Seven Years of God’s Faithfulness
This May we (the Karuna Project and Michael, Michelle and their Children) completed 7
years in Gulbarga. We thank God for sustaining us through these years.
To see the Kingdom come in people’s lives is a wonderful experience, and we thank God for allowing us this experience.
The best experience in the last 7 years has been to know the constant presence of The Almighty. To know that He would never let us down while we obeyed His command to stay put in Gulbarga despite all opposition. Always proving to us that when He gives the Vision He also gives the Provision.
As a family we have had our best times ever enjoying the Lord and His provision for us. We are not in debt. We have always had food on our table. The children school fees are always been paid on time. We have known Him to be a God who is never too early or too late. We can never thank Him enough for all that He does for us and through us.
The way in which He has provided for the Karuna project is simply amazing and many a time boggles the mind. He has taught us to move at His pace because it is His work we are doing here. He opens the right doors at the right time. The Karuna project has only seen growth in the last 7 years. Though at many times we felt it was moving too slowly or that there was no provision. He proved us wrong every time we doubted., when we look back over the years and see the development that has taken place in the Gandhi Leprosy Colony it is really amazing. At no time did He allow to stop the work.
Today we can clearly see that The Kingdom of God has come to this colony though we are yet to see people receiving baptisms. We know that the day is not far when the people of this colony accept Christ. Already they acknowledge that The Lord has done great things in their midst.
Thank you Lord for your Faithfulness
Mission being acomplished
Giving the youth of the leprosy affected a trade was and is a priority for us. We started the skills training Centre in the Gandhi leprosy Colony, Gulbarga, about 5 years ago. All we could teach them was Computer DTP and Tailoring. Knowing this was not enough, last year we enrolled 3 school dropouts from the leprosy colony to the Don Bosco technical school at Hospet.
It was really a great joy to see Rakesh, one of the 3 boys we sent to Hospet complete his course and pass out.
Rakesh now has a Diploma as an electrician and Motor Winding, along with A certificate in Computer basis. With this skill Rakesh can now get a job easily.
Rescued and Safe
Saba a 12 year old girl was found by Michael and his family while traveling on the Mumbai-Bangalore train. She was part of a begging racket and had ran away from home. With the help of CWC and Childline we managed to trace her parents. Saba it turned out was a school dropout who was used by an elderly lady along with other children to beg at VT station and in the trains in Mumbai. One day she ran away and started traveling on the outstation trains trying to be far away from the elderly lady and afraid to go home because of an alcoholic father.
This how we found her and rescued her. After assuring her parents that she was well and producing her before the CWC who gave us permission to rehabilitate her, we got admission for her with the help of Mr. Nabi, a social worker in a school in Pune.
She is now in a proper residential school and we hope that she will have a bright future.
Summer Camp
A 3 day summer camp was organized with the help of the IET for around 75 children (aged between 6 to 14years), out of which 30 were from the Gandhi Leprosy Colony. The rest of the children were from the youth at risk proggramme run by Don Bosco’s.
The children had a lot of fun learning new games, songs, dances and bible stories from 2 experienced Sunday school teachers from IET who came all the way from Delhi.
The children were thoroughly blessed and enjoyed themselves all the 3 days.
The colony children have asked us if we could conduct proggrammes like this whenever there are school vacations.
Surely quite a few seeds were sown and we hope to water and nurture these seeds over the years.
Thanksgiving programme
On the 26th of May 2011 the Karuna project completed 7 years, to mark this wonderful occasion we conducted a small programme in the Gandhi Leprosy Colony to give thanks to our Great and Mighty God.
With the help of the local Church we attend, we had a small time of prayer thanking God for all His mercies.
This was followed ( for the first time ever) by a song and dance by the c children of the colony. It was really a treat to watch children from the colony singing Christian songs in Hindi and dancing to the same. These were the same songs and dances they had learnt during the summer camp.
What better way to thank God who has done so much to uplift these people.
Continuing to sow seeds
Every year we try to put in more of the small children from the leprosy colonies in good Christian residential school, where they could receive an English medium education along with Christian values.
The Good Lord has blessed us with good contacts in this area. We thank God for this and bless Him.
Like always this year we were able to put a few more children in such a school. We thank the Gateway International Boarding run by David & Theresa who admitted 6 more new children to their home.
This takes the total number of children from the leprosy colony going to Christian residential schools to 33. Praise God.
Please pray that these children would persevere and that some of them would becomes teachers, doctors, engineers etc. and be a boon to The Kingdom and society.
Help Required
Padmavati, daughter of leprosy affected persons got married a few years back to Shivappa despite him being severely affected by polio in one leg. His parents were and are also affected by leprosy.
A couple of months ago Shivappa fell behind his house one night and was discovered dead early in the morning.
Padmavati’s world shattered. She is at a complete loss for words and finds it difficult to come to terms with what life has in store for her.
She is only 23 years old carrying her third child(7 months pregnant).
She also has 2 other children both girls aged 6 and 4 years. We have been able to help her by putting both the girls in a residential school. We now helping her to do a Tailoring course and hope to set her up with some income generating self support.. We are also taking care of all the hospital expenses for her delivery.
We appeal to anyone who would like to help us in helping this young woman.
Some of the Activities of the last few months
Besides the Summer Camp for the Children a 2 day film show was held in the Gandhi Leprosy Colony showing them the Jesus Film, The Pilgrims’ Progress and other Christian films in the local language Kannada.
A 2 day Parental Guidance Seminar was held in the Gandhi Leprosy Colony for the parents. During this time we were able to the them how to bring up their children biblically. It was a wonderful time with the parents wanting us to keep on holding such seminars in all the time.
The children who were being sent for the first time to residential schools were kept in Michael & Michelle for a week so that we could toilet train them and teach them how to eat properly without wasting food. Besides this they were taught how to share toys while playing.
Renovation work has started on the community hall to change it into the new clinic on one side and the skills training centre on the other side. Hopefully the work will be completed by the end of July. Also the hospital is being given a fresh coat of paint and a few other changes.
A new small Bal Wadi (Kindergarten) Building is under construction in the Colony. It is being built by the local Government authorities but will be under our supervision. A teacher has also been provided by them. The children will also be given a meal at noon time. Hopefully the construction will be over We thank God for this provision.
Footwear, spectacles were also given to a few people. Besides this medical attention was given to 15 people at the local hospital and paid for by Karuna.
In the last few months we had 5 deaths in the colony . We thank all of you for your prayers for Mallappa who also passed away early this month.
Prayers Points
That God
- Would bless Michael & Michelle and that He would give them a double portion of anointing and wisdom as they lead the work.
- Would continue His provision for all work of the Karuna project.
- Would Bless the youth of the Gandhi leprosy Colony and provide good jobs for them as they complete their skills training courses.
- Would bless the children of the Colony and that the seeds sown in the children attending the Christian schools would bear fruit.
- Would provide us with Volunteers and like minded persons to help us carry out this work of the Kingdom.