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.

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 ... Read More »

     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 ... Read More »

Ok, well maybe my methods aren't exactly scientific; perhaps my sampling is a bit small, and my conclusion too general. However, were we ever in for a shock. Who ever heard of a child that doesn’t like Chocolate Ice Cream? It was their first night here at the Home, so we figured it would be good to get them out of the house for a treat. About four blocks from the house is an Ice Cream Store, so we all walked up and we got a scoop for each girl.
Well, I guess we kind of figured they might not have tried it before.  But women always like chocolate, right? …and kids always like Ice Cream.  So we figured it was a safe bet. Of the 10 girls, two of them took one bite, wrinkled up their nose and didn't want any more. OK, so what do you do with kids that don't know what a cartoon is, can't understand English and don't like ice cream, in order to get their minds off of what they have lost, what once was, and what could have been if only ...
Today we tried t ... Read More »

Back in the day when I used to look for a job, instead of looking for people to hire, I can remember getting emails that said I had been shortlisted. It's been a year since my Resume was active on Monster in the US, but I still get e mails that say I've been "shortlisted".  Once I started my own company I realized better what that means.  Recently I needed to hire a developer, so I posted an ad and got almost 1000 responses.  Ok so we "shortlisted". But in the end, it never really changed my life to find out Microsoft or IBM or HP "shortlisted" me.  In the end all it means is they actually read my resume instead of just deleting it.
Yesterday though, it was a whole new experience. Mercy went out to a village we had been in contact with. Looking for orphans or children in need. We pretty much already setup our guidelines. Full orphans we will always take, but single parents in desperate situations, we need to talk ... Read More »

     Well it's Feburary which means birthdays. Ash Mercy and I are all Feburary birthdays which means we could get it all over with in about 2 weeks. At least until DJ came along in Nov. which through the whole process off.

     Birthdays in India are much more exciting then I remember them in America. In the states they come and go with barely a nod. But here to ecscape it's nearly impossible.

     Before I left America I was going to get a cellphone that could contain all my contacts my schedule and everything else. But then after talking with a couple different people it seems not everything that works in America works here in India. So I decided to wait till I got to India to get it. Then when we arrived we were so busy getting everything else we needed that there wasn't much money for anything extra. In the states you can get a fairly nice p ... Read More »

Warning Numbers Ahead if you already have a headache come back later.

Well it's that time of year taxes. I'm going self employed  on March 1 working out of my house. I started to realize that ment accounting. Ok I'm a coder not an accountant so I'm REALLY not looking forward to this. However If I'm going to have time to do what we came here to do. I've got to work for myself so I have the flexibility to do it. Hey shameless plug here want a website or an application Hire me. OK so back to our regularly scheduled program. As I started to look at it and I decide the first place to analyze was taxes you know I grew up doing my taxes since I was 16 I should be able to do it in India right? As I looked at it I started to wonder which is better India or Amer ... Read More »

Last month as we began to analyze our expenditures for this year and develop a budget for 2008 we realized that money was a lot tighter then we first anticipated. For a variety of reasons. A lot of people that said they would help seem to have forgotten. I guess that is normal. Intentions are always good but in the end when it gets right down to it  it becomes hard to actually carry through. We had originally designed this site to stay in touch and update those that were interested in supporting us in the work we are doing. Thus as 2007 began to draw to a close we began to consider shutting down the site. It costs us about $14.00 a month to keep it going and since there are so few to keep updated it would be cheaper to simply continue to send out our newsletter instead.

So in Mid Dec. I stopped posting anticipating that we would shut it down in mid Jan. however after talking to some friends stateside they encouraged us that our blog was affecting more people then we reali ... Read More »

That last entry was getting long so I excluded an event I decided to put here instead. That first night we spent at the hospital. We found out that evidently someone had been watching the house. Some how they knew we were gone because when I got home on Friday. All the exterior plumbing had been stolen off of the house. This uncluded the spickets and knobs in the sink on the terrace. The plumbing in the exterior bathroom on the side of the house. The two spickets on the sides of the house and the connectors for our washing area on the terrace. Not sure if it's 4 kg worth of plumbing nut probably somewhere close. In addition to the stolen fixtures there is really no telling how much water we lost before I got home and got the plumbing turned off. The water bill this month might get interesting. How much water do you think can come out of six open spickets in 8 hours? What I found real interesing is that some of the electrical extension cor ... Read More »