Dear Friends,

Big news this month! If your sponsored child lives in Myanmar, there is a 99.5% chance that we have a recent photo for you of your child! And if your sponsored child is living in one of the other seven nations where we assist orphanages, there is a fairly good chance that we have a photo that you’ve never seen of your child.

In either case, to see those photos, you’ll need to log in to your account at Orphan’s Tear. If you’ve never done that before, you’ll need to first click on “Create an Account” on the home page, and follow the instructions. (If you run into any problems, feel free to call us at 412-833-5826, or email us at [email protected].)

Once you are in your account, click on “My Children.” No matter how many you sponsor, you’ll see them all on the right hand side.

Under many of the children’s photos, there is a little button that says, “Download Desktop Wallpaper.” If you see that button, that indicates we have another photo of that child. If you click on that button, a very nice horizontal portrait will appear in a separate screen that you can download to print or use as “wallpaper” on your computer screen. Please take advantage of this! That way, when people walk by your computer and ask about the smiling child on your screen, you can tell them all about Orphan’s Tear and encourage them to sponsor a child themselves!

I won’t bore you with the details of what it has taken to pull all of this off, but it required massive amounts of work in many areas of our ministry by our small staff and some volunteers. As a result of significant software changes, Orphan’s Tear is now better poised to serve more orphans and more people like you who want to serve orphans. Thanks to all.

An Oxen Upgrade

We’ve often funded the purchase of oxen, yokes, plows and carts for our orphanage directors whom we’ve also been able to bless with rice fields. They are essential “tools” for planting, harvesting and winnowing rice. But one of our orphanage directors who just received a rice field from us requested money for a hand-tractor instead of oxen. These kinds of tractors are quite common in rural Asia, and they apparently are much easier to care for than oxen! So we decided to give one a try as an experiment. Below is a photo of that tractor, purchased with funding from a young church in California. It cost about $2,300, and is somewhat similar in design to a rototiller, but larger. Made in China, naturally!

Enoch Hmun Khar, director of Goshen Orphanage, with his new tractor

Orphan’s Tear U.K.

Within a few weeks, the Orphan’s Tear U.K. website should be online and ready for folks in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland to sponsor children directly through our ministry in the British Isles. Posted on that website will be children from three Myanmar orphanages that we’ve just “adopted.” I’m happy to report that through the efforts of the U.K. volunteer staff, seventeen children have already been sponsored in one of those orphanages! I spent a little over a week this month in England and Wales and I’m very excited over the potential fruitfulness that I found as I met and talked with some lovely believers in Christ who are responsible for the ministry there. We thank God especially for John and Pam Rodger and Philip and Sandie Barker.

Thanks also to every sponsor, and to everyone who has contributed this past month to the Orphan’s Tear Special Gifts Fund, the Dorms for Orphanages Fund, or the Rice Fields for Orphanages Fund. Every gift is bearing fruit.

For the Children,

David