Meet Anush

This week we received a new addition to our House of Hope family, a 10 year old boy named Anush. He is happy and looks very healthy. The first day he was here he was outside playing with all of the other boys, teaching them some karate moves he knew and having a blast. 

Each child in the house has a special box where they can keep their treasures. When Anush came, all the kids opened their box and gave one thing to him so he would be able to have his own box filled with treasures as well! Everyone in the house loves him and he seems to be transitioning very well! We are very excited to be growing as a family here in Pimpri. 

Puppy Love

Last week the House of Hope family dog, Lela had puppies! All the kids were so excited about these cute little dogs. It did however raise some questions about where the puppies came from, but Agnes and Sangeeta took care of that somehow. Lela and her puppies have made their home underneath a bush in the corner of the House of Hope’s yard. The kids always sneak up quietly to check out the puppies. Most of the little kids try and maintain a safe distance from Lela because they are afraid she may bite them. While the older kids get as close as they want to check out the newest members of their family, trusting that Lela wants them too as well. 

Agnes has been having Bible times with the kids at night - reading Bible stories, singing songs, and afterwards asking the kids if they have any prayer requests or praises from their day. During one of these times Sanatan told Agnes that he had a prayer request. He asked, “Can we pray that nice parents come and pick up Lela’s puppies so they have a good home like what you did with us?”  Sanatan said he trusts God with the puppies because he knows what God can do and has seen Him working in his own life.

Sanatan with one of the new puppies

Sandesh and Lela showing some puppy love

 

happiness and sadness hand in hand

The last two weeks Sahara, Sakshi and her mother Karuna had to stay in the hospital. Karuna didn’t eat properly and Sahara was coughing very much and they were afraid that she might have tuberculoses and pneumonia like Saksi had. It was a very stressful time as the staff had to travel back and forth to the hospital. We were afraid of not knowing how the disease would develop, keeping in mind that Ganesh and Suyash died of this. They observed them for two weeks in the hospital and treated Sakshi with medication. We are very thankful they are home again and doing much better.


Rakhi, one of our staff members has left us. Before she joined our team she used to work as prostitute and had some drinking problems. After a period of rehabilitation with another organization we thought she would be ready to work with us. All went well for 6 months, but she fell back into her old habit of drinking. She left our home and was found complete drunk in a slum area nearby. We have contacted the organization that helped her before and they will further take care of her. Please keep her and all our children in your prayers.

As you see things are not always easy here. Happiness, excitement and sadness go hand in hand.

Fun at the garden

Do you ever realise that something simple like going to a garden can give you a great time? Here in India going to garden is like going to a theme park back home.The children from House of Hope are simply thrilled when we do things like that. It is even worth walking  for 15 minutes in the hot sun to reach it!!                                                  

 As HOH, we went out to the garden in our neighbourhood, the other day and we had so much fun! Just enjoy the pictures and thank you so much for caring!.

Shaheena hanging on a monkey-bar, Sandesh and Prasanna on top of a slide.

Jaleesa, Sham, Prasanna and Sonali relaxing at the end of the slide, after tumbling all over eachother for some time.

Joyti and her son Joshua and little baby Angel could not join us that day sadly enough, but this a picture of all of us enjoying our outing!

With love, from all of us!

Get out of my house!

A man comes running into our home while he is screaming: “Get out, get out!!” Completely shocked the staff looks at him while he continues:” Get out of this house, this is my house!””You are not supposed to be here”. Quickly the staff makes sure that all the children are moved towards the back of the house, afraid he might hurt one of them. All of them are wondering the same thing: what is he talking about?

Then, he shows them some paperwork showing that he is the real owner of this house and that we are illegally on his land. When most of the staff panics, Sangita reacts calmly, looks into his papers and shows him our agreement. Within seconds she realizes what the problem is; We are renting this house from a second owner……………

As you understand we all didn't sleep very well this weekend. We just moved into our new home, love it and now? Do we have to leave again?
Thank God, He always takes care of us even if we don't realize it ourselves.

On Tuesday Sangita spoke to the broker and the second owner. It turned out that the broker had rented out the house to us, from an illegal owner. The illegal owner had seen that the home had been vacant for months and pretended it was his home. After that he got some false papers and told the broker he wanted to rent out his house, to us..... Amazing isn't it?

All is solved now, we have a new agreement with the real owner, this time!!!

Merry Christmas!

We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year!

This is one of the songs the children were singing during their own Christmas celebration.This year we celebrated Christmas at our new home, with our own made stable. The days before Christmas the children were all busy practising their songs, dances and of course the nativity play.
On December 25th, we were surprised by guests coming to visit our home. The kids loved it, because now they really had someone to perform to and they gave their best !

We are very greatful for everybody who is involved with us and  we are thankful for the people that came and visited and blessed us at Christmas time.  The children enjoyed it so much.

It is so good to know that God loved us so much that he sent His only Son.
And that's why we have reason to celebrate, not only at Christmas time, but all year long!

A big thank you from all of us at House of Hope.

Our new home!

We are so excited, in the first week of December we moved to our new home in Pimpri.

It was a long trip and not very comfortable for the children but the kids didn't mind at all. They really enjoyed the hour long trip for one simple reason: the excitement for their new house!

 Finding a new home for 15 children and staff is not very easy and it made Sangita and I worry a lot, while at the same time we knew things would work out well.It took us a little over a month to find our new home: a bright pink one..

A lot of work still needs to be done, but  that is no problem at all and will come in time. We love the house with 2 bed rooms, bath room, kitchen, play room and living room. We have a garden all around the house, wich is great. The children suddenly do nothing but playing outside. The first few days we removed all the plastic and other dirt from our garden and some children even started to paint the rest of the wall: wich the painters didnt finish.. 

 The children and staff worked very hard to make their new house become a new home. And here it is, we're proud of it. You should come and see!!