Early Christmas!

Last week, Christmas came early to House of Hope! Sarah Hesse, a German high school student living with her family here in Pune, organized over 130 Christmas boxes to donate to House of Hope and our school, Bright Star Education. Sarah is a student at Mercedes Benz International School in Pune. Sarah delivered the boxes to our children along with her mother, brother and classmate.

It took 3 cars just to transport all the boxes! It was a big surprise for our kids and they were thrilled with all the fun gifts inside their boxes. The boxes were filled with socks, gloves, hats, toiletries, games, little toys, and candies.

We are so thankful to Sarah and her mother, Simone for all their efforts to organize these Christmas boxes. Isn't it amazing how one person can organize their friends and family to be a blessing to so many children in need?? If you are interested in being a blessing and making a difference in the life of a disadvantaged child, please contact us! kristina@brightstareducation.org.

Alll the boxes that will be given out to the school children on Thursday at our Christmas program.

Kristina
for House of Hope

Happy Diwali!

Happy Diwali from House of Hope! We celebrated with a fun time of food, friends, games and fireworks.

Preparing the tea lights to decorate the house.

Baby Esther's first Diwali

Enjoying all the yummy food

Sahara

Sahara and Renu

Vishal

Tanmay and Sahara

Angel

Ranjana

Watching the fireworks show

August Update

Its been a busy month at House of Hope! We have a new intern from the Netherlands who has been spending a lot of time with the children, teaching them new things and having lots of fun!

Swamini, Sandesh and Sonali playing a game of homemade Twister. 

Sweet Esther is growing so fast!

Vishal learns to make pizza.

Taekwondo class

Future Taekwondo Black-Belts

Chetan, the rockstar

Chetan learned all his cool moves from Aunty!

Monsoon Update

After 2 1/2 months of rain, rain, rain, monsoon is almost over here in India. Monsoon can be boring when you're a child because you can't play outside in the rain. But we have managed to have some fun and stay busy in the past few months. We are also happy to say that our children have all stayed relatively healthy during a time where many people become ill with the change of weather here. 

Here's some pictures of what's been happening around our house over the past few months:

Baby Esther is growing so nicely.

The kids got a package from America with lots of fun glasses!

Sakshi, the rockstar

Funny Face Prasanna

Sanatan turned 11 in July! We all really enjoyed his airplane birthday cake!

The children started back to school at the end of June. 

They are all doing well and enjoying their teachers and classes. 

On 15 August many of the kids performed in their school's Independence Day program. 

HOH Girls performing Raang De Basanti

Sandesh giving a speech about Mahatma Ghandi

Happy Independence Day!

Congratulations Monica!

Today is a big day for Monica Mathew - she has just completed 12th standard! What a relief to be finished with high school! She is all smiles today and her mother, Sangita couldn't be more proud. Monica has spent a lot of her time working at House of Hope during the last several years. The children love her very much!

Monica wants to be a teacher, so she will start teacher training school in June. She will also be working part time in Bright Star Education as the UKG teacher assistant. She has grown up to be a beautiful young lady and we are excited for this next season of her life!

Congratulations Monica!
We love you and are so proud of you!

Introducing Baby Esther

Esther
Born April 19, 2011
Weight 2 kg

Our newest addition to House of Hope is tiny baby Esther! There was some confusion over her name. The staff had the privilege of naming her. First they chose Hope, then Hosanna, but finally they settled on Esther. Esther's mother is also at House of Hope. As soon as she gave birth, the mother and baby were abandoned by their family. A social worker brought them to House of Hope. We are very thankful for this new life and excited to have her in our family!

Mother and Baby

Monica and Swamily welcoming Esther.

Angel and Esther: the start of a new friendship?

Sweet baby girl

She is already loved by so many!

Bye Bye Anneloes!

Yesterday was a sad day for us at House of Hope. It was time to say goodbye to Anneloes, an intern from Holland who came to work at our house. During the 5 months that she was here, Anneloes did many fun things with the kids. Much thanks to Anneloes for her friendship and hard work! She will be missed by everyone!

Happy Holi!

On the 20^th of March we celebrated Holi, a festival to celebrate the beginning of the spring. What it’s basically all about is COLOR. Everyone carries around bags of colored powder which you can throw on other people while you wish them a ‘Happy Holi’. In House of Hope we had a huge explosion of pink, purple, green yellow and blue with a lot of water. It eventually ended up in a mud fight and we had a lot of fun. Pictures say more than a thousand words, so enjoy:

New Furniture!

Slowly but steady we are getting an extreme home makeover! A few months ago, the inside of the house was given a fresh coat of paint. A few weeks ago, the play area was renovated and is now looking bright and colorful. And this week we got new furniture! It's as if we have a brand new living room. The kids love reading their books here, and the staff doesn’t mind joining them! It has been a lot of work, but a lot of fun as well to make this house a home!

Wouldn't you like to come sit and join us for some tea?

And we'll leave you with a few pictures of just some of the smiling faces from around our home: 

Angel enjoying bath time

Chetan is all smiles!

Sakshi and Sanatan with their best friends Justin, Jaleesa and Nadine

Prasanna the high jumper!

Karuna

Karuna, who has been living with us in House of Hope for 3 years, suddenly passed away last night. She was HIV positive and suffering from 5 brain tumors which caused regular seizures. She had been weak for months, but she was feeling better the last few weeks. Yesterday she shared with Sangita how happy and thankful she was living with us. She leaves her daughter Sakshi behind with us in House of Hope. Tomorrow we will have a memorial service with all the children.


Her death is sad for all of us and we will miss Karuna's sweet smile. But we are thankful for our time with Karuna and for the physical, emotional and spiritual transformation she experienced in the last years of her life. We know that she is in heaven with Jesus where she is fully restored with no more pain. 

Happy Birthday Sangita

Last week we celebrated Sangita’s birthday in House of Hope. Sangita has been working with us from the beginning and she is an angel. She definitely deserved some special attention on this day because Sangita turned 50! All the kids were excited and were wearing their best clothes. We had a big lunch together and we played outside in our clean and painted garden. It was a day of fun with a lot of cake and presents.


Nicole and Sangita




Keruna, Sangita, Justin and Nadine

 It has been so beautiful to watch Sangita grow in her leadership and responsibility at House of Hope over the past several years. She is completely overseeing all of House of Hope and is also working at our school, Bright Star Education. She is like a mother to all the children at House of Hope. Her gentle and steady leadership has been a great blessing for all of us. Sangita is also quite the prankster and always keeps us laughing. We are so thankful for her life, her service and her friendship!