Rachel Dannita: Because you can!

Greetings!

Just wanted to pass on the following email from a close friend who is doing something very cool with her life and who is asking others to come alongside to support children in poverty. To give you a little background (and I suppose credibility), I became close friends with Anita my first year working in China as we taught together at the British Columbia Offshore school that i work at. She had traveled to India the previous year and had a desire to return to India to support the building and opening of a school in rural India. Myself and 4 other ladies joined Anita on an outreach/holiday to India that year and visited the ministry that she had been connected with and got to spend 2 weeks in the countryside and visit the proposed school site which was at that time a mere field (see the picture attached). Anita followed a calling to India and left her job at an International school and moved to India last year to complete a discipleship training school and she plans to stay on long-term. The school has been under construction this past year and recently opened in July and Anita, after 3 years teaching experience, is acting as principal and is experiencing a huge learning curve and cultural challenges. As much as it seems super challenging and her actions seem backwards compared to the way we think in the west, she is walking in obedience and helping to make a difference in young lives - something that wouldn't have happened had not 2 young Canadian teachers happened to visit a friend in the Indian countryside 2.5 years ago. God works in sweet ways!

I tell you all this, and hope you read her email below, because these lives matter and because you have the ability to come alongside in support in at least some way. It's that simple really - they don't have the resources and after you've met some of these people it's hard to ignore their need and continue on with life. Sometimes that seems easy - to forget - but that doesn't mean it goes away. To be honest, passing this email on to you all helps to keep me accountable in that as well - to not just "forget" and ignore lives I've come into contact with, but to come alongside as a fellow human being.

Thanks for reading Anita's email below!

Dear Rachel,

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for generously supporting us and being an answer to prayer on different occasions. I'd like to start by sharing a recent experience with you. David, a volunteer from Taiwan on a short-term mission, peeled his apple during the children's lunchtime. When he was just about to eat the apple, one of the little boys approached him and pointed at the peels as if asking for permission. David nodded his consent, and Siddu proceeded to eat the apple peels with relish. David felt so sorry for the child that when no one was around, he gave him a small bite of apple. Siddu devoured it gleefully. Currently we're eating a diet of rice, lentils, and small portions of vegetables. My desire is to see the kids drink milk and eat eggs and fruit every day as well as have meat at least 1/week.

I've also seen the joy the children's faces when they receive a plain orange pencil and their excitement at playing with bouncy balls and toy cars for the first time in their lives. Such experiences compel me to write this email to you. As you probably know from before, we're building a school and children's home for children who are orphaned, underprivileged, abused, and marginalized. Although we're not done constructing, we've started housing children because of their desperate situations and waiting another year would be detrimental to them.

I've attached 2 documents outlining our needs. The School Wishlist outlines the items we'd like to purchase for our school and children's home. The Boarders' Profiles introduces all the boarding students. We're looking for sponsors for them. To sponsor a boarder is $45/month. This is a little more than World Vision and Compassion sponsorship because the kids you'd sponsor through them are kids living with their families, so the money just supplements the family income. As we are completely responsible for the kids, from toiletries to food to doctor's visits, our children's needs are greater than children living with their families. (I know you already have a sponsor child, but if there's any way you can help to some extent)

In addition to items for the school and sponsorship for children, we are still praying for funds to finish building the school. We’re done the dormitory building and are halfway through the classrooms and administrative building. The inflation of materials as well as a desire to build sturdy foundations instead of constructing a makeshift building on a minimal budget has resulted in the cost of the school exceeding our preliminary quotation.

I'm requesting that you prayerfully consider sowing into what the children are experiencing at King's Kids School and Children's Home. If you'd like to support us financially, you can donate online at http://bridgestones.com/difference.php or contact me directly. Thank you in advance for your time, and thank you for praying for us!

Shalom,

Anita

BridgeStones Int'l

anitakysiu.blogspot.com