a letter

In a month our group here is going to split up and head to our individual places for the second phase of our DTS. Our team of 6 is heading to India for about 10 weeks. We've been doing a lot of preparing and planning for this trip ahead of time as we (the students) are going to be doing the majority of the work for it ourselves. We do have a correspondence in India currently who has been very helpful with preparation...and the list of opportunities for service just keeps growing. The latest news we have been receiving has been requests if we can do specific projects once in Delhi.. all these things which we would be happy to be helping with. The only problem is that our budget was not made to include any of these extra things and if we agreed to help we would also need to fund it ourselves and provide resources. These 'extra' projects that we have been hearing about include painting a clinic and a primary school, working with Mercy Ministries in their clinics, and in Orphanages with their children projects. We need the finances for resources like paint and paint supplies, medical supplies, as well as shipping supplies as we have some being donated to us, Chilren's art supplies (things like coloring books, craft supplies, face paints). On top of these resources needed we also would like to be able to help the specific organizations and individuals we will be working with there. We only have first names so far of the people we will be working with - Siby, Namkha, Alex and Simon are all working with the Jamia University students and Esther and Julius are heading up the Mercy Minstries in the slums of Delhi (with 13-16 others working with them). Because of the delicacy of their relationships, these people are not working under the title of any specific organization, besides the Mercy Ministries, but they are affiliated with YWAM. We want to go with financial support and resources to bless these people as well as with our hands and hearts. But, like I said, as these things were not in our original budget, we do not have the money for this now. We are asking for your help in this. If you and some others wanted to get together and as a group support a specific project ( like the paintings of the schools ) or if you personally feel like you want to help support any of this work that is being done in India, you can contact me or my family and we can go from there. We would prefer to be able to take money with us and buy supplies as necessary once there, to save room in our luggage and to help the economy there, so the best way to help in this would be to write cheques or give cash - and if you want a tax refund for the cheque it needs to be made out to YWAM Belfast, and sent as soon as possible as we are leaving in a month! Please feel free to ask me any questions and I will try my best to find the answer and get back to you.

Again, I stress the urgency of this. Please help spread the word. These funds we will be collecting is not for OUR group, but to aid the work that is already being done there. It is so that we will be able to do more than we originally intended, to give help where it is desperately needed.

Thank you!

JENNIFER VOLKMAN