Grace and Martin visited India in March to encourage and spend time with all the projects we are involved in. Grace stayed for a week and Martin stayed for two weeks. During their time in India, they visited both Bethel and Joy Children’s Homes.

Unfortunately, a number of children were not at Bethel, due to the fact that they have had a severe outbreak of Measles. Children are not routinely vaccinated against serious childhood diseases, both for cultural and financial reasons. We plan to ensure that all the children are vaccinated at both homes in future. If you think you could help with the cost of this, please let us know. A single MMR vaccination costs just 72p plus the cost of a doctor or nurse to administer it. Measles alone kills 160,000 children every year in India, so it is a very serious problem.

Bethel children’s home is on the move due to space constraints. We have to build a separate boys’ block, and there simply is not enough space to do this in our current location. Annie’s father, Thankachan has kindly offered his farm premises, just on the outskirts of Chennai to house the Bethel children until we sell the Bethel premises. The farm has a decent sized home plus lots of space for the children to play. A good school is a short distance away. There will be costs involved in this temporary move – boundary fences, toilets, decorating etc. If you think you can help, please click donate now and give whatever you can to help us. The sale of Bethel should cover the cost of buying land to build a new home and give us enough to start the new building.