4 Favorite Things From Stu's Letter

Stu Smith, the guitar player in the band sent me this pic of his first letter from his sponsor kiddo... Here are my 4 favorite things about this precious letter:

1. He underlined "My favorite game is CRICKET." I was tickled by this. Obviously very important to him. : ) Him and about every other boy in India!
2. Love the fact that God put Stu and Ankit together... they both play guitar. That is awesome matching, Jesus.
3. "I am going to church - my school." One of the amazing things about the ministry of this school, is that a small church has sprouted up in the community and they meet each Sunday in the 5th grade classroom at the school. The school is a light in the community, to the kids, and even reaches beyond them to their families. When we were in India this past February, we noticed that a Hindu mother of a Hindu student came to church the Sunday after we visited her in her home. She even sang some of the worship songs. It was beautiful to know that the school staff and church members would continue reaching out to this woman!
4. "In English medium." This is adorable. I am assuming he is giving himself a score on his English skills... but keep trying little buddy!! You're doing great!

"We got our first letter!"

(guest post by Unlikely sponsors Preston & Skipper McWithey)

"My husband and I were so excited when we saw a letter from HopeChest last week that appeared to be a letter from our sponsored kiddo!  We opened it up to find a hand written (in English and in cursive!) letter from our 3rd grader, Asad. There was no translation as he wrote every word!  He told us about his family and their names (7 total) and talked about what he liked to eat and drink.  He wrote that his school garden is beautiful!  The second line in his letter stated that he wanted to meet us which affirms our decision even more to go to the Good Samaritan School this summer!  We are so excited to meet Asad and his family and to actually build a relationship with him during the next 10 years of his life while he is in school.  It is so awesome to partner with Unlikely Sons and Daughters to do this together!"


Skipper & Preston are leading a team of potential new sponsors on a trip to India this summer. They are hopeful to spread the word to their friends & church partners in hopes of rewriting even more children's story from poverty to hope. 


Have you gotten a letter from your sponsor child yet? How excited were you when you opened the mail? Did your relationship and investment become more real? Please feel free to share your stories in the comments or email me for more... 

August India Trip... Anyone?

Children's HopeChest is sending a "vision team" to visit the Good Samaritan School in India August 18-26, 2012. A Vision Trip is designed for pastors of churches and leaders of potential sponsoring communities. On a Vision Trip, participants visit mostly unsponsored locations for the purpose of evaluating how your church or community can become a HopeChest sponsoring community. 


Although our Unlikely group of sponsors has started the long term investment of connecting with students at the Good Samaritan School, they still have hundreds (literally) of kids that need sponsors, so they are looking for more partnerships with groups like ours too! 

Do you know someone in a leadership role that you'd like to encourage to go to India in August? This could be a pastor, yes... but also think WELL BEYOND pastor... a blogger you follow, a missional community leader, a boss at work... If you can think of someone of influence in your life, why not reach out and just invite them to go to India in August! You might plant the seed of a whole new community of believers, who-- like us-- take on a class of students to help them rewrite their story of poverty! 


"Andy Melvin and the Unlikely Sons" is just 4 boys in a band. They went to India on a vision trip with CHC and were impacted for life. And through that one vision trip, they've helped connect over 60 students in India with sponsors--- WITH YOU--- who are all just people that the band guys knew from a dozen different connections. Who do YOU know? Who would you tell? Who would you encourage to join the fight against poverty in these precious children's lives?


Read more: http://blog.beliefnet.com/redletters/2012/04/how-far-would-you-go-to-teach-a-child.html#ixzz1t12NTAJ3

April's Letter Writing Reminder

Happy Easter to our India Sponsors!

Over the last few days, I was honestly stressing out a bit that I hadn’t sent out our monthly India sponsor reminders. But this morning, I recognized God’s perfect timing even in something small like this email. Today, Christians remember Jesus’ victory over sin & death so that we might have eternal access to God.

This Easter is very different from what we, as a band family, are used to. We are in a season between “church homes,” plus one of our very own had a baby 3 days ago, so we are all laying low today. But for years, we’ve spent Easter in big church buildings with hundreds or thousands of people. Today, our celebration is stripped down to just us. And Jesus. The absence of the “extra stuff” is not necessarily the “better way” to celebrate, but the stillness I experienced this morning as I worshipped God in my Bible & prayer time allowed me to hear a very simple and quiet reminder…

“I died so that YOU may have life… and I died so that little ROSHAN and SUMIT and ANSHU could have life too.”

A powerful, quiet nudge from God that this endeavor we have all partnered together for—the care of India’s poorest children—is something He also died for. Christ died so that we can have life. And He died so that we can SHARE that life with others who need it. We are His light in this dark world. And because He loves the least of these, He calls us to too. We are blessed to be a blessing (Genesis 12:3).

I want to encourage you all to spend some time this Easter afternoon and stop to WRITE your child a letter. Share with him or her what we celebrate today. Tell them something you learned (or remembered anew) about your God today. And then PRAY for your child with fervor that they too would come to experience the LIFE that comes through Christ’s DEATH. Be the light to your children today. Share with them the love that Christ has for them. The same love that He has for you.

Together with you,

Anna Melvin

(for the Unlikely Sons & Daughters)

the picture above is our little Sumit.

Kidnappings in Madanpur Khadar

Our friends that work for the Good Samaritan School emailed to share some discouraging news from the community. Here is their email to us:

"Thought I should let you guys know so that you can share with the (sponsor) team to pray. For a long time Madanpur Khadar (the main slum that we have been serving for 20+ years) has been a fairly safe community. Recently there have been so many kidnappings and there is a lot of talk that this slum is becoming dangerous for children. As you know, more than half of all of our children live here. We have already had one of our own abducted, a little boy. As for what happens to them, we aren't very sure. Girls are usually sold into prostitution, boys are made to beg. Please pray for our children and that they are protected."

The problem has become bad enough to even gain interest of the local news media and the"Times of India" ran an article on the issue which you can READ HERE.

Sponsors... PLEASE PRAY for our kids to be safe. And pray for all the children of the slum community to be protected from those who wish to do them evil.

(These are some unattended children we saw while walking through the Madanpur Khadar community. This was very common.)

Win a FREE TRIP to India

Buy one of these new "Man Up" or "Simply Love" T-shirts from Children's HopeChest and you could win a FREE TRIP to India!

Your t-shirt purchase helps orphans in Haiti, supports sex trafficking survivors in Moldova, and enters you to win a free mission trip with HopeChest! Which you could use to join us on our next sponsor trip to the Good Samaritan School in India!

Our next sponsor trip will (likely) be in early 2013. Just think, you could already have raised ALL your funds to GO WITH US TO INDIA!

Click here to buy a T-shirt and get your name thrown into the pot for the mission trip giveaway! The winner will be announced on the Children's HopeChest Facebook page on APRIL 2, so hurry up and get your shirt today.

Meeting Nikil

This is Nikil. His sponsor, Terra, traveled with our team in February. Here is a link to a blog post she wrote about what it was like for her to meet her sponsor child Nikil. Meeting Nikil was a joy. And to watch Terra interact with him was priceless.

Here's a pic of Nikil from my camera phone. I'm pretty sure that he could NOT wear his knit hat any further down on his face each day... it was like a trademark. But it made his chilled-out-smile all the more noticeable and lovable.