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15 July 2002
Dear Friends in Christ, please pray with us:
Lord, we thank you for the rains that have come
to mitigate the heat and to water the parched land. The fields
around Miraj will grow ripe with food grains and cash crops. Our
own garden, Lord, is so beautiful with flowers blooming, and the
hedges and plants are green with new life, standing tall and straight
again. Their growth and beauty give us so much pleasure. We welcome
the beginning of the rainy season even with its mud and sloppy
streets and paths. The heat, Lord, had been so intense and now
the days are cool once again and sleeping at night is refreshing
and restful.
But we know, Lord, that thousands of people
suffer in the rainy season. The rain comes right though their
cardboard shacks and the floors of their huts become perpetual
mud. They suffer from illnesses from being cold and wet all the
time, especially the children, Lord. How badly we felt when our
own cook came to us after the first heavy rain and told us how
their whole family had had to sit up all night because their tile
roof leaked so badly that all their bedding was soaked. We were
able to help them to get the roof repaired quickly, but there
are many thousands of people who simply have to suffer throughout
the rainy season. Lord, we pray that somehow those who suffer
from the rains may be comforted by You and made comfortable by
those around them who can and will come to their aid.
Father, we thank you for Wanless Hospital, a
bulwark of healing and compassionate care for over one hundred
years here in western India. We thank you for its prominence in
the community and its witness to the love of Jesus Christ through
dedicated service to all, rich and poor. We especially thank you
for all of the young people who have graduated from its training
programs—nurses, doctors, pharmacists, technicians of all
kinds, even apprentices in building trades. So many of the really
poor and uneducated staff have seen their children become nurses,
X-ray and laboratory technicians, doctors, and one is even a molecular
biochemist! Father, we are grateful and astounded when we think
of the educational opportunities that Wanless Hospital has offered
to the community, particularly the Christian community.
But now we are troubled, Lord, by many problems
of the hospital. So much seems to have gone awry. It is difficult
to recruit and retain competent physicians because many of them
now want private practices, incentives, more money, more perks.
A number of our departments are staffed with only one consultant
who soon becomes overworked and overwhelmed by the load he must
carry. The Middle Eastern countries attract our physicians and
nurses because of the big salaries that are paid there. The competition
for medical services has become particularly intense in this community
and our hospital census has suffered. Hospitals and nursing homes
abound in and around Miraj. They are built by capable doctors,
well trained and compassionate, but most attract patients by fee-splitting
and by hiring agents who wait at the bus and railway stations
to find patients for their hospitals. Father, we seek your guidance
for Wanless Hospital, for its future, to understand its proper
place in the community, for its very existence. And we seek your
presence in the hearts of all of us so that our service may always
reflect your compassion and love to our patients and to each other.
Lord God, we thank you for the house that Rev.
Timothy Jalam has just rented to start a new girl’s hostel
for daughters of the commercial sex workers. It will house 25
of those lovely little girls who will be able to attend school
and live in “normal” surroundings. The house is wonderful,
Lord. I have seen it. It is in a small village, but still close
to Sangli-Miraj, and they will be safe there. They will be able
to play outside, walk to school, which is very close, and to church
if they choose to go. And they will be nurtured in a Christian
atmosphere. The quarters are upstairs on the second story of a
new dwelling, and the breezes and views of the surrounding fields
are so refreshing, especially when compared to the urban slum
they call “home” now. There are four rooms and a large
kitchen; a bathing room and latrines are being built on the porch
area. They will have electricity and running water and access
to the roof verandah. Lord, what a wonderful opportunity is being
given to these girls.We pray that Rev. Timothy’s vision for
these little girls will become the vision of the whole church
and not just of a few persons. We know Rev. Timothy’s heart
is filled with compassion because his own mother was forced (through
widowhood and poverty) to become a sex worker. May his compassion
for these children become the compassion of the whole church,
Lord. We pray for our Christian church here in Miraj and throughout
the Kolhapur Diocesan Council to which our church belongs. We
pray that they may see the vision of your Kingdom here on earth
and their responsibility and privilege in sharing that vision
with all people, even the children of the sex workers.
Good things are happening in the Church! You
know that in May we had over 400 children in the daily vacation
Bible school and many of them were from non-Christian families!
How wonderfully they all performed in their closing skits, songs
and plays. These are Your future disciples, Lord. Help us to nurture
them and to teach them Your love, Your truths and Your commandments
that they might make a difference in this world.
And lastly, dear Lord, we thank you for keeping
us and the people of India and Pakistan safe from war. Tensions
have eased somewhat, and we pray for continued peace. We ask these
prayers in your name, Lord Jesus.
In His Service,
Judy & Paul Jewett
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