Don't just sit there, CHANGE A LIFE!
Educational Sponsorship Program
http://www.theworldnow.com/cal/
Sent to Sponsors, Supporters and Friends of Regina Pacis
Convent School, Bombay, India
cal@theworldnow.com
Your input, suggestions, comments, are always needed and
extremely welcome. ____________________________________________________
CHRISTMAS MESSAGE (photos below)
FROM SR. MARGARET FERNANDES,
SCHOOL PRINCIPAL
December 20, 2005
Dear friends and benefactors,
Change a Life has brought us many new friends this year. We wish you all a
very Happy, Christ-filled Christmas and a New Year 2006 full of the joy and
peace of this same Christ Jesus whose birth we celebrate at Christmas.
Our children are so excited these days that there is no holding them to
books and studies. Christmas carols fill the air at all times…sometimes from
the Tape recorder and that is good…at other times from the children,
humming, singing, shouting and quite often different groups with different
carols all at the same time. As they are under my window I have to poke my
head out sometimes to join in a carol or to put them on the right track with
the music and the rhythm. Its great fun.
I am just back from Our General Chapter in Rome and I brought the children
little sets of the figures for a crib. The figures are just one centimetre
high. There were eighteen sets so we got them organised into eighteen groups
and they had a crib creating competition. I had also brought back bits of
bark from the Pine trees in Rome. Well each group was given a crib set, two
or three pieces of old bark and they had two hours to set up a crib in
proportion to the figures they were given and as creatively as possible.. We
were all amazed at the beauty, creativity and ingenuity of our children. We
the judges did not know to whom to give the prizes. I have taken photos of
the cribs which if they have come out well I hope to be able to send out to
you all.
The children have also made their own Christmas cards to send out to their
sponsors. They were to recycle old cards and set them up in new designs. You
can imagine how proud we are of them.
On the 23rd just before they go home with their parents for Christmas(well
those who have parents and homes to go to) we will have their Christmas
celebration here in the Home. this is an annual celebration but it has a
beautiful tint. Our children are encouraged to make others happy at
Christmas so every year (it is now traditional) they go out in an auto car
and bring to the home some very old ladies from a nearby home for the aged.
(if you look up the history of how the Elizabethan ladies came to help us
you will see that they were meant to go to this Home for the aged and landed
up at our Home instead) Well we have these senior citizens with us for
this celebration. They receive presents as well as the children and then a
friend a well wisher gives us all…the whole house a sumptuous lunch. The
children look after the ladies and see that they have enough to eat that
they join in the games etc. They enjoy this very much.
This year we have been able to buy a new dress for each child. The older
ones chose their own dresses. In their Christmas packets they will get
soft toys and other things for the little ones, little bottles of shampoo
which have come all the way from a well wisher in Argentina who came to know
about the children through CAL and of course lots of sweets. Our children
are very lucky to have so many good friends like you and they know it and
are grateful.
The new building is almost ready. I am longing to be able to set up the bunk
beds and put on the new bed linen donated by so many good people. I shall
certainly send out photos of the set up when everything is ready.
I could go on forever but there is so much to do these days. I know we can
count on your prayers and you good wishes and you must know that we have you
in our daily prayer…God will surely reward the good that you do.
Love from the children and from the sisters.
Margaret Mary Fernandes
Religous of Mary Immaculate
Here are updated photoes of the children who live in our boarding. The ones in the blue
uniform go to the day school, the ones in white go to the night school. They
are 89 children in all at present but soon they will be 120. The building is
almost ready.
Warm wishes to all,
Margaret Mary Fernandes
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This update sent to Sponsors and friends of the
Change A Life Program. This update may be freely distributed if copied in
its entirety. It cannot be printed for public distribution nor emailed
commercially without permission.
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Your input, suggestions, comments, are always needed and extremely welcome.
If you need information about the program or paperwork or if you have
questions, don't hesitate to send an email to
cal@theworldnow.com