Tangible Love

A Clinic of Hope

An eight year-old child begins her two hour walk to school before the sun rises. No electricity to light her  house or the road, she presses forward to her school where light shines at night and where hundreds of her friends have come to find hope.

OFCB [Organization of the Christian Force of Bayonnais] began offering hope to this desolate corner of Haiti before this young girl was born. But her brothers and sisters who walked to school in the darkness before her are now beginning to return to Bayonnais [by-oh-nay] to be school teachers, nurses, pharmacists, technicians. Starting with classes that met under trees with nothing but a dedicated teacher and a blackboard, these young men and women are the first fruit of the dreams of the five OFCB founders, including Actionnel Fleurisma, Dimilsaint Mondelus and Firmin St-Louis. Their project now provides a superb school and a nourishing daily meal to 1400 students from three years of age to grade 13. It is not just a poor country school. Two of the top ten students in the state come from these primitive classrooms meeting under trees and on porches.

Myers Park United Methodist Church has supported the project most recently with a grant from the Jubilee Fund of the church that is providing significant funding for the first seven new classrooms that will be part of a three story - 21 classroom addition to the complex.

The dream at Bayonnais includes providing medical care to the 80,000 people who live in this muddy river valley. They have no access to health care at all except the clinic in Gonaives [gahn-ah-yeev] at the bottom of a two hour drive down an almost impassable road. Even after the long descent, they are unlikely to be able to afford the cost of even seeing a doctor much less receive treatment.

This week, a six-person medical team from Virginia and a nurse from Concord are bringing a mission clinic to the people of Bayonnais. Working out of the church building at OFCB, this team has assembled a working clinic out of student benches, church pews and the medical equipment and pharmaceuticals that they could fit into their luggage. Seeing almost 200 patients a day, they've uncovered a world of unnecessary suffering that could be prevented or alleviated if only a permanent clinic were available to the people of Bayonnais.

Untreated hypertension lurks in the homes here, taking mothers and fathers without warning. Poor hygiene results in chronic infections that sap strength and sow suffering. A four year old boy crying in pain needs urgent care for an eye diseased from birth. Four years he has needed care that was at a clinic too far away with a price too high for his poor mother to pay. The doctors and nurses in this week's clinic work through the heat to squeeze in as many patients as possible. The end of the week won't bring an end to the need. For every child they have seen, there are ten more who need care. For every prescription they fill, there will be months of waiting until another team comes to bring another round of medication.

Actionnel, Dimilsaint and Firmin plan to build a medical and dental clinic and pharmacy on a site they purchased in 1999 about a five minute walk from the church and school. The first Bayonnais medical technician, Luziana Aristin-Bertin, completes her training next fall. The first nurse, Anne-Junie St-Louis will come home to serve soon after. Two doctors from the community are in their fourth and eighth year of training. The first doctor, Samuel Mondelus, plans to complete three years of specialist training and public service in 2010 and return to Bayonnais to serve in the clinic. A dentist, Simon Alexandre will also arrive in 2010. Myers Park is being asked to help build a clinic where these inspirational young people can care for the people of Bayonnais.

While working for a permanent clinic, we also hope to field a medical mission team to Bayonnais as soon as possible. We are laying the groundwork now by detailing logistics and developing the planning team. Soon we'll be recruiting physicians and medical personnel to staff teams. Would you be willing to give a week of your time and skills to the people of Bayonnais? "As you did it unto the least of these my brethren, you did it unto me."

An eight year-old child begins her two hour walk to school before the sun rises. No electricity to light her house or the road, she presses forward to her school where light shines at night and where hundreds of her friends have come to find hope.

 

OFCB [Organization of the Christian Force of Bayonnais] began offering hope to this desolate corner of Haiti before this young girl was born. But her brothers and sisters who walked to school in the darkness before her are now beginning to return to Bayonnais [by-oh-nay] to be school teachers, nurses, pharmacists, technicians. Starting with classes that met under trees with nothing but a dedicated teacher and a blackboard, these young men and women are the first fruit of the dreams of the five OFCB founders , including Actionnel Fleurisma, Dimilsaint Mondelus and Firmin St-Louis. Their project now provides a superb school and a nourishing daily meal to 1400 students from three years of age to grade 13. It is not just a poor country school. Two of the top ten students in the state come from these primitive classrooms meeting under trees and on porches.

 

Myers Park United Methodist Church has supported the project most recently with a grant from the Jubilee Fund of the church that is providing significant funding for the first seven new classrooms that will be part of a three story - 21 classroom addition to the complex.

 

The dream at Bayonnais includes providing medical care to the 80,000 people who live in this muddy river valley. They have no access to health care at all except the clinic in Gonaives at the bottom of a two hour drive down an almost impassable road. Even after the long descent, they are unlikely to be able to afford the cost of even seeing a doctor much less receive treatment.

 

This week, a six-person medical team from Virginia and a nurse from Concord are bringing a mission clinic to the people of Bayonnais. Working out of the church building at OFCB, this team has assembled a working clinic out of student benches, church pews and the medical equipment and pharmaceuticals that they could fit into their luggage. Seeing almost 200 patients a day, they've uncovered a world of unnecessary suffering that could be prevented or alleviated if only a permanent clinic were available to the people of Bayonnais.

 

Untreated hypertension lurks in the homes here, taking mothers and fathers without warning. Poor hygiene results in chronic infections that sap strength and sow suffering. A four year old boy crying in pain needs urgent care for an eye diseased from birth. Four years he has needed care that was at a clinic too far away with a price too high for his poor mother to pay. The doctors and nurses in this week's clinic work through the heat to squeeze in as many patients as possible. The end of the week won't bring an end to the need. For every child they have seen, there are ten more who need care. For every prescription they fill, there will be months of waiting until another team comes to bring another round of medication.

 

Actionnel, Dimilsaint and Firmin plan to build a medical and dental clinic and pharmacy on a site they purchased in 1999 about a five minute walk from the church and school. The first Bayonnais medical technician, Luziana Aristin-Bertin, completes her training next fall. The first nurse, Anne-Junie St-Louis will come home to serve soon after. Two doctors from the community are in their fourth and eighth year of training. The first doctor, Samuel Mondelus, plans to complete three years of specialist training and public service in 2010 and return to Bayonnais to serve in the clinic. A dentist, Simon Alexandre will also arrive in 2010. Myers Park is being asked to help build a clinic where these inspirational young people can care for the people of Bayonnais.

 

While working for a permanent clinic, we also hope to field a medical mission team to Bayonnais as soon as possible. We are laying the groundwork now by detailing logistics and developing the planning team. Soon we'll be recruiting physicians and medical personnel to staff teams. Would you be willing to give a week of your time and skills to the people of Bayonnais? "As you did it unto the least of these my brethren, you did it unto me."

A Lonely Little Church

Far down a jaw-rattling road in the broken Northern Indian state of Bihar, a lonely little church struggles to survive.

Forty-three years ago this April, a church was planted in a remote town in Northern India with proceeds from the estate of Rev. John W. Moore and his wife Daisy Eury-Moore. It was a project entrusted to Myers Park Methodist Church to carry out his wishes to "start a church in the mission field."

Steve James, Roy Dunaway and Charlie Rivens made a pilgrimage to this little church on Sunday to worship with them. to encourage them and to tell them that they were still remembered by the church that had fostered their beginnings. The courage of the sisters and brothers in this isolated compound staggers the imagination of those of us who worship at our ease.

Dark red bricks baked from the mud of the nearby Ganges river valley were skillfully built into fortress-thick walls for the modest sanctuary. Strong iron gratings frame the windows. The roof structure was formed from poured cement as if the builders knew that this church building didn't need to withstand rain and wind so much as it needed to be impervious to a firebomb and strong enough to hold off an angry mob.

The church was not easy to find. In these days of instant internet access anywhere on earth, ubiquitous cell phone access and Google Earth, no one in India could provide assurance that the church still existed after all these years. The Board of Missions of the Methodist Church no longer maintains contacts with the church. The many denominations whose efforts had built hundreds of churches in North India finally merged into the Church of North India in the early 1970's. The Methodist Conferences that never merged into the church said over and over again in e-mails and telephone contacts, "We don't have churches in that area." But the case was compelling that this little church was not gone, it was just forgotten and neglected in a world that ignored its struggle to survive.

When we arrived in Allahlabad, having been warned not to try to reach the church from Patna, Rev. Rajesh Joseph, the kind Secretary of the local Diocese of the Church of North India, welcomed us into his home and office. I had called him at home weeks ago, interrupting his son's birthday party with my strange request that he help me find this church. "It is not in our Diocese, I can assure you," he told me. "But I'll help you find it. And if you can't find it, I can help you find a hundred other little churches that can use your help."

Enlisting the aid of a gentle Christian guru, Dr. Mishrah, Rev. Joseph sent us on a journey to Bikramganj that took us to the church of a prayer-singing pastor in Mughalsarai, which must be the biggest truck-stop and train-station in all of India. On the way, we had dinner with a charismatic literacy-activist where lengthy prayers were shared in English, Hindi, and unknown tongues, drove along highways past overturned trucks, busses and tractor-taxis, past motor-cyclists with AK-47's strapped over their shoulders, over truck-swallowing pot-holes and scary-looking bridges. But at the end of the journey, we found the church we had been looking for.

As we drove up, the caretaker, Rama Nandmassi, was just finishing sweeping the dirt yard in preparation for the morning worship. The caretaker had been a member of the church since the beginning and now was the steward of the church as well as the preacher-of-the-day. The pastor, Rev. L.R. Thimothy was away for a conference in Lucknow, ten hours away by car.

Vishnu Bhagwan was there with his wife and their ten-year old son. They had converted to Christianity from the Hindu religion and had been burned out of their home by their neighbors for converting. So they lived in the attached sleeping quarters on the church property.

The excitement that our visit generated was captivating. It was so moving to these people that the church in North Carolina, USA still remembered them. Our congregation had been little more than a phrase on the cornerstone at the entrance to their building, but now there were real people who had come from across the ocean to see how they were doing. They created an impromptu welcoming ceremony, with Mrs. Bhagwhan and her son hastily assembling garlands in the back room of the church while Mr. Nandmassi prepared the sanctuary for the morning worship.

The brief worship service that morning included passionate songs of praise to God in Hindi, a lovely gospel message from Mr. Nandmassi, and an offering of peace and love that stirred the soul.

"We have wanted to contact our American sponsors for a long time, but never knew how to reach them," said the caretaker. "We hope to be able to stay in touch now, and not lose contact with one another again."

For a couple of dozen Christians, eighty miles from other Christians, in a state in India known mainly for its violence and banditry, whose lives are daily threatened with beatings and burnings because of their faith, knowing that God loves them enough to send someone from the US not only to start a church for them forty years ago, but to remember them after all these years is a priceless encouragement. Myers Park United Methodist Church can do little to transform their daily lives. But remembering them in prayer and writing to them in encouragement are tangible reminders for them that God has not forgotten their little church. And that makes their lives a lot less lonely.

A Passionate Congregation

You can get to anywhere in India from the huge railway yard at Mughalsarai.

Down a crowded cobblestone street and around the corner from the street vendors selling donah sits the hundred-year old sanctuary of the St. Paul Church. Pastor Ishwar Dayal has been pastor-in-charge at the church for five years. His kind heart shines through as he rides his motorcycle up to meet some strangers from a foreign land.

We met pastor Ishwar because he is a native of Bihar, the state in which the village of Bikramganj sits. This is the poorest state in India and one of the most troubled, according to the guidebooks. But to Pastor Ishwar, the people of Bihar are precious people. "They are misunderstood. They live in very difficult circumstances and are threatened in so many ways. But when you get to know them, they are open and soft-hearted."

Pastor Bihar has a deep burden on his heart for the people of his native state. It is his fondest wish to be posted to a church or to start a mission among his home people. In the meantime, he has dreams for the St. Paul's congregation.

"We would like to build a Sunday School. We have many children, but there is no place to teach them." The simple sanctuary hosts 200 people who sit on hard pews with tall hymn racks where they can place their Hindi hymnals and liturgies. But when the two-hour service is over, the children must go under a tree to study the scriptures.

"If you had been here two hours ago, you would have met sixty children who had gone out into the streets begging to raise money for a Sunday School building." said lay person Ravi Sharon who had delayed a long drive back to Allahabad to share a meal in his home with guests from abroad. "We don't have designs yet, or a budget, but we hope to build a Sunday School here" he said, pointing to a small plot lined with desert flowers and covered with tall green desert grass.

The passion of this small congregation was palpable as Rev. Charlie Rivens invited the small group of leaders to hold hands and pray. They spoke to God with a energized intensity imploring God's help. "We aren't seeking money," they prayed "we need you, Lord, to come and help us. You can have our homes, our lives our possessions. We need only you, Lord."

As we left this simple home, the city was plunged into darkness by a power-outage. But there was still a glow that shined around the pastor and his people who have so little, and yet have everything.

You can get to anywhere in India from the train yards of Mughalsarai. With the passion and faith of the leaders of the St. Paul's Church can take you even farther, right up to the gate of the Kingdom of God.

In Need of a Leg

She knew there was something wrong with her leg, because it hurt. But like most of us, she just kept going, enduring the pain. It would be difficult to get an appointment with a specialist in the government health service. Since their business had collapsed and they had lost everything, there was no money to pay for a consultation.

Sitting in an immaculate living room with simple, sturdy furniture, we listened as she and her children told us her story. Her twelve year old daughter never leaving her side, this mother would look up to her child to confirm her memory, to check and see if she had her own story right. Daughter and mother had switched places, if only for a little while and the daughter was helping her mother along physically and mentally.

She told us that finally the pain was too great and she found her way to a doctor whose diagnosis was shocking. She had signs of a very old injury to her leg that had never healed properly. The injury had become infected and now her whole leg from just above the knee was consumed with gangrene. It would have to be amputated.

Her three children stood by her. But it was so difficult to face the news. There was no time to think about it, no time to waste or the infection could spread and kill her.

An amputation is not a simple surgery. There are many possible complications. She went into shock as a result of the surgery and sustained some brain injury. Now she has trouble with her short term memory and it is difficult to read. She is hopeful that over time her brain will heal and she'll be able to read and remember normally again. But there is no money for therapy, so she is hoping and praying instead.

Even more pressing is the need for a prosthetic. She is a good candidate to do well with one. But the cost of a prosthetic leg is almost $1,800.00, unattainable for a poor family.

Her identical twin sons are so devoted. They remain at home to care for their mother. One is a professional dance instructor for the traditional dances of Sri Lanka. His instruction generates the only income for the family. His brother continues in school and is in training to be a bank worker, but there is no income until he completes his training. Her daughter stands by her side with an affectionate hand on her mother's arm. They are very proud to share some tea with their guests from the USA.

Rev. Rohitha de Silva asks if we would consider helping this poor woman get a prosthesis made and fitted. We assured her that we would find a way to help her. A beautiful smile spread across the faces of everyone in the family as words of thanks tumbled out of their mouths. How beautiful it is to be able to offer in the name of Christ some hope to a family in trouble.

A Clinic for the Poor

"They are the poorest of the poor." said Joyothe Semaratne of the 35 neatly dressed women waiting their turn at the health clinic sponsored every full moon by the Rawathwatte Methodist Church. Joyothe is the secretary and registrar of the clinic.

In the Buddhist culture of Sri Lanka, every full moon is a holiday called "Poya." It is a day of special celebrations at shrines and temples. But for Dr. Nihal Noonis and a half-dozen volunteers it is a day to serve the poor. For eleven years Dr. Noonis has opened a clinic in the middle of the fellowship hall where people with no income and no prospects can come for health care. Even though Sri Lanka has a socialized medicine program, the average person can wait weeks for an appointment to see a consultant, the common name for a general practitioner in the country. For the very poorest, who don't know how or can't work the system, the appointments just aren't available.

So Dr. Noonis and his team open the doors of the church. They give basic physical exams, deal with basic health concerns, and write prescriptions that are filled at a nearby pharmacy and paid for with a voucher from the church. "Medicine is very expensive here and isn't covered under the government health care system." Said Dr. Noonis. So the church pays the bills and the people receive their medicine.

Each patient has a medical file that has been created by the health clinic team with a record of their exam and test results as well as treatment orders and notes. The team maintains these well-organized records and provides a copy for each patient to keep at home and bring to appointments in the system.

When a condition requires more intense treatment or surgery, Dr. Noonis can order them to be admitted to a nearby hospital for care. This hospital care is covered by the state health system, though the wait for admission is sometimes agonizing and sometimes deadly even with a respected doctor ordering the admission. There just aren't enough facilities and hospital personnel to give access to anyone on a walk-in basis.

With the expenses of the new building, the church has run short on funds to pay the pharmacy bills in recent months. They are looking for partners and supporters who can help fill the gap. How much does this program cost? About $70.00 US per month preserves the lives and health of about fifty people ever month. It is amazing how much good a small amount of help can do in a place like Sri Lanka.

These are the kinds of investments to change lives your church is making in the world every day.

Seven Dry Homes

The waters last flooded their homes in October.

As Sri Lanka develops, houses increasingly are built on less suitable land. Marshes are filled in, riverbanks are encroached upon, grasslands are paved and trees are uprooted. The result is that many existing homes are built in areas that are no longer safe from routine flooding.

Seven households routinely flood in the Katana area northeast of the Colombo airport. Their houses sit at the edge of a large expanse of rice paddies. The green paddies look beautiful, not at all dangerous. But when it rains, the canals that have watered these paddies for generations now carry enough water not only to flood the fields, but all the surrounding land as well.

These poor families have no resources to build houses on stilts or move to higher ground. They have been living on the edge, worried about every rain: "Will we have to flee in the face of flood waters tonight?" They are members of the Methodist Churches on the Katana circuit. Their fellow members knew about the trouble they were in and asked the church to help. And the Rawathwatte Methodist Church formally asked for our help with this project in the summer and we were able to fund the reconstruction by the early fall. Now houses are being rebuilt at a level high enough that the families will be safe from the waters and can sleep in peace.

In Rawathwatte, a similar project is ongoing. Six families are now protected from routine flooding by a series of creative renovations that raise the house level above the threatening waters. In one case, the waters can now rise as high as six feet above the base level. The only solution for this home was to build tall piers on which a new house could be built. For others, the base level of the house was raised by two to three feet while doors and rooflines were modified to accommodate the new floor level. In another house, the lower walls were sealed and a dam was built to prevent water from flowing in through the front door.

One group of houses down a narrow street formed a cluster of Methodists living among Buddhists. Five homes on this short block were subject to flooding. In one Methodist home, the householder said "Thanks for offering, but we're going to be ok. There are others whose need is greater than ours. Please help them." Three other Methodist homes on the block are almost complete. As we toured the houses, a young Buddhist mother said to us: "Our home floods, too. You have helped our neighbors. Would you be willing to help us?" On behalf of the Myers Park United Methodist Church, Steve James assured them we would help them, as well as their neighbors.

These kinds of projects go on around the world because of the generosity of members of our church.

By God’s Mighty Hand

The twenty-five drummers were wearing plaid last Friday as they led the congregation on a processional to the new sanctuary at Rawathwatte Methodist Church in Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. The drums only served to reflect the enormous energy of the crowd gathered to celebrate what had been done in and through this congregation by the mighty hand of God.

The Rawathwatte Church is 148 years old and its previous sanctuary had served the congregation for over half that time. It was a beautiful structure, built in the British missionary style with thick walls of kapok (a local, rough sandstone). While the congregation grew stronger these last ten years, the structure became increasingly fragile until finally it became unsafe to use. The sandy soil beneath the foundation had been undermined by nearby construction and the vibrations of the tens of thousands of cars and trucks that pass by on the Galle Road within feet of the front door.

The church had to overcome enormous obstacles to build a new sanctuary. The government, dominated by Buddhists, frustrated the permit process with multiple layers of bureaucratic meetings and paperwork. Chinthaka, the architect, recounted God's intervention as two opposing government committees scheduled meetings independently with the church leaders on the same day at the same time in the same building. The committees were holding the project at bay, but when the church members came to the meetings, they got the two groups in the same room and the objections all fell away.

The budget for the project was over $240,000.00 (US). In a congregation of people whose average income is $3.00 a day, this is an enormous sum of money to raise. They could see no way to raise the needed money. They considered a thousand projects to raise money, but at one congregation meeting someone said: "We have homes with wooden roofs and tile floors. Surely we can build a church that is as good as our own homes." So they broke ground in late November 2005 with little money in the bank, a dream and confidence that God would provide.

The congregation of 250 very poor families contributed over $140,000.00 during the last eighteen months to build this new sanctuary. Several times during the year, they ran out of money to pay the contractors. But a gift would come in at just the right moment so they never ran out. Last summer, they thought the project was falling apart when they had no money to pay the overdue bills. Myers Park United Methodist Church sent $30,000.00 from the Jubilee Fund that arrived just as they were preparing to send the unpaid workers away.

The congregation held their first Sunday worship in the sanctuary on April 29 where Steve James was invited to preach. "God has done something amazing in your midst these last eighteen months. But God did not build this building for you alone. God has in mind the fisher-folk in their boats and the farmers in their fields, the bankers at their windows and the shopkeepers in their stalls. God prepared this building for the children here among us, but also for the thousands yet to be born whose faith will be built within these walls. So rejoice at what God has done here, but prepare yourself! For God has greater things still to be done here through this congregation."

A Mission in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka was not prominent in many of our minds during Christmas of 2004. Many of us drink tea from Ceylon, but it was just an exotic place name with little definition. Was it in Asia? Off the coast of Africa? No, Sri Lanka is off the tip of India in the Bay of Bengal.

When the great Tsunami struck that day after Christmas, Sri Lanka leapt into our consciousness as a place where great suffering had taken place. We saw the moving images of people fleeing the tidal wave and the destroyed houses and wrecked boats. Disasters happen all the time, but this one boggled the mind. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed, millions left homeless, and fear seemingly all that was left in the wake of the receding waters.

Myers Park United Methodist Church might never have done much to care for the victims of this tragedy were it not for the perseverance of a pastor in Sri Lanka, the Rev. Don Fernando. Ten years before, he had a chance encounter on a train platform with American author, Davis Bunn who was a member of the Davidson United Methodist Church. They had corresponded over the years and kept the relationship alive. When the waters receded, Don contacted his old friend with a simple message: "Can you help us?" (Acts 16:9)

Davis Bunn contacted James Howell and we began to organize the church to respond to the tragedy. Donations began to accelerate. Through Pastor Fernando we connected with the Rev. Rohitha de Silva of the Methodist Church of Sri Lanka. He invited us to send a representative to Sri Lanka to coordinate a program to help the people of the island recover.

So we traveled to Sri Lanka and found there a vibrant Methodist Church, dating back to 1814 which was well equipped in every way but money to respond to the needs of victims. As we traveled to the disaster areas, we found in every case devoted pastors who had opened their homes and their churches as shelter for victims. Some had hosted dozens of families for weeks at a time all while continuing to serve their churches. Their inspiring devotion and love created many opportunities to help.

When Steve James returned from the three week trip, the congregation rallied in a massive way to the needs presented. In just three weeks over a half-million dollars was donated and pledged and a program came together to build homes for victims in partnership with the Methodist Church of Sri Lanka.

Now two and a half years later, thirty-five homes have been completed and occupied. We have learned much about the faith of our brothers and sisters in the Methodist Church of Sri Lanka. Our team of Steve James, Charlie Rivens and Roy Dunaway is on the beautiful Island for a review of the progress and to celebrate the dedication of the reconstructed sanctuary for the Methodist Church in Rawathwatte. What we have found among the people is rich thankfulness to God who loved them enough to send help all the way from the other side of this blue earth.

We didn't know Sri Lanka in 2004, but now we have a vital partnership with a vibrant church that inspires and challenges us. Out of the tragedy a legacy has been created of well-worn bridges across two oceans, a deep and lasting partnership and hope for the poorest of the poor.

Two Years in a Refugee Camp

Over two years ago Thyamani Jeyakrishna was living in a home on the shores of the Bay of Bengal. She and her husband are Tamil's, Hindu inhabitants of Sri Lanka who have lived as second-class citizens in Sri Lanka. Not all Tamil's are rebels and Thyamani and her husband were simple fisher-folk.

When the waves came on the morning of December 26, 2004, she barely escaped her house before it was washed away. A tsunami might only be a few inches high two miles off shore, but the mass of moving water interacts with the sloping sea floor to climb higher and higher as it approaches land. Thyamani's husband was at sea and survived the waves because he was far off shore. He didn't know there had been a disaster until his boat returned to a scene of terrible destruction.

With a thousand other fam ilies in their refugee camp, they have lived for two years with nothing but the clothes on their backs and a donated sleeping mat on the hard floor, With no place to plant a garden, dry rations of rice and lentils provided by relief agencies and the meager supplement of fish that is the pay of a fisherman have been their only source of sustenance.

But last month, their lives changed. Thyamani celebrated the dedication and opening of their new home in a small cluster of ten homes built in the partnership between Myers Park United Methodist Church and the Methodist Church of Sri Lanka. A small plot of land with room for a small garden, a colorful brick house with a tile roof, and gifts of pots and pans and simple plastic chairs gave her family a new start.

The Methodist pastor who led the selec tion committee interviewed over 300 families in this refugee camp, spending weeks of his life trying to understand who among them would most benefit the gift of a new home. It is a testimony to this pastor's faithfulness that he chose a simple Hindu family from the lowest caste on the island because their need was so great. Our partnership empowered his love and kindness. Now a homeless family has a new start and hope for a better life for them and their children.