OLD YEAR – NEW YEAR
Dear friends
The old year has passed and the New Year has started, we hope and whish that it will be a good year for all of you; and better year for all of us!
The past year has not been an easy one, we changed place, we had losses and some of us had personal tragedies to cope with.
The Rev. Devarakkhita (Bhante’s second pupil) even lost his father on X-Mass day. Together with the Rev. B. Samitha Thero, Bhante took care of the funeral costs.
Many more of our friends have passed away this past year and the war took its toll like some natural disasters did.
Even the Mafia killings in and around our village are regrettable.
Some of you also had personal losses and even the economic crisis has left its mark on the world.
Even tough all of this there are also good things which happened this past year: we changed place (tough not easy, it’s a good thing because all of us are happy in our new place), we could do a number of very good works for our society, we could help or support some individuals and make some people very, very happy! (If, for example, your eye site or hearing is restored it’s a great thing). Also the list of things we have done (which you will find in an earlier post), is impressive.
Thanks to a donation of Mr. Jaap Plugge we even have a new fridge, a big one with a big deep freezer, and it’s our own one this time!
We are renting a big house in the village now where we are trying out our ideas and some programs. Thanks to Mr. Georg Höfer who donated the rent for a period of 6 months (42.000 SRS). He came here to run a program with a number of kids from Telwatta and Galle called: Telwatta Photo Kids for which he collected the funds. This is a great success and the result is above expectations tough all what we hoped for up till now!!!!! Georg is not only a passionate professional photographer; he’s a great teacher who is able to inspire the kids in a big way, and we hope you will visit the weblog of this program where you can see the really beautiful results of this program in the form of the pics made by the kids. (See the link on this page)
We are very grateful to Georg for this program which is great fun and a source of inspiration for all of us!!!!
He makes the kids, and us, very happy!!
In the house we started among others to show a few films for children of the village and they enjoy it tremendously!!
During the next few weeks we will have a few meetings with woman rights activists to which we will show a (bit of a controversial) Buddhist film, and which will be followed by a discussion.
There will be inter – religious meetings and we will start in corporation with the Salvation Army a HIV/AIDS prevention campaign.
We hope to get our woman and girls activities started (which is quite difficult to begin with).
We have a lack of funds to do all the things we want to do and we hope that there will be found some generous people who would like to donate some funds for this purpose. (on the moment we have NO FUNDS AT ALL FOR THIS PROGRAMS AND AGAIN BHANTE HAS TO PAY MOST OF IT FROM HIS OWN POCKET, AND THE POCKET IS EMPTY AFTER ALL THE COSTS WE HAD TO COVER DURING THE LAST FEW MONTHS!!!).
Talking about funds: the funds to pay for the OK KIDS English teaching program are all spend, we are even behind in payments!
We stopped intake for people with medical needs because there even are no funds for those we have already!
We had hoped to be able to help some of the neediest children in our society to get some extra food and sponsor their study:
but no funds!
We had hoped to improve our living quarters: but no funds!
We don’t like to go on with this list, but you will “get it” I think.
The bottom of our “money box” is totally cleaned out!
We would like to continue our work but need your help with it!!!
PLEASE HELP!!!!!
We recently got the help from Lianne a Dutch volunteer, but although she has a lot of ideas and is more then willing to work hard to realize them; all kind of activities cost money and we have not got it!!!
We hope that in this New Year we will be able to get some structural financial basis so we can continue our work with the poor people and youth from our area and elsewhere.
Anyhow:
We like to thank all those who supported us during the past year, all those who showed interest in our work and life and we hope that you all may be; Healthy, Happy and Safe in this New Year !
Bhante Devamitta Thera,
Rev. Ariyadhamma Thero,
Rev. Devarakkhita Thero, and
Rev. Narada Thero.
O, yes before I forget them :
Rex and Ariel.
Dear friends
The old year has passed and the New Year has started, we hope and whish that it will be a good year for all of you; and better year for all of us!
The past year has not been an easy one, we changed place, we had losses and some of us had personal tragedies to cope with.
The Rev. Devarakkhita (Bhante’s second pupil) even lost his father on X-Mass day. Together with the Rev. B. Samitha Thero, Bhante took care of the funeral costs.
Many more of our friends have passed away this past year and the war took its toll like some natural disasters did.
Even the Mafia killings in and around our village are regrettable.
Some of you also had personal losses and even the economic crisis has left its mark on the world.
Even tough all of this there are also good things which happened this past year: we changed place (tough not easy, it’s a good thing because all of us are happy in our new place), we could do a number of very good works for our society, we could help or support some individuals and make some people very, very happy! (If, for example, your eye site or hearing is restored it’s a great thing). Also the list of things we have done (which you will find in an earlier post), is impressive.
Thanks to a donation of Mr. Jaap Plugge we even have a new fridge, a big one with a big deep freezer, and it’s our own one this time!
We are renting a big house in the village now where we are trying out our ideas and some programs. Thanks to Mr. Georg Höfer who donated the rent for a period of 6 months (42.000 SRS). He came here to run a program with a number of kids from Telwatta and Galle called: Telwatta Photo Kids for which he collected the funds. This is a great success and the result is above expectations tough all what we hoped for up till now!!!!! Georg is not only a passionate professional photographer; he’s a great teacher who is able to inspire the kids in a big way, and we hope you will visit the weblog of this program where you can see the really beautiful results of this program in the form of the pics made by the kids. (See the link on this page)
We are very grateful to Georg for this program which is great fun and a source of inspiration for all of us!!!!
He makes the kids, and us, very happy!!
In the house we started among others to show a few films for children of the village and they enjoy it tremendously!!
During the next few weeks we will have a few meetings with woman rights activists to which we will show a (bit of a controversial) Buddhist film, and which will be followed by a discussion.
There will be inter – religious meetings and we will start in corporation with the Salvation Army a HIV/AIDS prevention campaign.
We hope to get our woman and girls activities started (which is quite difficult to begin with).
We have a lack of funds to do all the things we want to do and we hope that there will be found some generous people who would like to donate some funds for this purpose. (on the moment we have NO FUNDS AT ALL FOR THIS PROGRAMS AND AGAIN BHANTE HAS TO PAY MOST OF IT FROM HIS OWN POCKET, AND THE POCKET IS EMPTY AFTER ALL THE COSTS WE HAD TO COVER DURING THE LAST FEW MONTHS!!!).
Talking about funds: the funds to pay for the OK KIDS English teaching program are all spend, we are even behind in payments!
We stopped intake for people with medical needs because there even are no funds for those we have already!
We had hoped to be able to help some of the neediest children in our society to get some extra food and sponsor their study:
but no funds!
We had hoped to improve our living quarters: but no funds!
We don’t like to go on with this list, but you will “get it” I think.
The bottom of our “money box” is totally cleaned out!
We would like to continue our work but need your help with it!!!
PLEASE HELP!!!!!
We recently got the help from Lianne a Dutch volunteer, but although she has a lot of ideas and is more then willing to work hard to realize them; all kind of activities cost money and we have not got it!!!
We hope that in this New Year we will be able to get some structural financial basis so we can continue our work with the poor people and youth from our area and elsewhere.
Anyhow:
We like to thank all those who supported us during the past year, all those who showed interest in our work and life and we hope that you all may be; Healthy, Happy and Safe in this New Year !
Bhante Devamitta Thera,
Rev. Ariyadhamma Thero,
Rev. Devarakkhita Thero, and
Rev. Narada Thero.
O, yes before I forget them :
Rex and Ariel.
