In addition to project photos there are a bunch of photos from the clothes distribution which took place at New Life Children’s Home. These clothes were made possible by the generous giving of quite a few of you along with the fundraising efforts of others. All the funds collected were sent to New Life for 2 new sets of clothes, Christmas day treats and a special meal.

I trust you’ll enjoy the photos and thanks again for your generosity this past Christmas!

Picture sets

Video sets

I am discovering that tweeting is about the best way to communicate because in many places there is limited or no strong internet connection or if there is I can’t find the time to exploit it, however having a smartphone with downloaded apps sure does help.

I got one of these smartphones in Tuni and now if I could just figure out how to use it, you would think it would be simple and maybe it is but I think because I didn’t spend a lot I got the model which requires a coursebook for operation.  I have never had a phone with so many features and it pales compared to what is available on a Droid or iPhone however this Samsung Galaxy is supposed to be all that here in India; all I need to do is learn it or at least discover how to keep the battery from being drained and enjoy the touted 3 g speeds while seeking to look at emails, tweet or update FB.

Back to the trip.

We carried out 2 well dedications in Tuni for which video and photos will come once I return home but in each place the reception was amazing  and the power of water was evident.  God truly has a good thing going with water!

While in Andhra Pradesh, much of my focus was outside of Wells for Life as I was traveling with several of the leaders from Westside and we were engaged in meetings with those resposnible for running New Life Children’s Home where we have 200 kids.  Our goal was to share our movement towards a holistic approach towards ministry and our involvment with CHE or Community Health Education/Evangelism.

The time was productive and foundation laying and we’ll see how things progress. The upside of all of this is that I believe we are all on the same page and know where each other is at and where our priorities lay; at least I think we know that now.

Trichy was the main focus of my trip on the Wells for Life side as we were dedicating 10 village projects and a solar light panel project along with classroom building at Fr. Dhana’s school, Annai Erica.

I traveled to Trichy with Sue Shroyer, Chris and Sandy Karcher and Dan Southerland.  This was a first time experience for the Karchers and Dan in Trichy and it was fun to watch them go through the day. We couldn’t have asked for a better first experience for them; the weather was tremendous, the accomodations at Hotel Sangam were again perfect and the villages were incredible. For whatever reason of all my trips to Trichy this one felt the most successful for me personally.  Nothing was different on the outside, Dhana and his DPWA staff did an amazing job as always with every detail, I just have to believe that what I was sensing was the fruitfulness of our labor for the past 8 years.

Fr. Dhana and his work with DPWA and how he is moving forward in his development work within the villages and schools like Annai Erica is truly amazing, he has a firm grasp on sustainability when it comes to education and orphan care and I believe is also taking incredible strides in their holistic efforts within the rural villages.  We partnered with him in 5 villages for holistic development and in a short period of just over 1 year he has expanded the program to another 10 villages without our financial assistance; truly an amazing and God blessed man.  His son Prassanna isn’t that bad either; and as a side note, he can sure drive!

I leave Trichy today with a greater sense of accomplishment than I have had in previous trips and I am hopeful that this year we can made further gains within rural area with water.  Funding is the only thing that prevents us from doing more in this region and so my prayer will continue to be that God brings to us the resources so that we can exploit them here through providing the villages with clean safe drinking water.

As I close let me just end by naming some names; Jared Wells, Moonie Narayan, Hovey Williams LLP, Bible Action Group in Lenexa, Kid’s Ministry at WFC, Ron Medina and Hope and Helps Ministry, Allaina Mackay and friends of Wells for Life – you all made this trip possible and water possible in these 12 communities.  You are game changers, life changers, and incredible people; thanks for helping make a difference in rural India through water.

In reality this is what it boils down to; not making a profit, not supporting huge overhead or infrastructure, just trying to make a difference and save a life, or at least make it more meaningful and manageable.

I leave next week for India with the trip focus being two fold; first much time and energy will be spent with our Tuni partners handling some developmental activities that pertain to their future outreach efforts and our partnership with them in these.  After about 4 days of this work and a couple of water dedications in the Tuni area, I will travel to Trichy with 4 close friends and dedicate 10 projects that were originally slated for completion in October but were held up due to some local elections.  (Apparently development work comes to a halt when the local political power base changes and nothing starts up again until the dust settles.)  Thankfully we were able to get these projects completed and give these villagers the water they have been so patiently waiting for.

Speaking of patiently waiting, I was finally able to put together a Year End Summary for 2011 and thanks to my Mac it doesn’t look to bad, check it out by following this link – https://www.onlinefilefolder.com/3sYWmTreOAPpFi

2012 should prove to be an exciting year for Wells for Life because I believe good things are in store for us.  We have proved to be faithful with what we were given and I can’t imagine that expansion and growth won’t be the fruit of that stewardship.

This April we are moving forward in our medical outreach effort and sending a small group to work alongside our DPWA and NASA partners carrying out medical outreach on a village level.  In these camps there will be hundreds and hundreds of men, women and children who lack the resources or ability to receive basic medical care and so we’ll go to them with doctors, nurses and medicines.  It’s true we won’t be able to treat a cancer patient or take out a gall bladder in a grass hut, but we will be able to examine, bring a diagnosis, provide basic medicines, and educate.

Working in this context gets me excited almost as much as seeing water come up out of the ground for the first time from one of our water projects.  It causes me to consider the words of Christ when he talks about caring for those that were sick, hungry, naked, and in prison.  His words were something to the effect of when you cared for the “least” then you had actually cared for Him.

When stated in this way, reaching out and caring for these folks who are considered the “least”, the “untouchable”, the “low caste”, or the marginalized of society; well, when we touch them and help them with water, with medical care, then were really touching and caring for Jesus.  Is there anything better?

This leads me back to my slogan for 2012 and the impact that we all can make this year; so when you are considering where to give, well don’t look past us and give as much as you can because when you do, a whole lot of good will be done!

And for all of you who have supported us, regardless of the amount of your gift….Thank You!

I can’t say it enough because without you and your gift NONE of what I do would be done. Hundreds of thousands of men, women and children in the rural areas of India would not have the life that they now have because of you and your gifts, so really, what has been accomplished is because you cared enough to give, so again, Thank You!

It surprises me how much Christmas has changed over the years for me.  Some of this is the result of growing older and having kids but realistically if I think back 30 or 40 years I remember being glued to the TV watching every TV special regarding Christmas and then being terrified of the abominable snowman on Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.

Thankfully I can bring back these glorious days of yesteryear at Costco with the boxed DVD set of all my Christmas time favorites.

Thinking about Christmas, it’s amazing how quickly it comes and goes as an adult and yet for my kids and I can’t help but think for kids universally in America, Christmas just can’t come fast enough, it’s like the school year, it just drags and drags along.

This year I am going to try something a little different in my attempt to return to the glory years.  I am going to find those DVD’s and watch them with a plate of cookies and a glass of milk and seek to be a kid again.

Unfortunately there aren’t a lot of presents under the tree with my name on it but that’s ok, the one thing I have going for me with age is that getting things under the tree doesn’t hold the same importance as it used to.

I can’t help but remember last year at this time I was with my family and about 20 others headed to India for Christmas. That trip was quite an experience and one that won’t be forgotten.

As many of you know this past month we have been raising funds so that the children at New Life Children’s Home could have a couple of new outfits this year and I am happy to report that $7,000 was raised and this will allow us to provide the clothes with some left over for Christmas day treats. I know from experience how excited the kids at New Life get at Christmas and knowing that you all gave to make this day special for them is a gift in itself for me, so thank you!

I hope to have some photos in the next couple of weeks of this event and will work on posting them to our Flickr site for you all to enjoy.  Thanks again for making Christmas special and my prayer for each of you this Christmas is that you will find joy and peace as you consider God’s gift to each of us and the world.

Jesus is truly the reason for the season and I am thankful for the opportunity to receive that gift and in return offer myself back as a gift for His use.  I pray that becomes your prayer as well.

Merry Christmas!

I have combined all 3 dedication videos into 1 sort of long video; less than 9 minutes, hopefully you can enjoy the entire thing.

Huge thank you to all those involved with Water Palooza, not only was the event successful but my hope is after you watch the video you realize how important and valuable this event was.

Enjoy – http://vimeo.com/33396038

Manchester Park Elementary School
The Jewelry Bee
The Jewelry Bee, Teragunta
Karcher project

Video will come soon for these project dedications; enjoy!

I inquired about Christmas and what they were intending to do for the children this Christmas and I learned that the hope was to provide the traditional gift of a new set of clothes or a school uniform. Apparently it is within their custom to give clothing each Christmas and seeing that New Life and their sister home in Chintalapudi is solely funded through the One Life Child Sponsorship program for the basics such as food, shelter and education it then becomes necessary to find outside funding for any “extras” such as another set of clothes. I was under the impression as a sponsor of 4 kids that my dollars took care of all these things but then I read the fine print and heard first hand that what is received doesn’t cover this “extra”.
I thought to myself when did clothes become extra especially when considering all you have is 2 or maybe 3 outfits total in the whole wide world to your name?

I further thought about the passage of scripture where Jesus spoke of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and caring for the orphan and the widow and asked myself was there any part of this passage that I didn’t understand?
That is when I began to consider my closet and that of my children. I have been in the place where the kids at New Life sleep and no part of it is really a typical room nor do they have a closet for that matter. What they have if they are lucky is a small box or a chest for which all their belonging belong and in no way does it compare with what we have. Think here of a play chest filled with play clothes or doll clothes that is the picture of what a 7 or 12 year old boy/girl has at New Life.

Small pickings for sure.

It doesn’t take long for me to go down this road of what I should do. So down I went and here I am asking you for help.

What does it cost to clothe a boy/girl at New Life? Not much, $15 gets them a new outfit. What would be better still would be for you to give $30 and that way we can get them a uniform for school and a set of casual clothes like a t-shirt and pants for boys or a Punjabi for girls.

Hopefully now you are realizing clothing a child is an important thing to do and is really easy to do.

So how then do you join me in this?

Just click PayPal Donate button below and use your Credit Card to help me meet the need.

If you don’t know how much to give consider this: $15 buys 1 set of clothes for 1 child and there are 190 kids at New Life and another 50 at Chintalapudi so you do the math; we need a lot of money!

Thanks for your help and one last thing, there is a deadline. All funds need to be collected and sent to India by December 10.

As always everything you give is tax deductible and no part is held back for administrative fees, so give with that confidence that your gift will be clothing!

Tracy inquired about the health outlook for the children and more specifically about their teeth and learned there was a definite need for a dentist and so the wheels were put in motion for her to return armed with her tools of the trade and return she did with her trusted assistant Lynn.

At the airport in Visak we were met by Raja who with his wife are the Directors at New Life Children’s Home and Sue and Kim Shroyer who have been in India for quite a bit of time now.

Upon arriving in Yellamanchili we received the customary greetings from the children and then the women promptly went to work preparing an empty room for what would soon become a viable dental clinic complete with makeshift benches in lieu of those all to famous dental chairs which bring forth memories of scraping and grinding and chiseling. Thankfully these kids were resilient and only a few shed tears or expressed as they called it “tension” about lying down and opening wide.

I asked Tracy and Lynn their thoughts of the trip and how they would rate the experience and Tracy said it exceeded her expectations and Lynn gave it a 10. Good news for me as their team leader.

In addition to the dental aspect of this trip I got to witness a 2^nd Saturday which is an outreach event put on by Light of Love Ministries, an extension of Light of Love Children’s Home in Tuni. This outreach event involved several physicians providing medicines, diagnosis for simple medical issues to some of Tuni’s poorest population, most of whom can’t afford even 50 to 100 rupees to see a doctor and receive much needed medicines.  This event is currently being self-funded at a cost of around $500 a session which covers the medicines and other miscellaneous expenses necessary to pull off such an event.  Unfortunately I learned that this will shut down in January due to a lack of funding, so we’ll see what God does with that.

The bulk of my reason for being in India this November was to dedicate 6 water projects, 3 of which were funded from the Water Palooza fundraiser put on by Manchester Park Elementary School in Lenexa.

Each of the project dedications were really unique and truly enjoyable, the reception from the people was amazing and to witness the development that has taken place in the areas where our partner, NASA is working is amazing and to know that the introduction of water will continue to be  a key component to that development is very satisfying.

I asked the director of NASA, Dr. Premdas what was it that the rural and tribal village people requested or actually needed to most to provide the uplift they need to move forward in their quest for a better life and the answer quickly came as clean water and financial empowerment in the form of funding for micro enterprise solutions.

I am happy to report that at least 1 of these is covered with water and we are investigating the part we can play as an organization in the latter.

Check back soon for links to video footage of our well dedications and maybe some miscellaneous shots of New Life kids along with links to our Flickr page with well dedication pictures.

Let me end by sharing a simple statement which the dedication plaques posted by Manchester Park read, “Together we can change the world” or maybe it was “Together we can make a difference” , actually my head hurts and I haven’t really slept since Thursday so I don’t remember the exact wording but nonetheless together we can make a difference and change this world of ours.  Maybe we can’t fix it but we certainly can join together and bring about significant change and we can do it in small increments and it can be done by our children, the youth and the generation of tomorrow along with today’s generation, together we can make positive life change happen.

I know it because I have witnessed it, so thank you for playing a part and joining me on this journey of saving lives!

The journey home begins Friday morning so maybe by the time I reach the Radisson in Chennai I will get video uploaded for you.

Tomorrow our final 3 project dedications occur, all funded by Manchester Park Elementary School in Lenexa and this through their Water Palooza event.  I am looking forward to seeing these especially since 1 village is located in a remote area which is supposed to be very picturesque so hoping it lives up to its billing and I can capture it on film.

The trip has been good despite the warm temperatures; shouldn’t complain after all I saw the highs and lows for KS and being in the 90′s isn’t that bad I guess.

Anyway, I picked up an eye infection somehow so that is bothersome but nothing compared to what I see around me when it comes to sickness and disease; I am really blessed.

Met a girl yesterday who had some type of condition which causes her bones to grow abnormally and she has had 2 surgeries which shaved off portions of bone which were causing mobility issues and beginning to protrude from her skin…and here I am uncomfortable with a measly eye infection which drops will handle rather quickly.  God help me.

Last thing to share, for some reason I am being paranoid about little 4 footed creatures scampering around, I blame this knew phenomena on Michael Wilson who was with me last month in India and it was he that passed this on to me while in Orissa at a truck stop eating lunch.  Ever since then these little creatures have me paranoid.  Make matters worse, Sue Shroyer was recently in Bangalore attending a CHE conference and she swears something was nibbling on her earplug which was in her ear while she was sleeping.  Now you get why I am being a little uneasy about turning out lights tonight?

Say a prayer for me.

Ok, closing now, hope to get some updates out tomorrow during our well dedications.

Enjoy your day as I hope to sleep tonight :)