Tea Plantation in Darjeeling

June Kolkata Field Prayer Requests

Sari Bari

1. We are still having problems with our landlord at Sari Bari. He told us before that we had to leave but has now asked for a higher rent. Please pray for discernment and favor. We want to do want his best for the ladies and the business.

2. Please pray for the two of the women at Sari Bari who we have just given some leadership too. They have been with us for over a year now and have asked them to help out with teaching sewing and other duties. Please pray for their development and a willingness to learn and serve.

3. We are also taking on three new women this month. Please pray for them as they make this decision to make steps toward freedom from the trade. Pray they would be welcomed at Sari Bari with open arms.

4. We are also in need of a good used sari source. Please pray that we would find a cost effective and consistent source of used saris.

5. Please pray for unity in all of Sari Bari’s partnership with other organizations. Please pray for humility and wisdom for all of us.

6. Continue to pray for the women of Sari Bari. The new trainees only have two months left. This past month was the first month they worked full-time and were paid by the piece. Please pray that the trainees would continue to persevere and move forward. Please pray for unity among the new trainees and the original three ladies.

7. Please pray for two women specifically. The first, C, is a new trainee who has decided to leave Sari Bari due to time constraints. Please pray that she would come back. Also pray for B who has been having major family and money issues. Pray healing over her and her families’ brokeness.

Brothel Ministry

1. Please to continue to pray for N. She has made steps to leave the trade despite her mother’s disapproval. She has been working full-time at our friend’s business for the past week. She has a long and amazing road ahead of her so please hold her close.

2. Please continue to pray for P and her family. This month we will find out whether or not the kids get accepted to boarding school. We are also exploring options for P and her daughter G to get the best treatment for HIV. Pray for open doors. Pray for P. She is so lost and hurt. Pray that she would have freedom.

3. Please lift up the ladies of our sub-unit of Sari Bari located near Sonagachi. Pray for transformation of their hearts and minds. Pray for a leader to emerge from among them.

4. Please pray for our good friend C, R, and S. Recently C was able to come see our friend’s business and be interview. She wants to work there but many factors including her mother R are stopping her. Please Pray for their freedom

5. We have recently been looking at renting a building across the street from the Gatch. Our vision is to open a half-way home as well as Sari Bari in the Gatch. We are in the beginning stages so pray for discernment and favor.

Staff

1. Please pray that God would raise up more Bengali staff workers. We feel like in order to move forward in our ministry we must first be able to hire more workers. Pray that God would bring Christian men and women to come along side the people of the red-light areas.

2. The servant team leaves the middle of this month. Please pray that God’s grace would abound as they make the transition back to the states. Pray that God would bring together all that they have seen and experienced while being here in India.

3. Continue to pray for our amazing Indian staff: Kiran, Upendra and Gita. Pray that God would continue to grow in them servant leadership skills and intimacy with Him.

Sari Bari has tags

Sari Bari now has cloth tags. If you want to see the tags click here!

homesick but still happy

Just got the "community" issue of the cry and was crying by page six. i am thankful to be apart of such an amazing community...both in kolkata with all the north americans and bengalis, who women who prositute and are prostituted and our beautifully free friends at sari bari and Freeset; as well as, a community of the friends around the world that complete the whole of WMF.

i am coming off a rough, refining but really good week. a week that has reminded my exactly how hard community can be....how hard walking with women who are deeply wounded can be...i am hyper aware of my own brokeness and fraility (this could be hormonal or just the way it is after a week like this). I am also aware of how long a road it is that i am walking.

i had my first real bought of homesickness in a long time on monday. enough to leave me weeping and tender in prayer with the women at Sari Bari. these women are my beautiful, broken, sometimes a pain in my patooty family and i love them and i am thankful that they let me cry it out and explain later. i had this awful longing to be with my own family, to see my parents and talk and talk and talk and meet me neice and hold my sisters hand and babysit my neice, to go out with my brother and be embaced in a hug as only he can give one. i was counting the cost...the cost of being here. the costs are big...but i really do not think about it much most of the time. i do not think to hard because i know i am in the perfect place right at this moment doing what i was made to do...but i still think about it. my sister had a baby this week and i am 10,000 miles away. i live in a place where there is not much male companionship to speak of and the men i do encounter try to take a piece of me rather than share my friendship. so i counted the cost, cried, wept, smiled in my tears and thanked God for my families both blood and chosen. i have only lost my life to gain it really...i know this to be the truth.

i had a big fight with one of the ladies at SB who seems to have a major problem taking personal responsiblity for her actions. it seems logical to me to ask that she see the past and change things for the future. but i am and was gravely mistaken. you can not enter into a reasonable conversation with someone who can not be reasonable. i learned alot in this conflict...alot about grace. alot about myself and how my hyper or false responsibility can be disempowering to others. i had to apologize to all the ladies for losing my temper and battle self loathing for the rest of the day but i think good things are coming. not the least of which is better boundaries.

we had an amazing gift of day on saturday as our team hosted a day out for the ladies at sari bari. we went bowling and did the bumper cars. it is always beautiful to see their joy and wonder at something new. they loved it and we loved it with them.

i love my newest neice addy. i love kristin and beth for letting me verbally process all my drama. i love that i learning to have kingdom boundaries..learning to say no and yes and you decide. i love skype because i do not feel so far away when i get to talk to someone. i love that moonsoon started and it cooler albeit more humid but bearable because of the wind. i love cold drinks and a new issue of the cry. i love playing the guitar after 2 years and remembering G C D and a lame attempt at lord i lift you name on high. i love that we are going to darjeeling on friday for 3 days for a break and are going to dig deep into each others hearts and love each other better on the other side.

Two neices and one beautiful sister

Well i am now the aunt of a second niece...addison patrice 8lb7oz 19.5 inches. I love being an aunt! i love that my sister is a mom! i so happy and so sad at the same time. sad because i wish i did not have to wait 2 months to meet this little wonder! anyone notice how stunned gracies looks...oh the glories and horrors of being the big sister!! i am sure she will be an amazing one like her aunt sarah!!