A happy child in India

Dear Friends,

This month I thought I’d share with you one of the many letters that we receive from our 42 orphanage directors. They are often filled with thanks, and just as often, they are filled with requests. The letter below is from Mrs. Lal Rin Tluangi, the director of Jordan Orphanage, whom I have visited many times when in Myanmar. Although she doesn’t speak English, her son does, and he does a great job communicating, using English words and expressions that I rarely hear from anyone in Myanmar. I’ll first let you read her letter, and then I’ll have a few comments afterwards.

All of our orphanages send us a monthly accounting, and as you can see from Mrs. Lal Rin Tluangi’s report, she received 213,000 kyats from Orphan’s Tear in July. That is the equivalent of about $180, as nine of her orphans have sponsors. But she indicates that her expenses exceeded her income by about $77.

I wrote to her and told her that I would send extra funds this month to help with last month’s deficit (which is one of the things for which we use the Orphan’s Tear Special Gifts Fund).

Mrs. Lal Rin Tluangi also mentioned the new outhouse that she tried to build, but the pit below the outhouse collapsed recently due to the heavy rains. 29 people depended on that outhouse.

We have helped a number of our orphanages with funding for new and better toilets, whose pits are lined with bricks and concrete so they don’t collapse, and that are constructed above the ground with the same materials. They usually cost about $1,000. Here is a photo of what they look like:

I wrote to her that we would be sending $1,000 in September so that they could construct a four-person latrine. These funds will also come from the Orphan’s Tear Special Gifts Fund.

Mrs. Lal Rin Tluangi also requested that we help fund the construction of a new building to house her family and orphans because their existing building is deteriorating. She knows we’ve assisted many other orphanages in her region in that way. I’ll be certain to take a close look at her existing house when I visit her in November, and we’ll talk about what we hope to do for her children.

Finally, she also asked us to purchase a rice field for her orphanage, something that we’ve been able to do for nine of our orphanages so far. Her one month’s expenditure for rice used up about $160 of the $180 that we sent her last month. The price of rice has doubled in Myanmar in the past two years, which means the money we send to our orphanages each month does not go as far as it once did.

A ten-acre rice field usually costs around $10,000, but that price can vary. We currently have about $11,000 in the Rice Fields for Orphanages Fund, and I’m trying to decide which orphanage (of the many who have made a request for a rice field) to help. It is an agonizing decision.

I’m sharing these thoughts with you this month, as I always do, to share the burden that is upon us. Just imagine receiving many letters each month, as we do, like this one from Mrs. Lal Rin Tluangi. Sometimes the burden seems overwhelming.

But we continue to rejoice for all the good that the Lord enables us collectively to do. And we trust Him to enable us to do more. Thanks, as always, to every orphan sponsor and to everyone who has contributed recently to the Dorms for Orphanages Fund, the Rice Fields for Orphanages Fund, or the Orphan’s Tear Special Gifts Fund. Together we are making a huge difference in the lives of hundreds of Jesus’ little followers in eight nations. May God help us to do more!

For the children,

David