India mission work

Updates

Another 50 prostituted women were interviewed as part of the FPC larger medical mission trip to BIRDS in November.

During the October 30 - November 17, 2006 trip:

• 13 medical professionals and 600 pounds of meds and supplies cared for 800 Dalit patients.
• Paul's dream--expressed to FPC in his April '06 visit here--of an orphanage and Save The Child program was cemented (figuratively, financially, and literally) as we laid the cornerstone; donated hundreds of books to their present school; and presented shoes and Bibles to all 100 orphans.
• We participated directly in the training of the 26 BIRDS Commuity Health Workers, while seeing 1200 more workers attend the trainings we started last year there. (Since Catholic Relief withdrew their funds for this, one of our members personally agreed to sponsor this program for the next year).

All of the above involved ecumenical work was with participation and contributions from St Mark's Presbyterian, Albany Presbyterian, Reedville Presbyterian, Seattle Baptist, Temple Beth Israel, Kaiser Sunnyside Hospital, and many nonchurch participants who saw up close what Christians and churches can do! For instance, the nascent Destitute Women's scholarship fund was expanded from 6 to 60 women, and handicapped men were able to be added by enrolling sponsors at Kaiser.

From Dr. Ginny Feldman:
After 3 days working at BIRDS, I was confined to my room due to my previous back injury. One day, a woman and her brother came up to my room, and just sat with me--for hours. I called a translator, as I couldn't fully understand what they wanted. (Assuming there had to be some request involved with that much patience!) The translator told me that the woman--now an ex-prostitute--and her family, just wanted to say THANK YOU to me and the church who made the program possible for her to leave that work, and for my treating her illness.

November 2005 India mission trip

We worshipped with the staff, at the 130 year old Church of the Nativity.

Some of the team visited the Widow's Program, finding it the saddest of all the sights we saw, as up til FPC's Jubilee Funds, no agencies have cared about widows.

Dr. Ginny Feldman will return to Paul's program in Andhra Pradesh this January, with two members from last year's team, to work on a new project with the Devadasis, prostituted women of the temples. Before leaving, on January 22 she will present a luncheon at church after worship, showing all the recent full-of-hope developments at BIRDS.

Read more about the August 2004 mission trip on page 5 of the December - January newsletter of the Presbytery of the Cascades (PDF).

Please email Ginny at feldmanvi(at)hotmail(dot)com for more information about this mission work.

Pictures from the November 2005 trip

BIRDS Health Center	Widows	Dental education program
Applying fluoride varnish	Dispensing meds	Baby!
New malaria test	Teaching community health workers	Sharing books
Church of the Nativity	K Thomas singing	Thanks to everyone who donated books, medicine, money, and time. And thanks to all who supported our work with your prayers and good wishes!