The very beginning...

Pastor K. Vijaya Chandra, and some of the children under his care

I don't know how many of you have done this before, but this wasn't our first time.  Operation Christmas Child Shoebox Sunday at the church we were attending was a big deal each November - all of the children carrying their shoeboxes filled with toys and toiletries to the front steps.  We have two kids - John Mark, who is now 15 and Emma, who is now 7.  That year, 2008, we brought two boxes: one for a little girl, and one for a boy.  In each box we placed a picture of our family and a brief letter with greetings for the child that received the box.  We included our home address in the hope that we might receive word.  We had not received any letters from anyone that had received one of our shoeboxes.

This time,  in January of 2009, we did!


The letter came postmarked Bangalore, India, from a man named K. Vijaya Chandra.  Chandra is the pastor of the Hanna Krupa Memorial Church in an impoverished area on the edge of Bangalore.  He and his wife, Manjula care for several children in that area, many of whom are orphans, all of whom are very poor, and none of whom have promising prospects in Indian society.  Chandra said that a little girl named Madhuri had opened our shoebox.  He explained that Madhuri is an orphan who lives in their home.  He thanked us for the box and included a picture of himself and Madhuri.  He also included an email address that he checked periodically when he had the opportunity to walk to a nearby internet cafe.

We were thrilled to see the picture and to read the letter, and we were eager to know more about them.  We sent an email to Pastor Chandra:

Pastor Chandra,  

We are very pleased to receive your letter on behalf of Madhuri, and we are grateful that God caused our box to find its way to her. We are a family of modest means but would like to help meet Madhuri's needs from time to time. 

Please write back to us with information on how we might be able to help. Would you also tell us about your church? We would like to know more about your ministry there and how we might be able to pray for you and your community.  

In God's Love,
The Norton Family
Todd, Jennifer, John Mark and Emma

After a few days, we received a message back from Chandra:

Beloved Todd norton family.
Greetings from India  

 I am very thankful to our Lord Jesus christ, for that He gave a kind heart to write a kind lette to Madhuri a blessed girl. God heard her prayers.
Thanking you for the kind considaration about the orphan girl. She is very happy when I told her about you and your kind letter. and she praised jesus. She kissed somany times your photo ssaying thanking you Lord. i will send all details occording to your letter within two days  

My blessings to all your family
With love Pastor

As promised, Pastor followed up with information about Madhuri, the church and the area where they live.  The Christian population in the area is an extreme minority, yet they had around 85 church members who gave of what little they had to support the Chandra's, and the Chandra's gave what they had to support the girls.  They had no church building of their own, and they were meeting in a building owned by Compassion. They regularly received opposition from state government and the more militant Hindu population.  Pastor and Manjula had been jailed for a short time a few years before for sharing Christ with members of their community.  Despite the difficulty, they were thriving and their faith was strong.

In the next post, I will detail how our relationship began to grow as we continued to learn more about them.

Blessings!