Sonia, from Kalighat (the Red Light District), was so excited as we celebrated her birthday yesterday. Isn’t she beautiful! She called her neighbors and friends to share her joy and showed them the gift and special cake she had received. That was her first time to hear prayer rejoicing that Lord Jesus has added another year into her life. Also we prayed for His protection, His wisdom and asked for His blessings upon this little girl. Truly she was touched, loved and blessed.

Like  Sonia, around 20-27 children are attending in our class. Of course we end each lesson with story of Jesus. Each of them are interested to know Christ deeply. God has entrusted in our care to minister to those precious children. Transforming and softening hearts of vulnerable children, broken moms, impoverished communities is only possible with God’s miraculous touch.

What makes the work worth doing is the God we are serving.

If you would like to be a part of God’s work in the slums of Kolkata, India click here to learn How You Can Help.

They met us at the airport in Rajahmundry, all holding signs “Welcome Cherie”, but the flowers are what I remember—a long garland of yellow and orange flowers with a wonderful fragrance (although they did leave stains on our shirts).  Wow! What a welcome, but it didn’t stop there.

The next day we visited half of the churches in the Deep Forest tribal region.  Children’s Relief International pays the salaries of the pastors and the twice a month Biblical training for them.  Six have new concrete buildings with a fresh water well that everyone can use, including the Dalit “untouchable” people who make up much of the poor congregations.  At each of these, we are met by the pastor and the women of the church. The men are in the fields working on this Friday.  They have more garlands of flowers to give us.  At this church, a beautiful little girl drapes the garland around my neck.  They sing a song.  We tell them why we came and express our love for them.  They ask us to pray for them, one by one.  Some are sick and want healing.  Their faith makes us humble, knowing that we have no power to help.  Only our God has that power.

Then one lady tells us through Ananth, our interpreter, that she has never seen nor touched a white person.  Ananth explains that just our being there is viewed as a miracle.  As Dalit “untouchables” in this Deep Forest tribal region, they are not allowed to touch people outside their caste.  Our message that we are all the same in God’s eyes, followed by our prayers and hugs, takes on a whole new meaning.  We didn’t even know.  Only our all-powerful God knew.  It makes me wonder, What will be the future for this flower girl? Can Children’s Relief International break the cycle of destitution for her?

If you would like to support a pastor, build a church, drill a well, or sponsor a child visit our How You Can Help page.

Click here to learn more about the Mudpaths Ministry and How You Can Help.

Pam Johnson, missionary to Mozambique, described Domingos this way after meeting him for the first time. Often orphans are left without anything but the AIDS virus. Domingos is no exception. He and his grandmother live in a dilapidated hut. Each day Domingos scrounges for food while his grandmother tends a small crop of rice. Their only goal in life is to survive.

But thankfully we can help! Domingos and his grandmother will be the first recipients of our newly designed Green Door home. These cement homes are small but sufficient. They are made possible through donors like you who want to make a difference. Each home costs $1350 to build.

Click here to learn How You Can Help.

A good clean water supply and adequate sanitation system are considered the most important factors in ensuring good health in a community. Improved water supply drastically cuts death rates and improved health levels in forest areas. These measures have been considerably more important than curative medicine in contributing to good health, long life expectancy and low infant mortality. Infant diarrhea, the largest killer in villages, is closely related to poor water quality.

Many families live in the tail end of the village, no public taps are provided to these families for consumption of drinking water. People of these families draw water from the nearby agricultural pond which is highly polluted and unsafe. The people are very gracious and deserving of our help and it was reported to us that the upper caste people force them to use water from the fields as there are no public taps in their area for their use because they are considered Untouchables.

We dig water wells in different rural villages and communities throughout deep forest, especially near our churches. We seek to carry out our projects with the wholehearted participation of the receiving community. Taking ownership of the water well project, they will keep it a life giving source of water for years to come. It is our goal to establish the location of each project on property that will afford equal access to all those within the village, regardless of one’s faith or caste. It is our hope that each project initiated will bring immediate relief and be a building block for future projects.

We are very glad to inform you that where ever we have started water well, we have created an impact on those villages. We told them that we are doing this just to show the “love of Christ to all the people”. Many people have come to Christ because of these water wells.

We request you to join us in laying the foundation of Gospel to these remote areas through drinking water.

Ananth & Isaiah Gottimukkala

Thanks to all 196 runners along with their family and friends, we raised more than $4,000 - that’s enough to build a home that will last a lifetime for one family!

Check out the video of the race!

The Green Door Project is our program where we work with professional builders to create sustainable, lasting homes for families in poverty- involving the whole community by hiring local labor and supporting the local economy by using materials from the area. Learn more about it here.

“The magnitude of the disaster is impossible for any person to comprehend. The extent of the suffering, the heart breaking search for beloved ones, the losses in terms of people, possessions, homes and the vastness of the destruction leaves me dumb struck. I have no idea how one can survive and continue to live having been exposed to such indescribable trauma. May God be with them!”

-CRI friend, Willem, of South Africa

Under Bill’s lead we have a matching donation opportunity. A donor will match gifts up to $5000. His employer will then match them up to $10,000. $1 becomes $4 and $5,000 becomes $20,000.

(click image to enlarge)

100% of the funds donated to this cause will go to the areas most in need through Tokyo Baptist Church and the Red Cross.

Once on the Donate page Click Other Ways to Give
Select Emergency Aid to Japan.

Keep up to date on aid progress to Japan on  Facebook, Twitter or email your questions to Jason@childrensrelief.org.

Check out this short video on Children’s Relief Internationals Green Door 5K and Fun Run results in 2010.

Making a difference – Green Door 5k/Fun Run 2010 from Children’s Relief International on Vimeo.

“A quick snap shot of the Green Door 5K/Fun Run and what was accomplished through the participation of those who ran that day.”