Dear Friends,

I hope you had a blessed Christmas! This special holiday is celebrated in many different ways around the world, yet with some similarities. For example, while we might go to the store to buy a ham for Christmas dinner, many of our orphanages raised a pig throughout the year just for a Christmas Day feast.

I’m happy to report that Christmas for our 1,008 children was very blessed this year due to the special contributions that were given to our Christmas Gifts for Orphans Fund. In this update, I want to first show you some photos of children with their new Christmas clothes.

Lots of new clothes!

The children of Love in Action with their new Christmas clothes (the director Photoshopped in one boy on the far left who as absent for the group photo!)

Here is a thank-you letter we received from the director at Love in Action Orphanage in Myanmar:

In Myanmar, most of children are not enjoy in Christmas and New Year Eve, even if they are living with parents, as they don’t have Christmas clothing.

But His amazing Hand is obviously found in Love in Action children home during Christmas and coming New Year Eve. All the children had gotten new brand clothing. They could live among their friends with self-confidence and remembering His Grace.

We are sure that His heart is on these little children and never allow them to live inadequately.

May God bless upon all your deeds.

The director of Canaan Orphanage sent this message:

We enjoyed the last Christmas with your lovely gifts and the children are getting each of their shares. “We are not orphans but have parents those who are nurturing and caring us not only in inland but also from abroad,” said the young orphan called Biak Tha Cung.

Below are some more photos sent by our orphanages to show how happy their children are with their new clothes. They are all looking sharp! (In some photos the children are wearing their Christmas clothes, and in other photos the children are holding their new clothes.)

For the children,

Elisabeth Servant
Director, Orphan’s Tear division

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Van Ro Cung is quite the daredevil!

Dear Friends,

I love to see children having fun, don’t you? —Especially when they are orphans! Sonny, the director of Beulah Orphanage in Myanmar, is quite creative when it comes to games. He stood up a tall bamboo post with 2,000 kyat (about $2.50) at the top of it. I don’t know about you, but I myself am quite scared of heights. You couldn’t get me to climb to the top of that post to get $2.50! Van Ro Cung was the only brave one who succeeded at climbing the post, with the help of his friends, to get the money.

Elisabeth Servant
Director, Orphan’s Tear division

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The children of New Heritage Orphanage in Yangon, Myanmar, singing to Jesus

Dear Friends,

My dad and I spent two weeks in Myanmar last month. Every day we visited several orphanages sponsored by Orphan’s Tear—38 in all.

At each orphanage, the children usually sang a song or two for us. In addition to the usual song at New Heritage Orphanage, however, we witnessed a special show highlighting the talents of two of the boys. Using only their hands and teeth, each husked a coconut—in less than 60 seconds—as the other children cheered them on! When they were done, all that was left was the nut and shreds of the husk littered about the floor. Here are two photos that show the action:

Ready, set…GO!

Husking machines at work!

The children are doing well at all the orphanages we visited. Your help is making a huge difference in their lives. Thanks so much!

Elisabeth Servant
Director, Orphan’s Tear division

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Dear Friends,

I just returned from Myanmar, where I visited all 38 of the Orphan’s Tear-sponsored orphanages there. It was wonderful to be with the children again and meet with all the directors individually to discuss moving forward with our Foster Care Initiative. All of the directors had attended a November conference hosted by Orphan’s Tear, where they learned more about the benefits of foster care and how micro-loans can help foster parents start small businesses to provide for themselves and the children in their care. Many of them were very enthusiastic about the plan.

Better Blankets

The children at Shalom Orphanage in Myanmar can’t hide how happy they are to receive new blankets

Although the winter season in Myanmar is warm compared to the sub-freezing temperatures many of us are currently experiencing, it’s cold compared to the climate there during the rest of the year. (When we visit Myanmar, usually in November or December, we are always amazed to see people wearing hats, sweaters, and jackets when the temperature drops below 75 F!)

We sent new blankets to Love in Action Orphanage and Shalom Orphanage because their old ones were worn thin. Now, all of the children have a warm blanket to snuggle in at night. As you can see, they are pretty excited about them! Thank you for giving to Orphan’s Tear’s Special Gifts Fund and keeping orphans warm this winter.

Foundation of Faith

Living Hope Orphanage’s current kitchen doesn’t offer much protection from the elements

When the bellies of children at an orphanage begin to growl, cooking is usually done over an open fire without the aid of electricity. No stoves, ovens, or microwaves—just smoke and, many times, exposure to cold and rain. We recently received the following email from Living Hope Orphanage, asking for our help to build a simple but protected new kitchen. (I haven’t corrected his broken English.)

I would like to let you know that we are cooking every thing at outside and many flies and if there is rain we have to cook in the water. We thought that it is not good to cook all the time at outside even for our health. The children are very excited to have new kitchen and eat in it and they could not wait any more so today, we measured 16 feets x 18 feet and after reading the bible Mat 7:7-8 by me, and pray by all to God, we put and dig the ground for the foundation for our new kitchen. We do hope that by your love and concern for us we will have a good and new kitchen soon through you. This is our special asking for your help. Please, help us and support us for our new kitchen.

By faith, Living Hope’s director and children started to dig the foundation for their new kitchen

After receiving this request (before my visit to Myanmar), I told the director I would be personally coming to his orphanage in just a few short weeks to discuss building a kitchen. Little did he know, however, that I was really planning to tell him and his children in person that, thanks to generous gifts to Orphan’s Tear’s Special Gifts Fund, their prayers for a new kitchen would be answered! It is being built right now as you read this, and next month I hope to be able to show you their finished building.

Next Year…

In 2012, keep an eye out for updates on our Foster Care Initiative. We are hoping to help several of our orphanage directors also become micro-bankers, and place some orphans with loving Christian families. The process is slow, but we know the best place for a child is with a Christian family that can better care for his or her needs.

Thank you so much for caring for orphans and unwanted children during this past year. Your obedience and compassion have touched the heart of Jesus. I’m looking forward to serving alongside you as we serve orphans around the world together.

Parting Shot

These two cuties are the children of one of our orphanage directors and his wife. I’m not sure if one is crying and the other is laughing, but they sure are adorable!

For the children,

Elisabeth Servant
Director, Orphan’s Tear

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I hope your Thanksgiving is a blessed time with friends, family and fellowship, not to mention good food! We have so much to be thankful for.

Speaking of being thankful, I can assure you that your sponsored child (or children) is thankful for your consistent support. A number of our staff members just returned from two weeks in Myanmar, where they visited our 40 sponsored orphanages. They spent time playing games with all the children, and gave them all donated candy and small toys. It was like Christmas in November.

Speaking of Christmas, every year around this time we ask our child sponsors to consider sending an extra $5 for each child they sponsor so that our orphanage directors can buy new Christmas clothes for their orphans. If the Lord provides, well over 1,000 orphans and unwanted children in the eight nations where Orphan’s Tear serves will receive new clothes on Christmas morning, which they all excitedly wear throughout their simple, day-long celebration of Jesus’ birth, and all the following year.

Great stories are worth repeating, so I wanted to share one that I shared with you last year at this same time. It is a letter I received just after Christmas of 2009 from one of our orphanage directors in Myanmar named Sonny. We had just begun to help his orphanage, Beulah Children’s Home, when we visited Myanmar in November 2009, but we had not yet found sponsors for his children. Below is his letter. Get ready to shed some tears.

Dear Loving Friends,

Greeting to you in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Peace and Joy of New Year to you all. First of all, I humbly request you all to read what I felt in this time Christmas.

For me and my family, it was an unhappy day that I could never forget. If it were possible, I would postpone Christmas day for Beulah Children Home.

We woke up early in the morning on Christmas morning and gave thanks to the Lord for what He has done. But my children were not happy that much. I know why they are downcast. But I said to them,”OK, take a bath and wear your clean clothes (not new clothes).” And they obediently took a bath and wore their cleanest clothes. And then we went to the church to praise and worship God. On that morning I was to preach. I was pretty excited to preach on Christmas day.

When we arrived to the church, I saw many other children wearing their new clothes and coming to the church. But my children are wearing their old clothes.They were happy but not wholeheartedly. Because they were jealous of them as they are children, orphans who never wear a new shirt. They have a new father and mother and they will rely on us totally, but when I can not do anything for them, how disappointed thing for my children. I asked myself so many questions.

When I saw them, my children, sitting by other children with their old clothes, I dared not to look at them. My heart was totally broken. I said to myself I am nothing to do God’s work. Since time was passing on, Chairperson called upon me for preaching. As standing on the pulpit I read my chosen Bible verse (Micah 5:2). My tear were flowing down on my cheek. I could not speak a little while. After that I took a new strength and spoke and said,”Though we are poor, small, orphans and have nothing today, we have Jesus Christ who has been born today. How blessed people we are. Today Jesus has been born for the poor, the orphans, widows, and the oppressed.” Then I stopped my preaching.

We went back to home and I called all of them and said to them,”My beloved children, please forgive me (your father) for my poverty, I know I am very poor but the God whom I am believing, I am worshiping and praising every day is very rich. He has a plan for you and for me in the day to come.” After that only we all felt happy and tear of joy flowed down on our cheek.

Dear loving friends, Christmas is a precious and a happy day for some, but for us, Beulah Children Home, we who are fatherless and motherless, it is a day of crying in human side.

And also if it were possible, we Beulah Children Home want this coming New Year to be postponed. We are afraid of this New Year though I used to be eager to reach Happy New Year before. The reason is that our agreement for renting our house will be ended in January. We do not know what situation will come to us in this New Year, for other Happy New Year.

Dear Friends, it is a humble request from Beulah Children Home to pray for us that the exact need we have may be met.

I wish you all a blessed happy New Year…

I’m happy to report that we were able to help Sonny and his orphans with the rent payment that was needed. And just a few months ago we helped him buy a home for the orphanage—complete with a fish pond! All nine children at Beulah Children’s Home have been sponsored by compassionate friends like you. And this year we’re trusting that all nine children will receive Christmas clothes, as well as the rest of the orphans in our sponsored orphanages.

A new group photo by their new fish pond, and a happy boy, Aung-Aung, with his first catch!

Will you help us give your sponsored child his or her only Christmas gift this year? 100% of every contribution to the Christmas Gifts for Orphans Fund is used to provide gifts for the children living at our 51 orphanages around the world. $5 provides clothes for one child. If you feel led to contribute more than $5 for each of your sponsored children, that will be great, as it help make up the difference for sponsors who don’t read this email! Just click here to contribute by credit card or bank withdrawal. Thanks so much!

A couple of happy children with their new clothes

For the children,

Elisabeth Servant

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Lined up for their first day of school at Shalom Orphanage in Myanmar

Dear Friends,

Here in the U.S., the stores are having their back-to-school sales, and parents are buying new clothes for their kids in preparation for the new school year. In Myanmar, however, the kids are already back in school. Not only has the school year already started there, but so has the rainy season. There is no school bus, and so they must wade through flooded streets on their way to school each day. The director of Shalom Orphanage wrote to me:

Every street is full with water. It’s flooding. Some children do not go to the school because of the rain. We are very sorry to tell you that we the parents of Shalom are not affordable to buy the umbrella for the children individually. So three persons share one umbrella.

Sharing one umbrella on the way to school

As you can imagine, all of this water provides the ideal breeding ground for mosquitos:

So, there are so many mosquito and we have a difficult situation. Mosquito bite the children and it make them sick and unfeeling well. And there is another disease that people suffer right now. The disease is called cough, headache and very hot of the body. There are five children who are getting sick in our family. Please pray for them.

And where there are lots of mosquitos, malaria follows. Please keep the children in your prayers, for those who are sick to recover and that no one else will become ill. Your gifts to the Orphan’s Tear Special Gifts Fund will help us provide them with mosquito nets and umbrellas.

Doing the Lord’s Work at School

Besides studying their lessons, the children at New Eden Orphanage in Myanmar have been about the Lord’s work at school. The director recently wrote:

All the children are carrying the good news to their school and sharing to their own friends. Our great work is to carry the good news to every one as much as possible. Also the children are enjoying to tell their friends as well as New Eden is blessed physically as well as spiritually because of that. After their return from school, each children share how they break the day by telling the good news to their unbeliever friends. Please continue to pray for us, so that the New Eden might be carry the good news boldly among unsaved.

We had made new bed for the children as well as table. Now the children are happy for what the Lord did for them. When they saw the Lord’s work, they too eager to share what the Lord has done to their friends. Our children are really willing to speak about good news to every one whom they could reach.

First Time to See a Paved Road

We may take paved roads for granted, but for the children at Yesu Ngwadidi Children’s Home in Malawi, a paved road is a novelty! They recently had the opportunity to take a little road trip:

On the first Sunday in June (the 5th), our Sunday School children at Moving in Faith Church had a trip to Mphatsa. We hired a vehicle to our new church branch, about 25 kilometres away. We cooked rice, eggs and other food beforehand to take with them for lunch. It was exciting for them to ride in a truck and to go down the newly paved road. This year was the first time for them to see a tarred and paved road. They do not often have the opportunity to ride in a vehicle either!!

Introducing a New Orphanage

As you will read about in the September Heaven’s Family magazine, we’ve been able to take on the sponsorship of Zion Orphanage in Myanmar. They recently wrote to tell us how thankful they are about that:

We are praying for Orphan’s Tear about three and half years especially for to be part of your ministry. Since you already blessed one house we are still praying for daily bread for the children. When I read your email one months ago, I am very happy told all our children. God answered our prayer after more than three years. This blessing of bread [code word for "funding"] will be very meaningful for the children especially for education, daily bread and their future life. I promise that we will use wisely.

...my daughter is already passed training for cook, she cook for the party. We all very happy this special occasion because we ate the food that we never tasted before and we ate many fruits.

Children at Zion enjoying a special feast!

Thanks so Much!

As always, thanks to every orphan sponsor, and to everyone who has given to Orphan's Tear!
Your gifts are making a difference in the lives of orphans, and we are eternally grateful.

For the children,

Charity McDaniel

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