Dear brethren,
Hail in the Lord always! I am very touched by your Brotherhood’s accompanying love and the financial help you have offered us in these difficult times we are facing here in India. It is important to know that some brethren remember us. Thank you for doing so now, as you have done since the beginning of the missionary work in India with the late Fr. Athanasios Anthidis.
It is true that I have been late in contacting you, because we have been through fire and water and illness and necessity and circumstances, especially in the last quarter. No electricity, no free time for correspondence. With the mind often stopped in the face of dead ends!….
The Falls of Heaven opened… It rained day and night since August 19. Flooded Calcutta city, flooded the girls’ orphanage! The rivers and lakes overflowed. The streets became rivers and the whole country became a lagoon. Traffic is carried only by makeshift boats made of tree trunks.
The first two days the children enjoyed it. The water was clear of rain and they were able to swim in the yard and play, but then it got mixed with manure and sewage from overflowing cesspools and turned into a swamp. The only good thing is that it filled our yard with fish. For three months we didn’t buy any. God brought them to our door! But along with the fish, the water also brought in poisonous snakes that were looking for a dry place… And dry place was only our buildings which fortunately are elevated and the water stopped just 2 cm at the last step of the entrance. We built makeshift bridges, on which you have to keep a good balance to get from one building to another.
The big nightmare was and is snakes. Several people died in our area from a snake bite, including two children. God has kept us safe so far and hopefully to the end. Then, epidemics broke out from which we were not spared. These days I live in the orphanage for boys. Most of the children are sick with chicken pox. Cheruvim, the Orthodox young man in charge here, the cook and all the staff and the janitor got it and they left. 58 boys need looking after. I moved here and alone I am trying to keep up with them and manage by making the night a day!!! Pray that God will help me hang in there until they are all well.
Our region is rural. People’s crops were completely destroyed and to add insult to injury, a hurricane uprooted fruit-bearing trees and demolished homes in its wake.
Basic food items have become luxury items. There is a shortage and prices have skyrocketed! Accessible to the many. People are in despair. Homeless and hungry. They come to the mission in hope and beg for help. My heart tightens. No one believes me when I say that I am very sorry but unable to help them, because I myself am now struggling, struggling and agonizing to make ends meet. What can I tell you? On 29 October I needed EUR 3 800 for the salaries of teachers, doctors and other staff and I had very little money left in our account. That’s why I wrote to you at the beginning that the mind stops in the face of deadlock… If it wasn’t for the good God and His love to find a solution at the last minute, we wouldn’t be here today. “For in Him we live and move and are.” God’s love is great, He often tests us “as gold in a crucible” and at the end He reaches out His hand in condescension and says to us: “O little one, why hast thou fainted?”. With the wish that God may grant you health and strength and bless the work of the Brotherhood.
Sister Nectaria
