Home of Love, Tamil Nadu, India

On March 13, 2013 I announced that I was going to India. How is it possible that the trip has come and gone. Please join me as I tell the story of my visit to Home of Love.

Bethel Community Church is connected to Home of Love, an orphanage for girls only, through Martin Alphonse (http://www.multnomah.edu/bio/martin-alphonse/), a native of India. Dr. Alphonse is a professor of Intercultural Studies at Multnomah University, Portland and the founder of Home of Love, now in it's 20th year (established 1993) of providing a loving home and education to the poor and most under protected class of India...girls. 

There are currently 87 girls, ages 5-18, residing full time at The Home of Love (http://www.homeofloveindia.com). So aptly named Home of Love, girls, that are either orphaned or from parents who are too poor to care for them, are given a place that is safe, nurturing, loving and Christ centered. Daily the girls attend school, younger ones on site and upper grades take a bus to school. Unlike most orphanages, when the children turn legal age they are not turned out to fend for themselves, they have college to look forward to, financially provided by Home of Love. While we were there young women who were raised at Home of Love and graduated into college were there. Their love of the younger girls and gratitude for the opportunities given to them at Home Of Love is evident by their commitment to return and serve as volunteers and even as graduates from college as teachers in the school on site, Providence Residential Academy. 

The motto of Home of Love is "How do you change the culture of 1.2 Billion people? The answer is simple and yet so profound...One Girl At A Time." India is being transformed. Girls are rescued from abject poverty since their parent is not able to meet basic needs for food, water, shelter, sanitation and health care. America has been transformed too. Our team got the privilege of being God's hands and feet to these precious girls. Now we know them by name. Their beautiful black-eyes and happy giggles will forever be etched on our hearts. They are growing up as strong, confident women knowing that they are of value to God and to us. James 1:27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

None of us had ever been to India before. Seeing the poverty, filth, masses of people and the lawlessness all around was shocking to our senses. I came away with a renewed understanding of God's ways, expressed in The Lord's Prayer..."Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us." 

Smack dab in the middle of all the chaos is a 9 acre plot of land, protected by a high wall, broken glass cemented onto the top, a gate and a security guard. The streets outside the fence were strewn with piles of rubble, trash of all sorts: bottles, bricks, broken cement, cans, human waste, rotting food, cows, dogs and birds feeding on the left overs. Buses filled to overcapacity, industrial trucks, thousands of motorcycles, bicycles, auto-rickshaw's everywhere, and Mercedes Benz' mixed in with people walking along side and dashing across traffic like the "running of the bulls" in Spain. Honking! Everyone honking!  Yet, in the midst of it all is a small haven. 

The gates open up and beckon us to enter. A peace not known outside the wall is immediately evident as we drive down a tiny dirt lane lined with little white bricks well placed in the land, pointing us toward a spot up ahead where a group of little girls await our arrival. There they are, the little ones we have been praying for, for months. Who is more excited, them or us? It is mutual. We unloaded one by one from our hired van and each one of us were enveloped by little arms and big smiles, some a bit shy but curious about this group of Americans that have come to spend nine days with them. Neatly dressed in their school pinafores, hair pulled back in a pony tail, clean, well fed, healthy and happy girls. Where God rules his kingdom is present. God's ways rule at Home of Love. There was peace, love, joy, security, cleanliness, order. God's kingdom in India, God's will being done by caring for the orphan. God's spirit ruling: 2 Corinthians 3:17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 

In the Hindu religion, with 83% of the population identifying itself as Hindu , what you did in a former life is either reward or punishment in this life. Little girl orphans must have been very bad. They deserve their lot in life...NOT according to the love, grace and forgiveness provided through Jesus Christ and his substitute sacrifice for us. God forgave us. His kingdom of forgiveness says these little girls need to be looked after in their distress. Forgive one another. In the cast system if you did something bad in this life you are rejected by your family and society and you become an untouchable. Untouchables sleep in the gutter and on the sidewalks. There is no forgiveness for their sin from their gods or their family. But in God's Kingdom in Heaven and here on earth there is forgiveness. Eighty-seven precious little girls, made in God's image, are living life in a place where God's Kingdom rules. A vast contrast to that outside the walls. "But Jesus said, 'Let the children come to me. Don't stop them! For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children.' "" Matthew 19:14

Thank you, Lord, for your Heavenly Kingdom come to us in Jesus Christ.

The main street outside the YWCA compound.

A street scene: a woman selling window shades walking between the trucks, cars, motorcycles and our van.

See the beauty, order and peacefulness of Home of Love. An oasis in the midst of chaos.

This is 14 year old Keerteka. She danced a traditional Indian dance in full dress for us. 

Beautifully graceful. She also translated for me as I taught the littlest girls.

I left my heart in Chennai...this is 5 year old Roshini who is brand new to the Home of Love. 

She did a lot of sign language because she is from a different state with a completely different language. 

But love, hugs, giggles and singing crosses all barriers. 

She calls me Mom. 

In fact, she gave me the flower that morning upon my arrival. 

I had the privilege of teaching God's word with a translator into Tamil.

Arts and crafts. See the reflection of her love for Jesus as she draws the cross within the heart.

Baby Tessa Connie-Sue sucking her thumb...16 weeks

Baby Tessa at 15 weeks

 

First ultrasound of Tessa Connie-Sue Freeman at 11 weeks

I'm going on a mission trip to India!

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?

• PRAY - Please reply to me if you will commit to pray for us until our return at my blog: www.fullofjoynow.blogspot.com or email: bobncj@fastmail.fm

• 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

DO IT AGAIN!

"Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and  the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we." G. K. Chesterton

At 19 years old:

God you renewed my spirit.

God you satisfied the longing and filled my hungry soul.

God you freed me from sin and guilt.

God you set the lonely in a family.

I got baptized 41 years ago on Thanksgiving evening having given my heart and soul to Christ just 3 weeks earlier. That is 14,996 sun rises and moon rises. That could be monotonous except when we see that: “God is strong enough to exult in monotony.” Do you wonder with me just how many daisies God has made since that day, never tiring of making them? 

How many church services have I sat through? How many verses of scripture have I read?  Do they grow old and monotonous? How many times have I asked you for that and didn’t see the answer? Does this walk grow old and filled again with sin?

God you renewed my spirit. Do it again.

God you satisfied the longing and filled my hungry soul. Do it again.

God you freed me from sin and guilt. Do it again.

God you set the lonely in a family. Do it again.

Because I am a child of God I “abound in vitality,” and my “spirit fierce and free.”

Do it again! 

With the eternal appetite of infancy,

Connie Jo

Victoria Butchart Gardens at 21

Jumping into a cave in Cozumel at 61

Marriage: one man and one woman.... Washington State you had better voice your opinion NOW!

My friend,

The issue is on the table in the state of Washington. Our state senate has created a bill to CHANGE THE DEFINITION OF MARRIAGE... 

1) I'm going to type just a small amount of the language of Section 2 below so you can get the idea of what is being rushed through legislature. Note that the sections being removed have a line drawn through them. Sections with new words are underlined. TAKE THE TIME TO READ THIS because we are the 'grass roots' that will make the difference to the outcome. Don't assume others will fight this for you... it is WE THE PEOPLE that have to make the calls to Olympia: (360) 753-6780. Don't be afraid to make this call. The person on the other side of the phone is only taking a tally of citizens opinions. Their job is to pass your wish on to Governor Gregoire. Make the call after you read the paragraph I typed for you.

Sec 2 (1) "Marriage is a civil contract between ( (a male and a female) ) two persons who have attained the age of eighteen years, and who are otherwise capable." Sec 2 (2) "Every marriage entered into in which either ( (the husband or the wife) ) person has not attained the age of seventeen years is void.." Sec 2 (3) Where necessary to implement the rights and responsibilities of spouses under the law, gender specific terms such as husband and wife used in any statute, rule, or other law must be construed to be gender neutral and applicable to spouses of the same sex.

2) I have pasted the link to the entire bill. READ IT YOURSELF, it only takes 5 minutes, so you can see for yourself how some elected officials are attempting to pass this bill THIS session:

http://apps.leg.wa.gov/documents/billdocs/2011-12/Pdf/Bills/Senate%20Bills/6239.pdf

3) Look at what our elected officials are saying about us:

---

A Small and Dwindling Minority?
By Joseph Backholm, Executive Director
Yesterday, the prime sponsor of house legislation to redefine marriage, Rep. Jamie Pedersen, shared his feelings about why he feels it is good to redefine marriage as well as his perception of those who disagree with him on this issue.
In response to a constituent email, he said the following:

Thanks for your message. I strongly disagree with you on this issue and am the House prime sponsor of the bill that will provide marriage equality for same-sex couples. I can assure you that the legislation will provide strong protection for religious liberty. No priest or clergy person will be required to solemnize any marriage, and no religious organization may be compelled to permit its facilities to be used in connection with any marriage. But civil marriage is a legal construct of the Revised Code of Washington, and it is very much up to the legislature to define who can marry. I believe that our state has a strong interest in not discriminating against -- and harming -- the families of same-sex couples based on the religious views of a small and dwindling minority. (emphasis added).
All families in Washington are hurt by our current policy of treating some families as different and inferior. All families in Washington will be strengthened by making civil marriage available to couples regardless of their sexual orientation.

As a long-time advocate for redefining marriage, his perspective on the issue is precisely what one would expect. While he has his facts wrong on the issue of religious freedom, what is most striking about his comments is his description of those who disagree as a "small and dwindling minority."
Keep in mind, all 31 states that have voted on marriage have voted to define it as a relationship between a man and woman. So, to address a movement you have never defeated as a small and dwindling minority might be a bit brash.
Still, in Washington his efforts have faced little opposition.
The march toward redefining marriage has been deliberate and open. First "sexual orientation" was put into non-discrimination laws. Then domestic partner status was given to same-sex couples, then more rights were added to domestic partnerships, and then even more until domestic partnerships and marriages were legally indistinguishable in Washington State.
All the while, there was a deafening silence from those who knew better.
While we could point fingers and attempt to assess how we got this reputation, the more important question is whether our future actions are going to reinforce this impression or change it?
If you want to change it, do not write him a nasty email. He, like you, is entitled to his opinion and the courage of his conviction. He has simply decided he is willing to dedicate himself to a cause and take some heat in doing so. Do you care as much as he does?
If you do, or you think you should, there are some simple things you can do.
This Monday, January 23rd, there are two hearings on this bill at 10 am and 1:30 pm and a rally on the capitol steps in between. Be there. We need thousands of people to attend. The sheer number of people who attended similar hearings in Rhode Island and Maryland, states equally as liberal as Washington, were given much credit for the fact that marriage was not redefined in those states.
This is a historical opportunity involving an historical issue. Five years from now, I can guarantee you won't remember what happened at work on Monday, but you will remember taking a stand with your friends, family, and fellow citizens on behalf of marriage.
So be there. We need thousands of you with signs identifying yourself as part of the "small and dwindling minority."
For directions to the capitol and information about the nine parking lots in and around the capitol, click here.
After you have made your plans to attend, call your legislators at 1-800-562-6000 and share your thoughts on this issue.
You can also email your legislators by clicking here.

Sincerely,

fullofjoyNOW.blogspot.com

Connie Jo

Keep pressing onward beyond your fear

Only the Father goes before you to your own frontier

You're a Pioneer