Photo: Girls at our girls home are happy to show you an abundant harvest from our on-campus gardening project.
We are happy to report that our native team in India threw a Christmas party for our 119 orphans on Christmas Eve. The children received new clothes as gifts and enjoyed a special holiday meal of Biryani and ice cream. Then they enjoyed playing fun games together such as running races, skipping, carroms (similar to billiards), and Kho Kho (a popular local tag game). The children also participated in a singing competition and 17 participants won prizes such as pens, lunch boxes, and books. Every child was very happy, they had so much fun, and they felt satisfied to be loved and blessed by our faithful staff who care for them at our campus known as Peace City.
In other news, our native team has been dealing with the effects of a severe drought in the area since June, which is when the annual monsoons, a natural irrigation source for the land, were supposed to occur. Thankfully our region has recently received some rain, and we ask for your prayers that the heavier rains would arrive soon for the sake of our team and our neighbors’ land. The rainfall greatly benefited our rooftop box gardens — we recently harvested 4 bushels of tomatoes, 5 bushels of eggplants, 3 bushels of cucumbers, 1 bushel of curry leaves, and 3 bushels of okra. We are thankful that these harvests of organic vegetables from our gardening projects add nutritious, delicious ingredients to the children’s meals.
We are in the process of trying to make yet another round of security improvements to our campus as demanded by the Department of Children’s Homes upon a recent inspection, mostly regarding the height of the campus wall, which needs to be raised 3 feet higher. We also need to install cement window frames and iron gates for the Girls Home as extra measures toward securing their protection and comfort. With your support, we are seeking purchase bars of iron, bricks, sand, cement, gravel, plastic pipes, and iron pipes so that we can begin these extensive construction projects during the second week of February.
We are also seeking your support to replace our old playground equipment which has faithfully served 482 orphans over its lifetime (about 10 years) — all of the items have finally given out with rust due to the salty coastal humid air despite our constant efforts to maintain the equipment. We want to purchase new seesaws, swing sets, jumping ropes, Jacob’s Ladders, cricket sets, and badminton sets (poles, nets, rackets, and birdies). All of this new, safe playground equipment will greatly bless the children because they love to play on it when they are on break from their diligent studies.
Our team is still dreaming of starting a small scale water bottling plant. They are considering the option to sell the rice farm to partially fund this endeavor, and along with your generosity they are hoping to purchase some land, machinery, a large furnished building, electricity, workers, a vehicle, and permission from the small scale industries department. Our native team is praying that they’ll be able to begin construction as soon as possible if funding is miraculously provided. We are deeply grateful for your prayers and your faithful support!
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Take a Closer Look: view more photos from this project and others