Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, From India we warmly wish you to have the Love and Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. How many little children Christ has blessed to escape the misery and inhuman life of the homeless on the streets of Calcutta! We currently number 95 souls at the girls’ orphanage, saved from the darkness and marginalization experienced by many poor orphan girls in India. Christ opened the way for them and changed their lives, as through your assistance they “escaped” illiteracy by learning and excelling in school. Our big girls, expressing their gratitude and giving their struggle – against the future that life would otherwise have reserved for them – by demonstrating their best in the student desks, which again with your help they have conquered. There are not a few girls who, now clearly realizing the miracle in their lives, long, as soon as they complete their studies, to help and put a little stone in the work of the Greek Orthodox Mission of the Indies. God’s blessing does not stop here. With your assistance and prayers, the boys’ orphanage – which has completed 1½ years of operation – has become the shelter for 30 orphaned boys, aged three to ten years. How revolutionary and unpredictable is Christ’s intervention in their lives, when from shacks and starvation, from ignorance and danger, they found shelter, food, education, safety, security, affection and joy in the arms of St. Ignatius Orphanage! In the school of the same name, the halls are filled with their voices. Really, how comforting it is to hear from the mouths of these children, who didn’t even know the alphabet, the knowledge they are conquering step by step every day!
In these difficult times for the Greek economy, we are fighting to maintain our charitable work. Now that the economic hardship we are experiencing in the Mission is becoming more and more unbearable, we are finding more and more that it is God, expressed through your help, who supports our work and allows our programs to continue. Even the most humble financial support becomes a glass of milk and biscuits at the morning communion of children growing up on the streets of Kolkata. It becomes a plate of food to the sick, elderly, disabled, and distressed who come to the daily soup kitchen for the homeless in the courtyard of the Transfiguration Church. The humble two-minute widow’s mite, arriving here, allows the patients to visit the doctor in our clinics and find a solution to illnesses now forgotten to us. It becomes medicine, relieving them of the pain that afflicts their already burdened lives. It becomes a book and notebook where our orphans and poor children of Bengal write their names for the first time. And how much more! For it is through your help that “…I was hungry, and you gave me food; I was thirsty, and you gave me drink; I was a stranger, and you gave me shelter; I was naked, and you clothed me; I was sick, and you visited me…” becomes a reality. We want you to help us in this effort. In any way you can, even with the smallest financial contribution. Through your help this small “miracle” has been accomplished in this distant country and through your contribution “the flame from the candle” of Orthodoxy in India will not be extinguished. Even if you cannot, your prayer for the support and continuation of the work here is vital.
With the love of Christ,
Nun Nectaria
