Blog
Did you know that 20% percent of our monthly budget is spent buying rice for our children? Our 98 children eat 66 pounds of rice a day! Seasonings and spices used in their food preparation include red chilies, chilies, powder, tamarind, coriander, turmeric powder, table salt, rock salt, mustard seeds, horse gram, cumin, yellow gram and sugar. When we visit they share their rice with us and it is delicious!
This year’s team included Tom & Peggy Nixon, Mel Gentry, Melissa Heiland and Nellie Anderson. The team spent time at our children’s homes in Ongole and in Santhamagalur, visiting with the children and our caretaker family, the Joshua’s. At both locations, they took photos of all the children to share with their sponsors, and participated in the children’s craft time. In addition, the team held eyeglass clinics, which are explained in our next post.
In Ongole, the team enjoyed a new addition to the children’s home—a back porch that gives the kids a wonderful, shady and cool place to do their homework. Previously they had used the front porch which got the full brunt of the hot Indian sun and made for a most unpleasant study time. At the village church in Santhamagalur, they had lunch with the kids . Overall the trip was a wonderful success!
HOCI, together with Beautiful Feet International (beautifulfeetinternational.com), held eyeglass clinics in 3 villages. We took 400 pairs of prescription glasses and sunglasses, all donated by the Lions Club. Without this ministry, Indians with vision problems would otherwise never have an eye exam and receive glasses. We saw 205 patients and had 39 salvations—30 Hindus and 5 Muslims.
Each year when we travel to India, we bring special gifts and crafts for the children. This year, each child received a beautiful hand wrapped gift from Mel Gentry’s Sunday School class in Pensacola. The children were absolutely delighted with these gifts, which had been wrapped especially for children young and old, as well as boys and girls.
Crafts this year, among other things, included the cards our sponsors get from their children. Each child wrote a note to their sponsor in their native language, Telugu. You can see in the photos below that it’s quite different! Then we had Toni Joshua’s new wife, Nancy, translate the note into English so that you can see what they are saying.
The sponsor cards themselves were a special treat this year as well. An accomplished artist, Snowden Hernandez, was kind enough to donate his skills. He created 2 beautiful drawings from images of past trips—one of a boy at the well in Ongole and one of girls running towards the church in Santhamagalur.
Through their $200 annual donation, our sponsors provide a Indian child with a Christian home, food, clothing, education, tutors and vocational training. Interested in sponsoring? Contact us.
