Land for 2nd Orphanage Purchased
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The
girls and Sisters of Navajeevana (New Life) send some exciting news. The
funds needed to purchase the land for our new orphanage in Secunderabad
have been raised. These are the smiling faces of the children for whom
you will be providing a new home in the near future.
To find out more about our plans for the orphanage and how you can help make this dream a reality, please visit the website, 100 Steps to Home, where you can check out our progress and even make a donation of your own.
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Surfing Safari
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What do you get when you take 23 Indian orphan girls, 2 nuns (in full habit), 3 surfer dudes from America (with boards), and pack them
into a yellow school bus?
A
SURFING SAFARI, unlike any seen in India or the surfing world.
The school year was almost over at Home of Hope. The girls
who had a distant relative or parent who could take them for the summer break
were leaving. Twenty-three of our girls had no
one. They would spend the entire hot
summer at the orphanage. Some of them
had lost parents to AIDS; others were children of prostitutes or had been
abandoned to live on the streets and never knew their parents.
I happened to
mention the girls' plight to Jack Viorel and Kevin Murphy of the Wilmington,
North Carolina-based Indo Jax / Ocean Cure charity surfing camp. Ocean Cure had taken autistic, visually
impaired and cerebral palsy children, as well as wounded veterans on surfing
outings. After hearing the story of Home of Hope, they were ready to make their mission international. Our girls were going to have the summer break of a lifetime.
During four days of tentative tries, wipeouts, and
eventually popping up for long rides, the orphan girls of India experienced
one of most memorable trips of their young lifetimes. And the sisters surfed too, in full habit!
To see more pictures and read more on this exciting adventure, check out these two articles, Boarding Abroad and Local Surfers Visit India.
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