Journal - India

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India

Mission To Children excursion summarized by board member, Pastor Jeff Kerkhoff.

Journal, April 2008

“I went on this trip at the invitation of Dr. Skip (as he is coming to be known around here) to help present Character Solutions to some people here. I have longevity; I have been with MTC [Mission To Children] for almost 20 years as a board member, and for all of those times I have heard so much about some of our work here in India, particularly the work with Dr. David Dass and Beulah Home; and more recently now, the women’s home.

“We have been supporting India in a number of different ways, particularly the Beulah Home, a home that has 120 children that are being cared for. We visited the home and that was just a real wonderful time, being welcomed by the kids and being loved by the kids. It is very interesting to see the caregivers; the girls who took care of the children were basically young ladies who at one time were in the program themselves. They now have grown up and are now helping take care of these children. So in terms of longevity for myself on the MTC board, I see also longevity and fruit from the ministry of the Beulah Home, particularly in the sense that these students are not just being fed and then they are just lost; no, they are being followed up on. Many of them go on into different parts of the country, actually to Bible school; some of them continue on, like the women’s home has graduates, and the leper colony.

The Leper Colony

Welcomed into homes.

“The leper colony that we had the opportunity to visit was an eye opener for me. It is the first time that I ever got so close to people with leprosy, but at the same time we were able to see some of the children, grown young ladies now at the Beulah Home. Particularly, one gal who was like an RN (they call it certified nurse or something of that nature) was helping to take care of the leper victims and also the other people who were there. As a matter of fact, there is a team there now of graduates from the Beulah Home who are going to be helping us introduce Character Solutions to the rest of the colony. People within the colony are so thankful for MTC’s participation over all the years in providing so many of the facilities and the water tanks and the community center that has been built through MTC. They really know that we have done a tremendous thing over there.

Testimonies

Kids helped by Mission To Children at the leper communicty pause for a photo...but not for very long.

“Now when it comes to the possibilities of Character Solutions for India, that was something that just absolutely surprised me. I had no idea. I thought I was just going to come and help out and go teach a couple of seminars. The first one that we went to was a combination of law enforcement and counselors who help abused women, and apparently through them also children. And at the same time, actually we didn’t know we were going to do that, this kind of came off the spot. And we had just come off the airplane from the hotel, straight into the meeting and I know I wasn’t at my best. But we did what we could, and it was very well received, with a wonderful testimony from a man who had been a professional counselor for 20 years; and through Character Solutions now saw that he really needs to work on his own character. And he said it with a quiver in his voice.

The Women's Home

Character training at the orphanage.

“Then we presented it also to the women’s home. Four young ladies, street workers on the way out, young ladies with babies, accepted Christ through the optional seminar of Character Solutions. At Beulah Home on Sunday we had an opportunity to baptize eight young ladies who made a commitment to Jesus Christ, and after that we did the Character Solutions seminar, which took most of the day. And the kids were so excited, as well as the staff. These were older children in the Home, I think 13 on up, or 16, something like that, and eight staff workers. We proudly presented them with the Character Solutions pin as their commitment to practicing these qualities in their lives. So, it was just a wonderful experience in Beulah Home.

Potential

Mission To Children provided character training for police staff members who help distressed women.

“Now, I am not finished, because I haven’t even said anything about the potential of MTC. We had an appointment with a representative here for India, a highly regarded individual who worked in ministry for 20 years. Nevertheless, this man opened our eyes to the possibilities of Character Solutions in India, because he has a network established with thousands of churches, with the possibility that CSI could spread, on a conservative estimate, to about a million people. Incredible! All through the contact of David Dass, who is just an absolutely quality individual. We got to know him very well, and his wife. David put us in contact with another man, a CPA who gave us some direction also. During that time we became aware of more potential, not only through him, but he has a contact with the former mayor of a city who is the owner of a school system that has 200,000 students. He invited us to go ahead and present that to the students [in the future]. In addition to that, the police commissioner deputy that was at the seminar is so excited that he wants to make it a mandatory class for all the policemen, a 16,000-member force of a 7-million population city in a 57-million population province.

"Isn’t that something? I am totally blown away. And who knows where it’s going to go from there? I am so excited I can’t stand it! So, I hope you all catch that and see what God is doing.”