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| Dear Friends |
June 2006
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| I am writing this newsletter during May. The temperatures are around 40ºC and the heat is truly vicious and very tiring. There are reports of people dying because of the heat. For us it is also the busiest time of the year when many children are seeking admission to one of our four Children’s Villages. This year the requests for help have by far exceeded any in earlier years. And the majority of them are from AIDS-affected families and many of these small children are themselves HIV positive. The emotional stress of their stories is often very hard to cope with. Why should such young, innocent children be afflicted with this terrible merciless disease, nearly always thanks to an irresponsible father who has already died. We will have 60 HIV positive children in our care this year and more than 350 AIDS orphans. These children do especially need extra care, extra love, if that is possible. I am always greatly encouraged by the words of Jesus himself who several times said: “Whoever welcomes a little child welcomes me.” So many, many times we have made Him welcome and will always do so. |
| Saranya is a beautiful little girl, seven years old. Such a lovely child I have called her Rajakumari, which is Tamil for Princess, and in India that means a lot. She has her smaller brother called Vignesh. They arrived here recently all the way from New Delhi which is a good 2000 miles from here. They speak Hindi, the language of the north and some English and can speak Tamil, their mother tongue, but have studied in Hindi and so must now learn to read and write in Tamil. They were living in New Delhi then their father died of cancer and mother became seriously ill and will need extensive surgery for liver and other problems. Somehow they came to this area, the mother needing now to obey her craving to be among her own people. The two children are happy, so evidently secure now in a family in one of our Children’s Villages. |
| Then in comes a tiny baby girl just one week old. She is so emaciated that she scarcely is alive. The father had told his wife to take the child away and kill it because it was a girl. Such facts are hard to believe but unfortunately they are not uncommon. This child was so uncared for by its parents that it did not survive a week with us. Truly a thrown away baby, now buried in our little cemetery with ten other such children. |
| Due to the whole evolution of our Children’s Villages there is a constant stream of children in and out, moving through from babyhood to normal school education to colleges for professional studies, employment, and, eventually, to marriage. This year alone so far we have had three marriages and we are planning for two more. |
| We are now upgrading our main school to 12th standard, when the students will be around 18 years of age. This has meant that we needed to build two extra science labs and four more classrooms. These two extra sections of 11th and 12th standards will be only for girls and should be available for 30 girls in each standard. It also means that we will have to find places only for boys in residential schools outside and since we have far more girls than boys in our care this also means a considerable saving financially. We are also at this time planning for the higher professional studies of the ones who have completed their normal academic studies. |
| Children who come into our care at a very young age, which is the norm, can be in our care for up to 12 years. We know from our careful annual budgeting that the care of a child costs us Rs.1200 (£:15, Euro:21, $:26) a month. Twelve years of care will cost us at least Rs.172,800 or £:2160 (Euros:3030, $:3840) per child and we now have close to 1,000 children dependent on RTU. Professional studies are very much more expensive and a three year course is costing around Rs.100,000 (£:1250, Euros:1750, $:2200) per child. This year we will have some 60 students doing various professional courses, which are all employment orientated. So the total cost to care for a child from start to finish costs us about £:3500 ($:6200, Euros:4900). All this does not include medical care and sometimes we have very expensive surgical interventions which can cost as much as £1800 (Euros:2600) and now with so many children who are HIV positive the medical care is going to escalate. We have the best doctor available who is highly qualified in this area of AIDS care and he comes twice a month to RTU to monitor all our patients both children and adults. This whole epidemic and our wide involvement in it is truly a constant and growing concern. We have also moved most of the affected children in the four Children’s Villages to our newest Village, Siru Malar Children’s Village. There we will have a house for a qualified nurse and counsellor as well as a sick bay. There will still be a mixture of boys and girls from other backgrounds such as abandoned and orphan children. We will not segregate these special children from normal children. They are no danger to others, but they do need extra care, and we are all geared up for that. |
| “My life is enriched by my interactions with children. What a privilege it is to watch them learn and grow and become unique individuals who express their own thoughts and ideas.
In children, I see the future come to life before my very eyes! Every child on earth is an integral piece of the puzzle that, when finished, will make a complete picture of the world of tomorrow.
I give thanks for children everywhere and pray for them as they prepare to lead us into the future. I envision these children filled with the light of God and surrounded by a loving, nurturing environment where they can spread their wings and soar.
‘Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.’ – Matthew 19:14”
- Quotation from Daily Word magazine, published by Silent Unity. |
| We tend to forget how our Children’s Villages came into being. For each one of them we had to buy land on which to build and in each case we bought land that was barren because the farmers had no water with which to cultivate crops. Before finalizing any deal I always wanted to make sure that water would be available in subterranean streams and since I have the gift to divine for water and that on a simple site plan I was able to make sure of this essential item. So in each case we bought 3 acres of bare, treeless land after long negotiations with the landlords. The first thing to do was to hire drilling rigs after I had carefully marked up to 5 suitable places. In most cases the powerful rigs had to drill a 6” hole through black granite to depths of 300 feet. Everyone of these bores gave us adequate water enough to do the building work and ultimately supply water to the houses – a prime consideration when there is no such thing as water on main supplies in the villages where all our Children’s Villages are situated. |
| Then came the master-plan for each Village and individual plans for each house, for the manager’s quarter, a small clinic, sewing room, co-operative shop, kindergarten, auditorium for meetings, water towers, roads, playground complete with swings, etc.. A challenging job, that had to be thought out, together with those living and working there. Pipelines, electrical connections and telephones also had to be provided. |
| Then came the landscaping, which is such an important aspect of each Children’s Village. Each house has its own garden stocked with beautiful shrubs and here and there shade trees. Over the years we have planted 100’s of trees. Some mothers also like fruit trees and vegetables. That is left to them. |
| Eventually all the staffing had to be done; a manager and her assistant, a gardener, the “mothers” themselves, kindergarten teachers. Finding children has never been a problem, but the family grouping needs care and forethought so that we get a balanced family as near normal as possible, boys and girls of ages from babies to early teens. We will also not hesitate to move children around who for one reason or other do not bond. |
| Somehow, always, the finance comes. In every case we have started without a rupee for a very expensive project. Before we have gone very far with work the whole cost has been covered. “Where God guides, God provides.” This has always been the policy of Reaching the Unreached. We have always looked at the evident needs of people in our care, before we looked into our purses. This, I know, horrifies some people. But we have never been in debt and have never had recourse to loans. |
| And so I can look back with some amazement whenever I go to each of our four Children’s Villages which are now beautiful, mature, happy, child-filled places and experience the deepest joy of knowing we have lovingly cared for and will continue to care for 1000’s of children from the poorest of backgrounds. |
| And still they come. Our Children’s Villages are close to overflowing, but not crowded. The maximum number of children in a house will be 7 or 8 (if it needs to be) with a trained mother. |
| So much to do, so many we care for. By ‘we’ I mean all of you who support us through your prayers and donations, without which our work would be infinitely poorer – even now, impossible. God bless you all, and, thank you. |
| Cordially yours, |
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| Brother James
Kimpton |
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