Happy Birthday to Ganesh
Jewelry Ministry!
Please pray for Pravitha!
Women and Children at the KM Pattty Village Community Center
Sharon Secondary School
Nursing School and Community CollegeJam Packed Day!
I woke up this morning to the usual Hindu chanting and music blaring from the nearby streets. This week India celebrated the festival of Ganesh (the Elephant god), and strangely, they broadcast soundtracks from Bollywood musicals for this occasion. Evidently Ganesh doesn't have his/her own praise music. Even more strange, it's kind of cool to wake up to. At least I remembered I was in India!
Today was uber-busy and I am sleepy tonight. I slept well last night for the first time, even though it was only 5 hours.
This morning we did the tour of Sharon Gardens which never gets old. The nursing school and community college are growing, and we met many of the students who look young but are serious about their education. These are students who come from the neighboring villages and have completed their public schooling but would not be able to go farther in school to learn a trade or have a career, since higher education is all private. IGL brings these young people here and literally gives them a future by training them in nursing, computers, engineering, teaching, life skills, etc, and then securing jobs for them after graduation as part of their program. Their education is totally sponsored by IGL donors, and costs a mere $300 start to finish.
We also spent some time in Sharon's Cancer Hospital where we met Pativrha, a beautiful young girl 12-14 yrs. old who was waiting for her radiation treatment for bone cancer. Even though they were Hindu, she and her mother were grateful we prayed with her. My prayer was that God might use our intersecting paths today to heal her, that her life may take a different course and she might grow to be a godly woman and an influence in her community. She was precious, precious.
We of course saw the industrial parts of Sharon and the dairy farm and tailor shop which has grown into a full-fledged garment business (Oh, the fabrics just lying in heaps on the floor!), but the most jarring visit was to the schools which are in a real predicament. The high school has been waiting their re-accreditation papers for several years now. The paperwork has been filed and re-filed and just gets shuffled from one government desk to another. Prati says they will call and report something missing from the application or some other mistake that needs correcting, none of which are true. She has had to resend ridiculous numbers of pictures (every angle of every corner of every building and room, including bathrooms!), because they say they were never sent with the applications. The government is corrupt and they want Sam and Prati to give them money in exchange for the accreditations, which they obviously want no part of. They have already been required to purchase airline tickets for visiting education officials just for their file to remain open. Weird.
I asked her about appealing in person to their political sense of hurting India's future, but clearly their hands are tied. She said they would be investigated for simply being seen in government offices and when the investigators found out there were other businesses and employees on the grounds here, they would consider them wealthy and begin to confiscate their vehicles (ambulances, school busses, trucks etc.), for government use. So they have to lay low and, in Prati's words, "trust their God who parted the Red Sea", to change hearts and stamp paperwork!
The school is beginning to suffer now because the class that began with this ordeal is about to graduate, and if they are not accredited, the students will be barred from going on to college (since Sharon is a private school), and their education will be basically "wasted." Already 60 families have pulled their children out as a result. Unbelievable. This kind of injustice makes me crazy! So please pray for something to happen fast. (Also, Sharon's schools (primary and secondary), hold the top 492 spots for highest test scores in this region; over 3/4 their entire enrollment of 600!). These are GOOD schools! AND, thanks in large part To IGL's impact on education, this regIon is now 100% child literate!! Hugely Incredible for India!
Our campus tour was followed by a visit to a neighboring village where IGL has built their 4th Community Center which ministers to the social needs of surrounding villages. IGL sends in Representatives with a local Barefoot Pastor to build a clean-water well, form Bible Studies, issue micro-loans for cows, goats, sewing machines, medical surgeries, and tutoring), teach the village women life skills such as hygiene, water purification, basic health needs (vaccines etc), craft-making for extra income, problem-solving and other skills necessary for normal life. Along the way they raise up and train leaders from the villages, plant a church and eventually an entire group of villages becomes healthy and self-sustaining and IGL moves on to repeat the process somewhere else. I love this ministry!
After drenching the morning in such sobering needs, the shopping "ministry" was greatly needed. We blitzed their amazing jewelry stores where we were served tea, more Sari shops where we were served coffee, then jetted back to Sharon for a special children's program of the adorable 300 kids at the primary school here. I wish I could put all those pictures and videos on here for you to see, but sending that much data over the cell network would break the bank (which is how I'm having to do this due to the almost- world wide web difficulties!),
It would be great if all of you could sit down and see all the pictures when I get back, but I probably have never seen most of your vacation pictures, either. Ha. I'm just grateful you're reading!
Tomorrow another village visit, four hours away. Maybe you'll get a crazy traffic video tomorrow- if you're lucky! Stay tuned!
I woke up this morning to the usual Hindu chanting and music blaring from the nearby streets. This week India celebrated the festival of Ganesh (the Elephant god), and strangely, they broadcast soundtracks from Bollywood musicals for this occasion. Evidently Ganesh doesn't have his/her own praise music. Even more strange, it's kind of cool to wake up to. At least I remembered I was in India!
Today was uber-busy and I am sleepy tonight. I slept well last night for the first time, even though it was only 5 hours.
This morning we did the tour of Sharon Gardens which never gets old. The nursing school and community college are growing, and we met many of the students who look young but are serious about their education. These are students who come from the neighboring villages and have completed their public schooling but would not be able to go farther in school to learn a trade or have a career, since higher education is all private. IGL brings these young people here and literally gives them a future by training them in nursing, computers, engineering, teaching, life skills, etc, and then securing jobs for them after graduation as part of their program. Their education is totally sponsored by IGL donors, and costs a mere $300 start to finish.
We also spent some time in Sharon's Cancer Hospital where we met Pativrha, a beautiful young girl 12-14 yrs. old who was waiting for her radiation treatment for bone cancer. Even though they were Hindu, she and her mother were grateful we prayed with her. My prayer was that God might use our intersecting paths today to heal her, that her life may take a different course and she might grow to be a godly woman and an influence in her community. She was precious, precious.
We of course saw the industrial parts of Sharon and the dairy farm and tailor shop which has grown into a full-fledged garment business (Oh, the fabrics just lying in heaps on the floor!), but the most jarring visit was to the schools which are in a real predicament. The high school has been waiting their re-accreditation papers for several years now. The paperwork has been filed and re-filed and just gets shuffled from one government desk to another. Prati says they will call and report something missing from the application or some other mistake that needs correcting, none of which are true. She has had to resend ridiculous numbers of pictures (every angle of every corner of every building and room, including bathrooms!), because they say they were never sent with the applications. The government is corrupt and they want Sam and Prati to give them money in exchange for the accreditations, which they obviously want no part of. They have already been required to purchase airline tickets for visiting education officials just for their file to remain open. Weird.
I asked her about appealing in person to their political sense of hurting India's future, but clearly their hands are tied. She said they would be investigated for simply being seen in government offices and when the investigators found out there were other businesses and employees on the grounds here, they would consider them wealthy and begin to confiscate their vehicles (ambulances, school busses, trucks etc.), for government use. So they have to lay low and, in Prati's words, "trust their God who parted the Red Sea", to change hearts and stamp paperwork!
The school is beginning to suffer now because the class that began with this ordeal is about to graduate, and if they are not accredited, the students will be barred from going on to college (since Sharon is a private school), and their education will be basically "wasted." Already 60 families have pulled their children out as a result. Unbelievable. This kind of injustice makes me crazy! So please pray for something to happen fast. (Also, Sharon's schools (primary and secondary), hold the top 492 spots for highest test scores in this region; over 3/4 their entire enrollment of 600!). These are GOOD schools! AND, thanks in large part To IGL's impact on education, this regIon is now 100% child literate!! Hugely Incredible for India!
Our campus tour was followed by a visit to a neighboring village where IGL has built their 4th Community Center which ministers to the social needs of surrounding villages. IGL sends in Representatives with a local Barefoot Pastor to build a clean-water well, form Bible Studies, issue micro-loans for cows, goats, sewing machines, medical surgeries, and tutoring), teach the village women life skills such as hygiene, water purification, basic health needs (vaccines etc), craft-making for extra income, problem-solving and other skills necessary for normal life. Along the way they raise up and train leaders from the villages, plant a church and eventually an entire group of villages becomes healthy and self-sustaining and IGL moves on to repeat the process somewhere else. I love this ministry!
After drenching the morning in such sobering needs, the shopping "ministry" was greatly needed. We blitzed their amazing jewelry stores where we were served tea, more Sari shops where we were served coffee, then jetted back to Sharon for a special children's program of the adorable 300 kids at the primary school here. I wish I could put all those pictures and videos on here for you to see, but sending that much data over the cell network would break the bank (which is how I'm having to do this due to the almost- world wide web difficulties!),
It would be great if all of you could sit down and see all the pictures when I get back, but I probably have never seen most of your vacation pictures, either. Ha. I'm just grateful you're reading!
Tomorrow another village visit, four hours away. Maybe you'll get a crazy traffic video tomorrow- if you're lucky! Stay tuned!
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