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HOMES OF HOPE INDIA - U.S.
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ORPHANAGES
Where LOVE is the Answer
SCHOOLS
Where EXCELLENCE is the Goal
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Dear Friends of Homes of Hope
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Here, as a Christmas card to you, is our darling Sangeetha, singing a solo at a Christmas presentation at her school in Secunderabad just last week. It is unthinkable that this precious child was once unwanted and abandoned. Today, she is a happy, studious ten year old - because of your continuing generosity.
Many of you have already responded to our Christmas appeal and I want to thank you. This has truly been an outstanding year in the life of Homes of Hope. As you will see below, the wall around our new property in Secunderabad is now complete and construction will begin soon on this, our second orphanage.
Raising the funds for the Secunderabad orphanage is a major accomplishment for this year, but there are so many others: scholarships for higher education; a solar-powered electrical system; solar-powered hot water; clean water projects; medicines; hundreds of good, refurbished computers; generators and batteries because of the erratic electricity; a language lab to teach English; and tens of thousands of books, bringing our total of 150,000 books shipped to India. What a year!
For those of you who have not yet had the opportunity to send your gift, please do so today. Whatever you can give will be put to good use. A gift of $3,000 will be remembered as a "stepping stone," leading up to our orphanage. Your gift of $1,000 provides an entire year of higher education for an orphan girl, $300 supports an orphan girl for a year (clothing, school supplies, medicines, personal items) and $100 feeds an entire orphanage for a full week. You can mail in your donation or donate through our website HOMES OF HOPE INDIA. Some of you work for companies that match your gift; please let me know and we can process the necessary forms.
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Wall Completed at Secunderabad
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Tracy and I have just returned from a three week trip to India and were so pleased to see our wall (finally) completed at the Secunderabad orphanage site. In India, once you purchase land, the first thing you do is construct a wall around it. A neighbor had contested the boundary line (a common occurrence), so that delayed the wall's completion.
The sisters took all the girls out to the site and showed them the location of their new home. You can imagine the excitement...in a year's time Sangeetha and her 80 companions will leave the hard concrete floor where they now sleep and move into a clean new dormitory with bunk beds, a proper kitchen, and the educational facilities to prepare them for life.
We also visited KOCHI, where Reena (the girl so cruelly blinded) is growing up nicely. She is in the 5th grade, learning to use a computer, and is her usual cheery self. Then we traveled on to BANGALORE and the huge orphanage there, and over to our rural outpost at MARADIYUR, near Mysore, where our next building project will take place.
I'll report more on those LOCATIONS in my next newsletter. Our work with the poorest of the poor grows organically and beautifully, both in India and here in America. Two Indian doctors, India Rotary clubs and the Bangalore office of our Wilmington-based PPD are now helping us. Your generosity continues to dramatically impact the lives of the 300 orphan children and 12,000 school children in our care.
As Gandhi said: "Be the change you wish to see in the world."
You are being the change. In fact, you are the change.
Many thanks for your generosity, your prayers, and your words of encouragement.
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Paul Wilkes
Homes of Hope India - U.S. Coordinator
paulwilkes@ec.rr.com
1413 Hawthorne Road
Wilmington, NC 28403
(910) 815-0695
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