Project 1:27 Update

Connecting through caring

Connecting through caring

By Elaine Fallesen
Climbing For Christ

It was what many of us used to call a “Kodak moment”:

Fourteen-year-old Chiring, an orphan in Kathmandu, Nepal, was nearly beside himself with happiness as he stared at a Facebook photo of his Project 1:27 sponsor on a cell phone.

“She is beautiful, she is beautiful,” he repeated as he studied the face of Nancy Kaiser. “I am grateful for her.”

Despite its frustrations, technology does bring the world closer together. In October, it connected the dots between young Chiring in Kathmandu and Nancy in Rochester, NY. She cares for his physical and spiritual needs through Climbing For Christ’s Project 1:27 initiative – to “care for orphans” as the book of James directs us in chapter 1, verse 27.

The orphans under the care of Climbing For Christ member and ministry partner Pastor Tej Rokka in Nepal are beginning to make the connection between their Kathmandu orphanage home filled with God’s love, and people half a world away who are exemplifying God’s love with care and support from afar. That connection is further strengthened whenever a C4C mission team comes to visit.

“It was great to have so much relational time with the kids,” says Leanne Bohn, who made her third C4C trip to the orphanage along with Ann Marie Pavone and Jill Stojkovic, each of whom were returning for the second time.

“Just hearing the kids laugh and giggle again was so heart-warming.”

Just two weeks after the previous C4C team visited in March, a devastating earthquake shook the Nepali world. We are grateful to God that none of the orphans were injured. Climbing For Christ provided disaster relief funding for the children’s daily needs in the aftermath and to make major repairs to the orphanage. The kids continue to thrive as life returns to “normal.”

They received extra doses of love and healing during the October team’s time with them, through such simple acts of sharing, from painting colorful murals of the seven days of creation and Noah’s ark on walls, making the orphanage building feel like a home, to taking a trip to Kathmandu’s zoo and experiencing the joys of a playground for the first time.

Project 1:27 sponsors support 22 of the 32 orphans living at Tej’s two orphanage sites. Ten children still need sponsors willing to give US$50 a month, which provides food, clothing, shelter, an education and a caring environment in which Jesus Christ is shared generously in an otherwise dark Hindu and Buddhist culture. Can you help? CLICK HERE to see the children. Contact me at efallesen@climbingforchrist.org if you’d like to help.