Go Beyond | Kolkata

Thursday our team headed to the slum village to serve at New Hope School. Pastor Rudra and his wife Mita Singh have poured their lives into people who live in this slum. In this village there are many lovely people but Pastor Rudra tells of the many corrupt people who live here. Many girls are not safe as they are in danger of being stolen, sold or abused. Pastor Rudra provides education for free and he teaches the children about the love of a Savior who came to find them. He calls them missiles of faith as they then take that teaching home and share with their families who are striving so hard to please a plethora of gods.

We love seeing the children each year but are saddened many times as some children do not return. The children of New Hope dream of great things.

Dibasi is a great helper as well as a student. He is a leader and has a personality that lights up a room. He hopes to be a policeman when he grows up.

Prianka wants to be a doctor.

Uttam wants to be a doctor and Suman wants to be a police officer. Heather wants to be a princess. 🙂

Payel wants to be a police officer. Sourav, her brother wants to be a pilot. They are children of an abusive father. Their 15 year old sister lives with the Singhs as she was being repeatedly raped by her father. Sourav is learning to be a kind young man and not follow in his father’s footsteps. Pray for Payal as she becomes older. Her safety is in question and in this small village and because of the culture surrounding it there is little support for protecting girls in homes like this.


Santu who is dear to our hearts wants to be a Children’s Pastor. He has been teaching at the school for few years and has given much to pursue his university studies and continue serving at the school. He is 25 and we are all looking for the perfect girl to marry him — he blushes a lot when he is around us!

Today the children learned about fruit and the fruit of the Spirit. They were taught about showing love. They are very good at that!

We ended our day at Jewel In A Crown. This is a ministry that teaches women to make jewelry. They are all women over 18 that have decided to earn their way out of the sex trade. Our day was so very blessed by being in their presence.  Un-deserving was the feeling that most of us had as we pampered these special women.

What a fun day!

Today was a first for our women’s team…we did a medical clinc. Brandon, our brave male who joined our team, was an absolute rock star with his easy caring way and vast knowledge of physical ailments and medications! But it was so neat to listen to him not only care for their bodies but he showed the love of Jesus in all that he did.

Heather, our audiologist, was positively giddy at looking into ears and helping so many that had ear pain. She identified 7 with a need for hearing aids…so we are going to search for that tomorrow.

The “restofus”…the ones that have no medical training but lots of compassion and some Doctor Mom experience helped with bandaging and taking temperatures and praying for the people as they came through. This was So.Much.Fun!

The people were so grateful and happy to have care.

This afternoon at 3 we shut the clinic and some of the ladies of the village came in for their regular Wednesday sewing class with Mita…but today they were surprised with pampering facials and satin hands treatments. They felt like princesses.

While their facial mask dried we played a chapter from the Bible on a neat device called the Proclaimer. This holds the Bible in audio form spoken in Bengali. Heather found a group that was willing to supply this for us for FREE to the village. They sat in complete silence as it played….they were mesmerized.

Our team of 8 were joined by those that donated things like the Proclaimer and the facial and hand treatments and those that so graciously supported many of our team. Those gifts have reached around the world.

Our women’s justice team is in route back to the City Of Joy. Kingsland’s strategic partnerships with groups in this city give us the opportunity to join in on work being done to help fight the horror of human slavery.

In the Dubai airport waiting on our final flight we sat and talked together about how this issue is so big; what does our work really do? We recognized the enormity of the problem and how fixing one thing does not necessarily solve the problem, it just leaves a myriad of others undone. So why are we here? What can we do?

In the beautiful city of Kolkata we have found a network of heroes that fight for those who cannot speak for themselves. From rescue to legal representation to education and housing to prevention…it takes so many gifted and dedicated men and women. They are here…they are fighting and they are winning one life at a time. It takes enormous commitment to continue fighting a fight that seems so overwhelming, but they do it. Every day. This is why we come. We join in to support these that bear this burden. We come to work alongside them and encourage them.

We have been told that when our teams continue to return over and over again that it speaks volumes to the women they minister to. It says to them “you are worth it.”

This time we have an added twist…a BOY! We have never had a man come on this trip with us but we finally found one brave enough. In all seriousness, God placed Brandon Kumar in our path at the perfect time. He is a 23 year old paramedic who has a passion for God and wanted to answer His call to go to India to give a month of his life to minister. So he bravely started his journey with us and will help us conduct a medical clinic in the village where New Hope School is located….this is a first for us and we couldn’t be more excited about it! He will continue his work by serving with the Sisters of Charity in Kolkata.

We have another bonus team member from Hyderabad named Carissa…she will meet us in a few hours. She is an English teacher and will be joining us, we are excited about her addition to the team.

This team has been custom designed by the Great Designer….couldn’t have put this together if we tried. Our planning times have been creative, energizing thought sessions where we all leave with our brains spinning and and hearts so expectant that we can hardly stand it. So with great joy we return to the City Of Joy.