Sad News from Ktown

Just wanted give ya a quick update on the things going on here. It has been a rough couple of weeks here in kolkata, one of our friends passed away after falling down the stairs and then consequently being neglected and left to die on the street until kristin and gita found her and took her to a mother teresa home where she passed away a few days later. Last week while we were trying to get a couple kids registered for school (it’s a real bad sitch) we took em to the doctor for routine tests and decided to go ahead and do them on the boys two year old sister because she is always sick. We received news that our two year old little friend is HIV Positive but her brothers are okay. Consequently, kristin (who has really born the weight of these hard things...going to the hospital etc) took the little girl and her mom for additional testing and they both tested HIV positive. It is especially discouraging because this woman has been tested every month by the sex workers union and they never gave her the correct results. I have to say bill and melinda gates foundation are going to get a big fat letter from me about this one since they gave them a million dollars a couple of years ago to this organization to prevent aids and this woman has obviously been HIV positive for 2 years and they have been hiding the results, we assume to keep their numbers down. We are looking at all the options for this family and how best to serve them. So we and most certainly they need your prayers…we are hopeful that the father will also get tested so the family can get free treatment from a pretty good governement prevention program. And that our friend “priya” will work for freeset or for us at sari bari. If she works at freeset they have a preschool where the little girl can stay while she works.

So as if this might not be enough for our community to handle, today the landlord told us that we have to move out in four months from our place in sari bari. Basically, it comes down to his fear of being found out as helping women from the trade. He as tried to impose almost impossible standards for quiet and calls everytime someone makes a peep. Anyway, I am hoping that this is God closing one door to open another one. We could really use a building all to ourselves…because it seems as much space as we can create that many women we can give jobs. We are full in kalighat right now with 11 and could easily double by the end of the year if we had the space. So maybe this is God opening the door for more women. Right now it just feels like one more thing on our plate. Anyway, this landlord was also promising to help us register legally, now that is also in question…so frustrating because we really need to make the business legit so we can move forward. Ultimately, having a building is important because women are now depending on us for their livlihood and this is not a responsibility that we are bearing lightly.

So all this heaviness but there is still a lot hope in K-town. Not like the old days of defeat and sadness because we know that in the end all things bring hope and hope will not disappoint us and now we groan in these tents we call bodies but ultimately freedom will happen…freedom is happening. We can have hope here on earth and hope of something more later. New life will spring from that which has been desolated.

Please just keep us in your prayers. Pray for “priya” and her family. Pray that her little sons would get into school, her husband would release her to leave the trade and her daughter would be radically and profoundly healed. Pray for a new place for sari bari…

Thanks for walking with us as we stumble down this road of exodus.