Dear Sister Jenny!
Greetings to you in the precious name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!
I thank God for all the blessings throughout the year 2022, I know we have gone though some of the difficult situations, in spite of that God blessed us, comforted us, and is leading us towards 2023 with progress and prosperity to proclaim HIS Love and Kingdom!
I would like to narrate some of the achievements we did with the help of Immanuel Church, West Bend and JJ INC.
As you know we live in a country filled with variety of issues like, health, education welfare, children’s issues, and religious issues. In our area we face many of the issues. As you know, most of our area live in below poverty line suffering from various issues of health, finance, and education.
On the positive side our Joyful Journey is contributing to the welfare of the needy in different ways. With the support from Immanuel Church, we are able to take care of some of the needs of our area. You are such a blessing to us
Here I would like to mention few things.
Education: Education todays means to build a strong society for tomorrow. Every child deserves to get quality education. Marshall School is providing free education to everyone without depriving on the basis of caste, color, or religion. We thank God for Immanuel Church for taking care of all the school needs like providing, textbooks, note books, uniforms, shoes, socks, ties, belts and teachers’ salaries, maintenances and everything.
I thank you so much for purchasing xerox machine in the month of April and helping to conduct school anniversary (VBS) you also supply sanitizations to the children.
I thank you for helping us to conduct student Re-union, where all old graduates and present teachers met together and shared all the benefits that they received and shared their experiences and thanked God for Marshall School. We plant the seed, soon we are going to ripen with the help of God. Most of them are still in education and some are in private jobs.
In the difficult times you helped us to purchase a school minibus in Remembrance of our brother BIG BOB. He is a great encourager, counselor, we miss him a lot and we are much much saddened with the sudden demise of Big Bob. The whole village mourns with us.
Women development: I really love this ministry. Most of the woman feel shortage of confidence and they remain at homes depending on their fathers and husbands. On the positive side, Joyful Journeys is providing them with many opportunities to develop confidence in themselves by conducting awareness programs, this begins at school. Joyful Journeys brings back the love of underprivileged and destitute women by providing skill development programs like tailoring and computers.
NEED: These days some of the women are requesting JJM to include Typing and spoken English Tutorial for village woman, which is very much needed for their development and to enable them to support themselves financially. If they learn spoken English and Typing, they can get into any private jobs in small offices and marketing.
Joyful Journeys is establishing tailoring centers wherever the people’s need is. This year 80 woman learned the skill of tailoring. After Corona Virus it is little bit slow, and the students are not coming as groups but they are coming as individuals to the Landowgals Fashion Technology Institute and other tailoring places.
I thank JJM for providing scholarships to the girl children after their 10th grade. With the help of this scholarships they are able to manage for their travel, stationary and other needs. I thank JJM for supporting Karishma and Shekinah. Now Karishma is able to establish a clinic to serve the poor at the school premises. She started to treat oldies and hostel children. If anything major occurs our campus doctor is providing English medicine.
Lunch Bunch: Food to the needy is primary support of this ministry. There are 65 children from school taking their lunches in Lunch Bunch program. All the parents are so much thankful for this. We also thank you that you provide food to the hungry world.
Oldies: I thank OMA for her love towards the oldies. Oldies in our church is increasing day by day week after week. Now the total reach 35. In this Oma’s Oldsters program are men and women, some widows also included. It looks like we are in old age home. Look at them how they eat their food – with full satisfaction and tears in their eyes and blessing every minute while they eat. Since they have no insurances, medical needs in their home, they suffer a lot. Karishma gives them medicine.
Charity: This incident took place, while we were waiting for train at “Vijayawada Railway station” we saw a young boy aged 16 or above searching for food at garbage bin. That moved Manjula and me to look into the pavement dwellers and roadway inhabitants. One fine day with our team from Joyful Journeys Church in Madhavapatnam, we visited Kakinada streets and pavements in the middle of the night around 1 am. We saw people sleeping on the floor without blanket, and people are eating food at 1am, that including small children. We were moved so much in our hearts. We distributed saris, blankets, dresses to kids on the roadway.
Christmas: We have celebrated Christmas 2022, there are many who wanted to see this but we miss them in our church also. However, God gave us an opportunity to see this Christmas. I thank Immanuel church for taking care of all expenses and providing gifts to our JJM family. We thank you so much.
All our 40 teachers and workers, 20 Panchayat workers scavengers, 35 Oldies, 25 House pastors, 40 Hostel children, and 350+ school children, all of them have received their gifts. On that day 24th night the program started at 6 pm and went up to 1am in the midnight. Our students performed skits, dances, songs and village elders’ political leaders attended. From their hands the gifts are distributed.
You see now from the words of my heart how your donations and support are changing many lives in our village. Without you, none of this is possible.
Praying for all your health and programs. We wish you Happy Christmas and Blessed New Year 2023.
We miss you all. Hoping to see you all in this New Year 2023.
Thank you all. Manjula, Karishma, Shekinah, and all the JJM family sending you love.
Your brother
Novahu