Time to Update

OK - so this has been a busy year. And we haven't updated the blog in a long while. Here's a litle entry about what has kept us so busy in 2008.




Barb has been promoting Mussoorie Monsters - cute little stuffed animals that were the brain child of a dorm parent at Woodstock School. The project started out as a means of helping out a local women who had been hit by a drunk driver and whose famiy was falling into debt to pay her medical expenses. The project has now grown into "Monsters and More" a not-for-profit project that has broadened to incorporate a small group of women from the Mussoorie hillside who are determined to free their families from debt. The women who create the colorful products or homemade food goods are paid a good local price for their contributions and any additional profit is used to provide low or no interest loans to families in need. The benefits for the women we are working with are double-fold: increased income and a sense of pride and purpose in what they can achieve when given the opportunity.

Mussoorie Monsters, distant relatives of the yeti, make their home in a small forest reserve in the foothills of the Himalayas. Gentle vegetarians, they spend their day foraging for food and hiding from the bands of rhesus monkeys that dominate the Mussoorie hillside. They have a weakness for dried fruits of any kind and love nothing more than a hot chapatti smothered in locally made rhododendron jam. Although quiet by nature, Mussoorie Monsters have a fondness for playing small practical jokes. Their innocent expression means they are seldom caught.

Don't you just want one? Barb can fill you order from a brochure in either rupee or US dollars, with a moderate mailing charge. Click here to see a brochure.


We also have been working with a village about a two hours car ride away - Bel Gaon. Rev. Timothy and wife Subashini from Kellogg Church in Mussoorie invited us to visit the remote village several months ago. They had been asked by the village elders to consider helping them with building a school. They had heard of Pastor Timothy's help with another village's water system. Bel Gaon has a school building supplied by the Indian government, but the teacher rarely shows up and it remains closed for long periods of time. Several families in the village offered to sell some land for the school site. We have visited twice and have been fascinated observing the negotiations and village meetings. We hope to be able to support the venture financially through the Thomas India Mission Fund when they are ready.