Quarterly Report 2021
COVID Report
As many of you would have seen on the news (or have been personally experiencing), the COVID situation in India is dire. The Lord has allowed us to connect with a group of doctors and nurses to reach out to help those in need in the following ways:
– Purchasing and delivering medicine, oxygen, food, and other needs, locally and in other parts of India.
– Organizing online training by experts to get out accurate information about COVID.
– Facilitating the dissemination of information about the availability of doctors, hospitals with beds, oxygen, plasma donors, etc.
– To arrange doctors and nurses to treat some poor patients at their homes.
– A prayer team.
Please pray that we will be the compassionate arms of God as we interact with those who are truly suffering!
John, our staff was working in partnering with a COVID outreach team. We primarily gave administrative support to doctors, helping them to find beds in hospitals, ambulance services, food services and medicine for needy patients. We worked, dynamically, according to the situation and condition of the patients. We also organized to deliver oxygen concentrators to mission hospitals in various states of India. Till date, 107 people recovered from covid. Sadly 3 patients passed away. More than 21 patients are recovering as of now.
Laxminarayana, one of our staff members, was also working with the COVID outreach team during the month of May. He worked along with Dr. Goutham in helping to get the needed medicine, testing oxygen levels, and moving the patients for testing to hospitals. He directly helped 19 positive patients (17 families) in and around his village, Bommakal. Everyone recovered and are doing well. Rambabu has developed some other complications after he had COVID, and till today, Laxminarayana is working in helping Rambabu recover.
Centres' Report
The total centres we have for the academic year 2020-21 are 21, Odisha and Telugu states. There were 12 centres running during the month of April and 8 centres were not running because of Covid situations. Most of the leaders are not able to think out of the box in reaching the children during this pandemic time. As many of the leaders and teachers are struggling to understand the concept of discipleship, we are taking this two months of time (May & June) to train all the centre leaders and teachers on mentoring.
We have been serving about 350 children during this last quarter with the help of 21 teachers and volunteers. As there is a lot of uncertainty about education (schools & colleges), many children are not able to focus on their studies. We request you to pray for all the children, for their vulnerable situation.
Nacharam Centre
We are in touch with all the children, from 6th to 10th classes, and their parents, on a regular basis by phone. When we call them, we enquire about any problems that their families are facing. Some are doing fine, but many are struggling, as they lost their regular income sources. We gave some COVID awareness suggestions to the children and their parents (i.e. how to protect themselves). We also talked to the parents and encouraged them to take the COVID vaccine and helped some of them to register for it.
As we call them, we also realise that many of the children have nothing to do except sit at home with their gadgets. They’re feeling bored and wasting much of their time on unnecessary things. Since May, we have been conducting some online activities for the 6th –10th class children on a regular basis. We divided them into five groups, according to their maturity and have been conducting online activities (i.e. one hour of teaching them some Bible lessons, games, and memory word activities). About 41 children (including children from primary school) from 21 different families are attending regularly.
Children have been attending with eagerness, and their parents are happy that we are conducting these classes. Parents also listen in at times. There are challenges that we face too, sometimes there is only one phone in the home and parents aren’t always home.
Prayer Points
Please pray for:
- The government is requiring many organizations to update their official records, so pray that we will be able to comply with all of the necessary regulations.
- Right now, we are serving about 21 covid patients. Pray for their recovery.
- Vasu and 3 of his family members are undergoing TB treatment and need among them (Subbu) is critical. Please pray for their health.
Story of Change
Samuel is a boy from the Gunpur centre (Odisha). His family came back from Chennai in November 2020, and he started attending the centre. In the beginning, is language and culture was not good. We started seeing a change from last month onwards. Now we are happy that his language and attitude is good. We asked his parents about his life at home, and they replied, with gratitude, about the change in his life. The teachers are also happy about the change in Samuel.
