By David Strickland on 2/17/2010 4:06 PM

Still on the job hunt. Downturn in the economy has put a pretty good dent in the short-term contract market. Looks like we may be back here longer then we first thought.

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By David Strickland on 2/1/2010 12:40 PM

We are back stateside for a few months. We have decided to expand the work and have returned to the states to see if we can save up some money for a larger facilite.

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By Mercy Strickland on 11/12/2009 2:51 AM

Shoba - Her story and her song ===============================

Shoba is seven year old. We still remember the day she walked into our home with her guardian. She was very sad and quiet. It did not take a long time to figure out that she was carrying a deep hurt within her. Her father passed away when she was very young and since her mother was in a depression and had no job, she couldn't take care of her daughter. So she decided to drop shoba at a relative's house.

Her relatives started mistreating the girl, getting her to do all the domestic chores and also sending her to the local toddy shop (liquor) to buy toddy everyday.

The mother heard about these things but couldn't do anything about it because she had already got married to another man. Her new husband abandoned her within a few months when she was pregnant with twins and never returned.

This was Shoba's situation when she moved in with us.

But Shoba has started going to school and found couple of friends and...

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By Mercy Strickland on 9/2/2009 7:01 AM

When Devayani moved in with us, we took her to the doctor for vaccination and medical check-up. During the check-up, the doctor found out that she had split sounds in her heart beat and referred us to a cardiologist. After going through few tests, echo-cardiograph and the scan, we found out that she had a hole in her heart referred to as Atrial Septal Defect (ASD). It is a birth heart defect. Because of ASD, extra blood passes into the lungs causing higher pressure thus damaging the lungs.

Because the hole was big, open heart surgery was her only option. We got her admitted to the hospital on 3rd August. The hospital wanted us to bring Devayani’s mother to sign the consent papers. But tracking her down was a nightmare. She refused to come to the hospital because she had to cook for her son who is 20 yrs old.  We finally convinced her to go to the hospital and sign the papers. She seemed very upset with her daughter because of her medical condition. She told her daughter that she delivered 8 babies  and...

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By David Strickland on 8/4/2009 1:47 AM

One of our girls had to go in for heart surgery. She's out of surgery and doing fine.

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By David Strickland on 1/8/2009 4:18 PM

 A new year has come. Looking back on the last year feels better then it used to knowing your having an impact makes a lot of difference. But to be perfectly honest that doesn't mean there aren't days I wish I didn't have nearly 20 people dependent on my paycheck.

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By David Strickland on 8/17/2008 10:35 AM

 

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By David Strickland on 6/2/2008 1:38 AM

 We got a phone call a couple days ago. A mother who had lost her home her husband and everything else. except her two children. One was 10 the other was just about to start college. She wondered if we could help. She wanted us to take care of the daughter. Instead we told her we would take care of both her and her daughter until she was able to do it on her own again.

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By David Strickland on 5/9/2008 12:36 AM

One of those things you just kind of take for granted in America and never think twice about. When I first came to India 5 years ago I opened a Citibank account or to be more precise it was opened for me by my employer. Citibank was good their service was slow and if you ever needed to actually go to a counter it was a nightmare of long lines, angry customers and rude staff but at least they seemed reliable.

Recently we wanted to open accounts. One for the orphanage two personnal accounts one for my wife and I and one for the company.

So ICICI was the bank the company I worked for when I first got here used so we started there. A representitive came to the office I filled out all the paperwork etc. Weeks passed. Finally I get a response it seems my signature didn't match the signature on my passport. So we tried it again. Weeks pass again rejected because my signature didn't match. So again they came this time I sit for an hour practicing my signature to get it identical to how I signed my passport....

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By David Strickland on 5/4/2008 1:14 AM

     We have two contacts in the area where we went to get the girls that we thought were going to help us track down the children in the greatest need. Our first contact was the pastor of the local church. As Mercy's rented car drove onto the property, she noticed some changes had taken place since we were there the previous time. The church had been fixed up and there was a new house being built on the property.

     Now one of the local men that was acting as a guide for Mercy had already tried several times to disuade her from going to see the pastor but Mercy insisted. He said the pastor would try to get us to take the children of all his relatives instead of children that really needed help. Well she insisted we've known the pastor for almost 5 years and though we don't know him well we knew him better than the villager. Mercy got down from the car and after formalities sure enough the pastor began to try to convince Mercy to take the children of his relatives. So they went to the village to meet pastor's relative who was a 16 year old pregnant women with a 2 year old daughter. According to the wife, her husband was struck dead by a demon when he walked out of the house one morning. As the pastor spoke to the 16 year old mother, she clutched onto her little daughter like a life perserver. One glance at the mother and you knew her only connection with her dead husband was the little girl clutching her knees. Her father felt though evidently that the child would be better off in an orphanage, the uncles all agreed but one glance at the women and you knew she didn't. So Mercy decided not to take the girl with her. Finally pastor started talking about his own granddaughter.  We eventually found out that he was building a house for his daughter and her husband there on the property and felt he needed to send her granddaughter with us. Somewhere along the way the pastor had lost the point. We weren't here to take children away from parents that loved them and wanted to care for them. We care for the parentless. Children that either have no parents left. Obviously this was getting her nowhere so Mercy left. Determined that this "pastor" was no pastor at all if he was willing to abandon his own granddaughter.

...

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