Young Hope Curry Night - 18/11/07

YES I hear you cry - yet another amazing night filled with curry, curry and curry!

If you've not been before, then you really must come this time - these are always well attended events partially due to the excellant curry provided by Namaste Kerala and also due to the fabulous company and the fact that as you eat you are raising money for Young Hope!

Tickets cost £15, it is a curry buffet, so all you cna eat and last time it beat us, there was fat too much food!
Venue - Namaste Kerala, Civic Centre Road, Southampton (above STA Travel)
Time - 7.30pm

Please email Priya at - priya@younghope.org to book a ticket.

Sponsored Walk - completed!

On October 14th Priya, James and a friend completed an 18 mile sponsored walk across the test valley. It was a beautiful walk across fields, woods, stream, through maize fields with maize higher than our heads (!), stiles and more... The walk took just over 5 hours and we were proud to be the first ones back.

We are now collecting in our sponsorship money but it looks like we have raised over £700 - amazing! The money will go towards Christmas gifts for the children and towards feeding them.

Priya

Photos and tales from the trip!

Hello!

On 28th September we will be hosting an evening to let you all know about our recent trip to Sri-Lanka, we will be sharing tales from the trip and showing photos of our children as well as letting you know what we got up to out there, working with the Young Hope projects!

We will also be selling a range of assorted goodies brought back from Sri-Lanka, some made by some of the communities supported by Young Hope. All money raised will go straight back into Young Hope. So please come and stock up on early Christmas pressies!

We plan to hold future trips out to Sri-Lanka and will be sharing some of our ideas for future projects. So we look forward to seeing you there.

Date - 28th September 2007
Venue - Central Baptist Church, Devonshire Road, Southampton.
Time - 7.30pm
Cost - suggested donation of £2.50 to cover costs.

Priya

Sponsored Walk!

Anyone up for doing a sponsored walk to raise some money for Young Hope? Or alternatively sponsoring me to walk 18 miles?

Having just returned from Sri-Lanka we have seen what an immense need there is out there, so we need to raise more money and this is an ideal opportunity!

On 14th October 2007, the Rotary club have arranged a sponsored walk that you can enter for £5, 75% of the money you raise will got o Young hope and 25% goes to the rotary club. There is a choice of walks, ranging from 2.5miles to 26 miles, a few of us have signed up to the 18 mile walk and there are some people thinking about the 2.5 and the 13 mile walk.

To register you need to go to www.walkthetestway.co.uk and fill in a form and make sure you put Young Hope as the charity! Also please let me know if you register.

Many thanks,
Priya

Some picture of the Young Hope Children..more to follow!

The children with Priya

Toys were given out to all the children - after praying over the bags of toys they multiplied so every child received a suitable toy.

The Children saying their prayers

Welcome dance

Playing cricket at the refugee camp

Some of the blessings from the trip...

After a busy week in Trincomalee working with the Young Hope children the team have had such much needed time relaxing and seeing some of Sri-Lanka.

It has been a fantastic trip where we have really seen God provide and bless us in many ways. In the Bible there are numerous passages where the people list the ways that God has blessed them, so it feels only right to mention these blessings here...

• Our journey to Trinco was amazing. We ended up having a nun travel with us which was like having a guardian angel in the van, we sailed through all the check points and made good time.
• We had a wonderful van driver who stayed with us the whole week and became part of the team, he took part in all the work we did and without him we would not have completed all of the projects.
• Health - considering the scope for sickness the team was blessed with good health, there were a few dodgy stomachs on a couple of days but nothing that kept us from doing the work.
• Everyone within the team bonded really well and we all found our roles. It really was a team and everyone was a vital part of it. I felt very privileged to have all members of the team there. We had just the right people for the projects we were given!
• During our time in Trinco we saw many army soldiers, heard shelling and gunfire, but we were kept safe from it all.
• The children were amazingly open to us and this gave us the chance to really spend time with them, hug them and love them.
• We had chances to pray with a number of different people including some of the childrens parents in their homes, teachers, the children, our driver and the nuns themselves.
• The weather - although hot and humid it was not as hot as it had been in Trinco and it was cloudy for much of the time so we were able to get on and build walls, paint outside and garden.
• A good relaxation time afterwards!

There are so many stories and photos to share, we look forward to meeting with individuals and sharing at a future curry night!

Priya

Dear Friends,

Just a quick update on our time in Sri-Lanka for you. We have just spent a busy week up in Nilaveli, Trincomalee working on the Young Hope projects. We have been so aware of everyone’s prayers so thanks to all of you. The journey up here was so much better than expected! My great-aunt, Sister Marie De Lorette asked if she could accompany us as she wanted to visit the sisters up here, which made life a lot easier for us as having a nun with you is like travelling with an angel! Every check point we passed went smoothly and the roads which used to be full of potholes and not really roads, had been resurfaced, so we were truly blessed. Upon our arrival the team were treated as honoured guests, garlanded with flowers, a spot of honour placed on each of our foreheads and we were each asked to light a ceremonial candle. The children performed a cultural show for us with poems, songs and dances, which were brilliant.

The team has pent the week living, eating and sleeping at the convent, which is quite unusual, as men are not allowed to sleep in convents, but the nuns have been so very accommodating towards us (and there is nowhere else to stay!) We have undertaken several projects – painting 2 murals on outside walls, which look fantastic thanks to Donna and Naomi’s artistic skills and directions. The men have spent a lot of time in the garden, digging trenches around the fruit trees and clearing out the rubbish as well as building a fruit bower that Sister was very pleased with. She has only been able to get hold of one an to come 2 days a week to do odd jobs for her so was very pleased to have 4 of them for a week! The inside of the main school hall has also been freshened up with some paint.

The team have been shopping and bought each child (200 in total) new school shoes, socks, stationery and exercise books. This means that the children now all have all the equipment they need for school – without this they get sent home. We also bought dried foods so all the children could be cooked a meal on the Saturday. On Saturdays all the children come for extra classes and dancing. 3-4 times a year they receive a cooked meal, unfortunately there is not enough monwy for this to happen more often, so the rest of the year they just receive a porridge-like drink known as Kolakamda, for many this is their only food all day. This Saturday, because the Young Hope team were here, lessons were cancelled and the children did a show for us. The team then had to do a show for the children! Alun led some worship; we had a drumming workshop, face painting, stories, games and more! All finished off with a nutritious meal of rice, chicken, vegetables, lentils and poppadoms.

The team have also visited several of the areas where the 50 Young Hope sponsored children live. This has been eye opening, but good to see. Photos to follow!

25 children are now living in a residential unit attached to the convent, so the team have been able to spend a lot of time with this group – playing, singing songs and just loving them. We also had the immense privilege of praying with the nuns, after a time of worship we were able to ask the Holy Spirit to come and fill them and they were incredibly touched by this.

We now head down South for a bit of a break and are looking forward to catching up with you all soon and sharing more of our experiences out here.

Priya xx