A Christmas Greeting from .... India?

You read it right folks, just on the heels of the Hindu New Years celebration of Diwali, our partners, Koshy and Joicy Baby, are spreading the word about the Nativity in the slums of Delhi, India.

In a letter dated, December 24, Rev. Koshy Baby shares with us that:

"Christmas is the time that we use to proclaim the gospel. For the last few days we are going out for carols and preaching the gospel to the people. Our youths do street plays and give the message of the Christmas. There are many people who do not know the meaning of the Christmas in our city and people are more receptive now than other times."

As a suiting addition to our own Christmas cheer, SPC has recently helped facilitate the creation of a new Internet computer lab at the Carmel Community Ministry where over 1000 children are educated each day. The lab will allow the children to become acclimated to internet technologies and basic computer skills, which will open the door to a future career in any number of areas. Without the help of Carmel and this lab, many of these very poor children might never have the opportunity to expose themselves to technologies and we are so grateful to Rev. Koshy for masterminding this and bringing it to fruition. We are so excited about this.

The Rev. Koshy Baby and his wife, Joicy and family.

Sadly, there is some hostility there toward Christians and we are keeping the Carmel ministy in our prayers. They are very brave people there and their courage in sharing their faith is truly heroic. The following, regarding the receipt of our wire transfer in December, will give some indication of the challenges they have faced:

"We do have problems like due to non-cooperation of the banks because of our ministry in proclaiming the gospel."

However, by the Grace of God, the money has arrived and plans are underway! In the near future, we hope to make corresponding with the children at Carmel a regular part of our Sunday School and youth activities here at SPC. In the words of Koshy: "It will be great to have our kids from here write and communicate with kids there. We are looking forward for Feb. to have the communication start."

Our committee will be working in coming weeks with the SPC's Christian Education committee to help facilitate this unique sharing opportunity.

If any of you would like to start corresponding with the kids at Carmel from home, please let me know and I can get you in touch with them.

If you are interested in becoming involved with mission at Shallowford, please contact me and attend one of our upcoming WWM committee meetings. All are welcome and you do not have to be a committee member to attend. Although, we will try to recruit you.