Last week, Sister Martin and I participated in a food donation to a children's orphanage in India.
We also decided to do this in conjunction with the weekly challenges our church leaders gave us to "Light The World". This week's challenge was called "Light Your Community". See this YouTube video link... Light The World - 2018 and web site... Light The World One of the statements I liked on this web site said, "Jesus’s love knew no bounds. Discover ways to help someone in another part of the world."
Since we are currently serving a mission in another part of the world, and in a country with more challenges than we are used to seeing, the opportunities and need are endless. Instead of donating money, we decided to purchase the food items they requested and deliver them ourselves. We went with one other member of our ward.
The list of needed items included: cooking oil, onions, ginger, garlic, flour and a variety of other items including some spices we were unfamiliar with. Below is the final list of item we purchased:
Even though it was not on the list, we decided to buy 150 small chocolate bars as well.
This seemed to be a very well run and clean orphanage. While the children were eating their lunch the director invited us to go inside to her office for a little bit of their curry rice lunch as well.
After lunch we came out to say hello to the children. They were all lined up and quite orderly. Sister Martin wanted to meet each child so she walked down the lines and shook every child's hand.
These children learn to speak four different languages; Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and English. Some of them asked, her, "how do you do?" in very good English. They even asked what her favorite color was. Sister Martin asked some of them their names and how old some of them were. Most of them could tell their names, but some may not have understood the question of their age, so their friends around them answered the question for them. Since this was a Christian orphanage, she asked a couple of them if they believed in Jesus and they said "Yes".
I (Elder Martin) decided to just talk to one or two. I asked one child a few questions. For example, I asked when their birthday was but they said they didn't know. The director then told me that none of them know when their actual birthday is so she picked February 2nd as the birthday for all 72 children. Perhaps we'll return on that day.
There are many orphanages in India; some for children and some for older people like a nursing home. The children orphanages are filled with mostly girls which was the case for the one we visited. One study in India reported that about 10 million children are abandon each year and about 90% are girls.
Here are a couple of videos. A few of the little children decided to dance for us to the tune, "Jingle Bells".
As you can tell we enjoyed this experience. It also seemed suitable to use a picture from this experience for our Christmas card. Merry Christmas 2018.
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| When we arrived to the orphanage, the children had just sat down for lunch |
Since we are currently serving a mission in another part of the world, and in a country with more challenges than we are used to seeing, the opportunities and need are endless. Instead of donating money, we decided to purchase the food items they requested and deliver them ourselves. We went with one other member of our ward.
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| Even the Uber driver helped to unload the supplies |
The list of needed items included: cooking oil, onions, ginger, garlic, flour and a variety of other items including some spices we were unfamiliar with. Below is the final list of item we purchased:
Even though it was not on the list, we decided to buy 150 small chocolate bars as well.
This seemed to be a very well run and clean orphanage. While the children were eating their lunch the director invited us to go inside to her office for a little bit of their curry rice lunch as well.
After lunch we came out to say hello to the children. They were all lined up and quite orderly. Sister Martin wanted to meet each child so she walked down the lines and shook every child's hand.
These children learn to speak four different languages; Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and English. Some of them asked, her, "how do you do?" in very good English. They even asked what her favorite color was. Sister Martin asked some of them their names and how old some of them were. Most of them could tell their names, but some may not have understood the question of their age, so their friends around them answered the question for them. Since this was a Christian orphanage, she asked a couple of them if they believed in Jesus and they said "Yes".
I (Elder Martin) decided to just talk to one or two. I asked one child a few questions. For example, I asked when their birthday was but they said they didn't know. The director then told me that none of them know when their actual birthday is so she picked February 2nd as the birthday for all 72 children. Perhaps we'll return on that day.
There are many orphanages in India; some for children and some for older people like a nursing home. The children orphanages are filled with mostly girls which was the case for the one we visited. One study in India reported that about 10 million children are abandon each year and about 90% are girls.
Here are a couple of videos. A few of the little children decided to dance for us to the tune, "Jingle Bells".
Merry Christmas Elder and Sister Martin . May God bless you in your talents of serving and blessing children.
ReplyDeleteWe are doing ok.Walking slow and ok.
Love, Beth and Dennis