Hatcher and let
her know that the kids loved the little bags that she helped cut
all of the ribbons for, and Eleanor Watkins who stitched about
200 of (them). Cby
Messenger
& Chris McKay worked on those a lot also.
I forgot to include in
last night's email a couple things. On Friday we got busy doing
clinic and didn't pick up a give away other than the coloring sheet.
We also had a plan to work with the kids as they came staggering in
to the church to make the cloth boxes downstairs right after they
wash their feet. We got a late start on that as we stayed at the
clinic until about 4:15, so didn't get set up and organized until
about 5:15. Lots of kids had arrived by then. Bhagyam & Penny each
took a group of 10 and worked on making boxes. Some of the kids
caught on right away and helped each other, but we could tell that
it would take way too long to work with as we had more like 250-300
kids and they would not be able to do it in a one-big-group setting.
Well, that meant no craft to take home and no treat. The boxes are
really cute so we have been folding them in our spare time so we can
give them out at one of the meetings. (But we decided that the card
boxes will wait till another time. Dr. Delbe brought some pretty
paper and stickers that we plan to do instead.)
Consequently, when you
don't give something out, less people come the next night. There
were about 180 on Saturday night. That makes it easier to work
with. They made the bookmark which went well except some of the
glue that we had wasn't too good. The team got home earlier in the
evening and decided to head out to do some shopping nearby.
Sunday the group went to do a clinic with a Dr. from here. Bhagyam stayed home to do some shopping and catch up at the condo. Penny stayed home also as she was still a little sick. She worked on making the little cut slits in the cloth bags and then it was decided to put a pin and ribbons on each bag which kept her busy for the morning. At the clinic they found out that there were 5 Doctors there. I'm sorry that I didn't learn if there was a grand total of how many they saw. Karen was really busy keeping up the vitamins, and meds for all of them. The clinic was from about 9:00 to 1:00. One of the Doctors was a diabetic specialist, so Pansy talked to him about her diabetes and the sore that is on her leg. He told her to keep that leg up for a couple days, so she stayed home for the afternoon/evening meeting today. A quick lunch at the condo and we headed to the church about 3:00. We had about 200 children tonight, plus a few Mom's who came late. The kids really seemed to like the little bags that they made. It was a busy time helping them get started and taking care of things like the pins opening up in the middle and not moving forward any more, or the slits needing to go through two layers of cloth as we used ends of sheets where it was double. The program went pretty well and then on the way home, we stopped at a fancy store to check out clothes to buy. We mostly looked and will check out a couple other places this week.
Reported by Penny
Day 1 – Bhagyam, Leader
This first meeting is always full of excitement. The children can with
happy hearts and welcoming hands. It is almost as if the whole village
was there to welcome us. We thank you for your prayers. Every morning
and evening we have worships and re-evaluate why we are here. We
remember Pr. Terry’s words – you are the hands, the feet, the eyes and
the moth of Jesus. God has been so good to us.
The children sang with great enthusiasm. They remembered the songs. We
were able to do the stories, nature nugget, the health talk. The theme
of the series is about justification and sanctification. We started off
with Zacheus and his repentances. The theme carried through the program.
Thanks to the people for the donation of the felts, they were used for
the story to bring it alive. Thanks to Karen who sat and cut the leaves
because the leaves were in the suitcase that was lost. We were able to
show them fall colors as well because we ran out of green, which was a
nice touch. Franklin talked to them about the tall trees and small tree
and about how wise god that he made the fruits of the tall tree small
(banyan tree) and the fruits of the small tree big (water melon). Dr.
Delbe gave the Health talk….we are focusing on diseases, symptoms and
cure/care. We were also able to show them a video of Jesus life.
There were close 200 children….amazing for the first day! All praise
goes to God.
Day 2 – Franklin, Leader
We had a full day, We left early in the morning to set up the clinic in
Indresam. This was our first clinic with Dr. Cheek and Dr. Delbe. We set
up the clinic upstairs in the Indresam church. Many of the people that
were familiar with FETCH came to the clinic. It was good to see them.
Daniel did the initial processing, we had three translators (Bhagyam,
Pastor, male nurse). Karen was the pharmacist, Penny and Pansy were
entertaining the waiting patients. We saw around 40 patients.
We were better prepared for the children. We had the obedience class
(Daniel) they had fun playing Simon says. They washed themselves up and
we were able to pick a captain and sent 10 children at a time with
instructions on how to share and how to be quiet when they are told to
be quiet. Penny took them up and Karen got them to sit in their station
and Pansy started the song service. The Key board, guitar and the
musicians were a nice addition. We were able to do the smiley and sad
faces for the craft…they looked very good. Dr. David had power point
Presentations for the health talk. Daniel gave the nature talk about
light and the different kinds light with demonstrations. We gave gave
them snacks as they left…just like the first day in an orderly fashion.
We praise God for His goodness and His protection.
Bhagyam Moses
January 24 2009: FETCH = Feed Educate Teach
Clothe and Heal
Bhagyam & Franklin
Moses, Our Fearless Leaders (Natives from India, residing in
Beaverton)
Pansy, Franklin
Moses's sister, retired from Quiet Hour, residing in Redlands,
California
Dr. Dave Cheek,
Physician from Beaverton
Dr. Delbe Meelhuysen,
Physician from Keene, Texas, formerly from Beaverton
Daniel Meelhuysen, Dr
Delbe's teenage son, also from Keene, Texas
Karen Dondino
Patterson from Beaverton
Penny Messenger from
Beaverton
We went to the Kuketpalli
Church which was the first church that was built and is so pretty.
It was a touching and stressful time for us as this church that
Moses' built for this area, is not appreciating what they have.
The church 3 years ago had about 150 people. Today there was about
20-30 there. Delbe played the keyboard for Dave, Daniel and Delbe
to sing "Nearer Still Nearer". Then they asked Bhagyam to share and
she told the history of her father and grandfather's work in the
area and of them being asked to build this fine church in memory of
them. Dave shared how good it is for us to keep sharing the
message, not to hold grudges, of being faithful as Shadrack, Meshak,
and Abednigo were and told a story of a man who wouldn't send his
daughter to the government school and went to jail. The supreme
Court told him he was pardoned as he had conviction. Then our group
sang "God is So Good" with Pansy at the keyboard.
I started feeling queasy
in my stomach and headed down to the bathroom, I didn't make it and
up-chucked my breakfast on the downstairs floor where we had done
the meetings the first year. Bhagyam had followed me down and a man
and lady were getting ready for communion. They cleaned up my mess.
I went over to a flower bed to wash up and upchucked more. I felt
lots better in my stomach then. Delbe and all the ladies decided
that we should go home, so we had the one driver take us home. Delbe
& I headed to bed and got a couple hours rest with about an hour of
sleep. I woke up as the group was leaving for the meeting about
3:00. Delbe & I decided to stay home and rest. We worked on making
some more of the boxes that we decided were taking too much time for
the kids. Then I headed up for a couple hour nap again. We got up
when the first car load came back. Then I spent some time making the
slits in the little cloth bags that Eleanor had sewed for us. The
place where the kids will put the ribbon through. I decided to try
eating a bit of rice. I haven't been feeling really bad, but felt
that I needed to give my stomach a rest. And I do feel a little
uneasy in my tummy once in awhile. I hope I feel good enough in the
morning to head to a Doctor Ernest's place about a half hour away to
help him do a free clinic there.
Written by Penny for the
group.
Happy Sabbath,
It is Friday night here in
India. We had a busy couple days again. Here is a bit of what we
did.
Wednesday, we needed
to buy a couple more things for the meetings and make copies of the
coloring pages.
Bhagyam Moses made
that happen, plus she and Leelia, a helper in the kitchen, cooked
about 5 different dishes.
Karen Patterson stayed
to help in the kitchen and to cut out a bunch of leaves for the
activity. Bhagyam had a visitor show up at the door whom she had
lost track of. It was a mother of two of the children that FETCH
sponsors in the boarding school. (She came and joined us for our
day on Thursday and helped a lot.) The rest of the group headed out
to buy a keyboard, guitar, a
couple drums and tambourines. Then the seven of them went to the
Salar Jung Museum where Mr. Jung's collection of things from all
over the world is on display. It is a big place and we spent about
2 hours there looking at many things from the time frame of
1750-1900. A slow car ride home for a quick supper and we arrived
at the church about 6:30. About 180 kids came running. They were
so excited and were very hard to settle down for a meeting. We got
home around 10:00pm
Thursday, we left the Condo about 10:00 am and headed to the church in Indresam to hold a medical clinic. We set it up in the upstairs church area. We had a constant stream of 27 people coming in from 11:30 until about 3:00. Dr. Delbe and Dr. Dave are so good in helping these people. Daniel Meelheysen is the one who welcomes them and takes their vitals (weight, blood pressure, pulse, temp, and blood sugar level. The interpreter would write everything down and talk to the people. Karen Patterson is our pharmacist and gives to the Doctors, whatever they are needing. Bhagyam is our constant interpreter whom we really appreciate. People so want to talk to us and, of course, we can't understand. Penny helped write the vitals down and worked a little here and there and entertains the children if we have them. Blowing bubbles, singing songs, taking their picture and showing the children on the camera have worked really pretty well. Ring around the rosy was a good hit also. We ate our sack lunch plus seasoned rice and got ready for the program which we started about 4:30. It went a lot smoother being there early. We didn't have as many come, maybe 120 and we ended about 7:30.
Friday, Dr. Delbe is sick with the flu today. She stayed home in bed and Pansy went to the hospital to have a sore on her leg checked out. Pray for both of them. The rest of us left the condo about 10:30 this morning and headed to Indresam to hold a clinic in a small hut village about a half mile from the church. The government has built a new little school which opened about 4 months ago. They have 71 children, grades 1-3, in a one room school with one teacher. Then they have a teacher out on the porch who has 20 kindergarten children. They were so nice and moved their students out, and we moved into the classroom. We saw about 21 patients and had 22 of the school children come to get vitamins and see the Doctor, some for other ailments. Our clinic lasted a bit longer than planned, getting us started at the church a bit later--about 5:00--and by then we had a lot of children there. We were to make the cloth alabaster box and decided it would be best to make them in small groups as the children came and were also getting their feet washed. Well, with starting late and seeing how long it would take to make the boxes with the first group of children, we decided we needed to forget the boxes for tonight. We plan to make most or all of them up here at the condo and just take them to the meeting and give out one evening. (Not sure how we will handle doing the card boxes yet.) The program was full with about 240 children tonight. They listened a lot better tonight.
Sabbath we plan to go
visit at the Kukatpali church for the morning. Then we'll come home
for lunch and we have our meeting at the Indresam church to get to
around 3:30.
We haven't taken time to
see if we can get any of our pictures into our computers and send
them to you. Maybe we can do that yet this weekend.
Written by Penny for the group.
Our first 10-hour flight to Amsterdam was not full, so we were able to spread out and we stretched out on the four seats in the middle for couple-hour naps. We had a good vegetable pasta and tossed salad for lunch/supper and then an egg muffin and fruit cup for our breakfast. It was windy and raining when we arrived in Amsterdam and we didn't have a lot of time there. Our flight was full but was a good 8-hour flight. We had two good meals on that flight. Another good pasta with a garbanzo salad and then a split pea type of soup with a different cooked vegetable salad.
Dr. Delbe Meelhuysen and her son Daniel arrived about a day before us. We got up and enjoyed a good breakfast including the good oranges that I had brought from Redlands, CA.
Then we have been unpacking, sorting and counting out the pills for the clinics. We start our clinic and VBS program tomorrow. This afternoon we are going shopping for the last of
the things we need.
This is the second time I have typed this in and not sure what I said that was different the first time. We need to eat and run, so more later.
Penny and the crew.
Thank you for all your support...Thank God for His goodness toward us.
We cannot believe that we have
been in India for a week now. We got quite a bit done. The Condo
was full of dust and it took several days to clean it up. We stocked up
on food. We went to Indresam and Kukatpalli. The people were so excited
to see us.
- The graduates from the tailoring school brought us their lab journals to us what they are able to do now. Several of them are are making money sewing clothes for people.
- We saw the school in operation...the children performed for us. It was a joy to see them so happy and excited to learn.
- The women that we gave micro loans to came to see us. It was heart warming to hear their success stories.
We sang songs with them and prayed with them. Indresam people wanted us to go and worship with them. So we will be going to church there today. Cannot wait for the rest of the team to come. We told them that the meetings and the clinics are going to start next week. They are so excited and waiting ....God is soooo good !
Please thank the church for praying for us...we feel so lifted up. We are so glad that we did not cancel our trip this year. Please continue to pray for us.
In Jesus love
Bhagyam
January 7 2009: As this year's trip begins during the next week, we will be posting status updates as often as the team is able to provide them. So check back often for those updates! Those updates will be posted on this page by date.