Friend,
Little girls and teen age girls in India have the same needs as every lady in the making world wide... they need to know they are loved. I plan to visit an orphanage of girls and show them just that!
My life has been surrounded with children from Sunday School teacher, to elementary school teacher, to mother of two sons (and all of the friends that comes with that), to home school mother, to school administrator, to school bus driver, may I add grandmother-to-be and now as a missionary to the girls of India at Home of Love. Please take a moment to read my letter below. I talk about why we should go. It is understood that not all can go but some of us can go with your blessing. Learn of the wonders God is doing in an orphanage for girls, a rarity in the cast system of India. We leave in just over 3 months. With that comes fund raising, preparing a week long Vacation Bible School, shots, learning to work together as a team and lots of prayer. Thank you for partnering with me in this adventure as we have partnered together in the past.
With love,
Connie Jo
June 26-July 8 2013
10 missionaries from Bethel Community Church, Washougal, WA, will be embarking on the privilege of a lifetime. Traveling to Home of Love, a safe haven and home for orphaned girls in Chennai, India, we will partner with God in loving these precious little ones. If not for Home of Love these little girls would be destitute street urchins left to spend their lives begging or prostituting themselves for survival. VBS and a trip to the ocean are the events we have planned with them. Visit their web site to see videos of the Home of Love and the precious girls that we will be spending the week with. You will never be the same when you see and hear how God is at work in India on behalf of the marginalized poor.
People ask: Why do you want to go? You could just send the money. Think of all they could do with the money you spend getting there.
These questions are valid. I have asked myself numerous times, “Why go?”. The Holy Spirit is faithful to answer when we ask and since I began pondering this trip to India last year I have had multiple confirmations of why we should go. I would like to share three of them. All three messages were exactly the same.
The first was from a 1955 book, God’s Smuggler, the story of Brother Andrew who went behind the Iron Curtain to preach the Gospel. The Communist country of Poland had been strangled by religious persecution all the while it was teaming with Christians that needed a personal touch. A Polish brother in Christ said to Brother Andrew, “We want to thank you for being here. Even if you had not said a word, just seeing you would have meant so much. We feel at times as if we are all alone in our struggle.”
A second confirmation was from another book written by David Platt called Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream, written in 2010. War torn and impoverished Sudan was all Andrew had known since he was born. Suffering and persecution was the norm. The Sudanese man, Andrew, asked David Platt, “Do you want to know how you can tell who a true brother is?” “How,” David asked. “A true brother comes to be with you in your time of need. David, you are a true brother. Thank you for coming to be with us.”
The final word came from Dr. Martin Alphonse, the founder of Home of Love. Our India team got to meet Dr. Alphonse and his wife, Padmini, in person during one of our training meetings. “Why should you travel all the way to India and spend thousands of dollars to have such a short time with these girls?” Dr. Alphonse asked us. “Why don’t you just send the money to help improve the orphanage?” There were those exact questions from before. With serious intent Dr. Alphonse told us that going in person would show these little girls their value, they would know God loves them because others came to share in their lives.
Ephesians 3:14-21For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
HOW CAN YOU HELP?
- SHARE with others about the great need to care for the girls of Home of Love.
- GIVE to the mission fund to make this opportunity a reality. Without help we cannot go.
I value your support and prayers.
For a tax deductible donation make your check payable to: “Bethel Community Church.”
In the memo field write: “India/Connie Jo.”
Mail to:
Bethel Community Church
1438 B St., Washougal, WA 98671
For updates, to pray (you can blog your prayer to us) and send encouragement directly to the team visit my blog at
www.fullofjoynow.blogspot.com or e-mail to: bobncj@fastmail.fm
