After about three years, Raj and I were able to make the journey across the globe, in late January this year and spend more than one month in South India. We spent most of our time there in continuing the village development projects in the four villages, including Kandithankulam. As you know, our congregation and other friends have been generously supporting this work over the past two decades.

            On February 6, a well-organized Medical Camp was conducted in the Light Eternal Medical Clinic at Kandithankulam. Our Clinic Supervisor, Sam, has become an expert in running these Medical Camps which are similar to the Free Clinics in the U.S. It was attended by about 350 patients who came from about 8 nearby villages. We arranged transportation for many of them. Eight physicians (a cardiologist, two gynecologists, a pediatrician, an ophthalmologist, two dentists, a senior medical student and an optometrist) volunteered their services. They brought their own nurses and medical assistants. Our Clinic's resident nurse worked with them. The patients received free treatment and basic medicines. The school children who had dental examinations were provided with free tooth brushes and tooth pastes. More serious ailments were referred to nearby hospitals.

            We, then, went to A.M. Kulam to look at the 20 houses we had sanctioned to be built during our 2007 visit. The constructions had begun when we were there and were completed later under the supervision of my cousin Joseph and three village elders. We were able to see for ourselves that the houses provided through your generous support have made a world of difference in their lives. The families have moved from their little huts with dirt floor and thatched roofs and walls into solid houses with  firm foundations, cement floor, brick walls and tiled roofing. It was good to see the immense improvement we have made in their lives. We could not have done this without your generous support. Some of you met the cost of a full house (about $ 750, in 2007).

            India, now, has a booming economy, the benefits of which are being reaped by a small segment of its approximately billion people. The majority of Indians who live in villages and  slums near big cities are worse off than before. We found, to our dismay, that the cost of building a house with a 10 x 8 ft living room and 5 x 5 ft kitchen has nearly doubled. We realized that we would be able to build only about 8 to 10 houses with the available funds. After careful screening with the help of the village elders and our own individual site inspections, we selected eight families in A.M. Kulam and two families from Alangulam and Kandithankulam to provide the same type of new houses. Two of the families who were slightly better off were asked to meet half the cost of their houses. We, also, helped with the means of livelihood for some families by purchasing an iron for a Dhobi, a barber's chair for the village barber, etc.

            We have been providing School Uniforms and study material (note books, pencils, maps etc.) to the Kandithankulam Elementary School over the past 22 years, and to two more Schools over the past 5 years. We are continuing this project as it provides an incentive for the villagers to educate their children. This time, at the request of the Kandithankulam School Principal, we provided a playground slide and a seesaw for the recreation of the students during their play time.

            We also provided monetary help to several needy families. I will mention just three of them. First, a woman in Iswaryapuram lost her husband due to a sudden illness and she could not support her two young children with the meager wages she gets as a laborer. She has moved in with her parents-in-law who are old and not well off themselves. We met the family and found the two children to be very bright and promising. We provided some monetary help (about $ 150) for their support and education. We will follow-up on their upbringing. We helped about eight more families in similar situations,

            Next, we have been using the same taxi driver for our transportation for the past 15 years when we go to India. We got to know the Taxi driver, Jehangir (a Muslim), very well. (Jehangir is the name of a famous Mogul Emperor whose son Shah Jehan built the Taj Mahal.) We found him to be a dependable and hardworking man trying to make an honest living. He works for some Taxi company and his income is mostly from the tips and the small commission paid by his employer which depended on the number of fares he got in a day. About 30 years ago only rich people had cars. Taxis were always in demand, and used widely by the middle class. Now, almost all middle class families have one or even two cars. This has seriously affected the life of Taxi drivers like Jehangir. We have been helping our Taxi driver over the past few years. We got a sewing machine for his daughter, during our 2007 trip, to augment his family income.  His son graduated from High School four years ago and Jehangir told us that he could not educate him anymore. We provided some monetary help and we learned this time that he had just graduated with a degree in Business. We also helped him to clear some of his debts. When his son heard of this he seems to have said to his father, "I didn't know such people existed!" He came to our guest house to personally thank us. We explained to him that our congregation has a big heart.

            Third, we also provided a bore well with hand pump for a woman who is severely handicapped. She found it very difficult to get water for her home from the public water pump at some distance from her house. We went to her house and realized that the bore well, that we provided, could be used by other families, too, living nearby. Finally, we would like to add that, as always, we met all our travelling and living expenses so that 100% of your donations was used to keep our projects going. We have included some photographs.

            We have done much more than described in this brief report. We are returning to Monmouth on August 2, and we will do a detailed power-point presentation for our congregation at a suitable time. We look forward to seeing you all.

            Thank you for your continued support. May God bless you all.

Saro Ambrose