LIVE YOUR LOVE
June 4 - Back to the U.S. We leave this Saturday back
to the States via Chennai and Brussels and arrive Sunday around
noon! We don’t know how long we’ll be back in the States but we are
incredibly excited to start filing the paper-work to make 'Live
Your Love' a legitimate nonprofit organization. We will keep
everyone updated as soon as we are registered because we already
have some potential business ventures on the horizon!
Last Adventures - We took the 8 hour, bumpy, sweaty, night
train to the east coast of Sri Lanka
last week. We had the
incredible privilege to see the family that Jeremy lived with for 6
months in 2005, after the tsunami. They are so generous and
wonderful and they opened their home to us for 3 days.
Kallar - We also got to visit a little, itty bitty town on
the east coast called Kallar. This is the town that Jasmine lived
in after the tsunami and where we met. We saw the dramatic changes
the town has made since the tsunami and it was a joy to catch up
with a few people whom we spent many days with 4 years ago! We saw
many little towns on the east coast, and what a contrast it was to
2005. However, many families are still living with the effects of
the tsunami (structurally or emotionally) as well as the effects of
the 26 year-long civil war that ended recently. Many children are
without parents and many adults are without work. We got to visit a
makeshift school (a house that has been turned into a school for
140 students in the area) that is being run with no
cost to the children by all donated funds. We visited on a Tuesday
evening and even though there were no classes scheduled, dozens of
kids showed up within minutes of our arrival.
They really enjoyed singing songs to us and showing us what they’ve
learned in English class. It was an incredibly humbling experience
to see this project in its beginning stages and we hope one day to
return and see the progress!
Hambantota - If you remember from our past updates, we were
able to visit Smile Lanka in the southern part of Sri Lanka. This
is a preschool in the morning, after school program for older kids
and a vocational school/program for widows in the area. All
involved are the poorest in Hambantota and wouldn’t have this
opportunity for education or food without Smile’s program.
Thank you to all 7 churches around the world, 116 people on
Facebook and many others who joined in the prayer for Sri Lanka
on the 1st of June. It was beautiful to see so many fight for the
hundreds of thousands here! Thank you to all who have been a great
support to us here. We wouldn’t have made it without you! We are
most definitely looking forward to seeing friends and family. See
you soon. Jeremy and Jasmine
June 2009
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Jasmine & Jeremy in Sri Lanka
A highlight to our month was receiving care
packages from friends around the world. Early in the month we got a
beautiful Austrian poster from my wonderful Austrian friend Corinna.
Later we received a mammoth of a package filled with Chex mix,
Franks, hot sauce, candy and DVDs of our favorite shows that we're
missing while we're here; thanks to our Rhode Island friends James
and Lauren! We are so grateful to have friends who love us in this
way!
Intro To All Things "Tea" This past week we
had the incredible
privilege to go to a Tea Company/Exporter whose office is based in
Colombo. Amazingly, there was a guest speaker at Jeremy’s parent’s
church and we were introduced to him after the service. He just so
happens to be the C.O.O. of this massive Sri Lanka tea company and
very kindly invited us to his office.
We thought it would be some small operation but
were pleasantly surprised when we got the royal treatment around
the entire place as they walked us through the process that tea
goes through from plantation to the shelf. We not only learned SO
much about the Tea industry but we got to go through the process of
sampling the tea that is going to be up for auction in the coming
weeks.
The man who we walked through with has been
sampling/t
esting tea for over 20 years and
kind of walked us through the entire process. (see photo) It was
such a fun, unique experience and we learned a lot for future 'Live
Your Love' business opportunities. DPS (Sinhalese acronym) At the
end of this past month we started teaching English, on Friday
nights (as well as continuing with our Tuesday afternoon classes)
to 9 young Sri Lankan adults in the work place. We can tell that
this class is going to be very fun because all of our students
speak English well enough to have good conversation and really want
to learn. See photo above/right.
Hambantota - As you will recall from our March update, we
visited Smile International where, amongst other programs, they
have a small vocational program for widows where they teach them to
sew a couple of days per week. We have started a test run on
producing handbags using the widows at the vocational school and
are anxiously awaiting the final products. This is something we
hope to do more of once we file and establish 'Live Your Love' as a
registered non-profit.
Three Wheeler Crashes - On our
way to the tea office, a three-wheeler lost control and went into
the canal down the road. It was the first time we really
experienced one of the unique dangers of transportation in South
Asia. We've never seen anything like this and it was surreal to see
the driver and the passenger getting pulled from the water with
blood on their face. I thank God for our safety and experience in
three-wheelers because we travel in them at least once a day! Our
'Live Your Love' logo and website are in the works, so stay posted.
April was filled with lots of trips to the hospital. Check it out
here:
http://srilankablogs.weebly.com May 2009
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Jasmine &
Jeremy in Sri Lanka - HOMELESSNESS
This is a loud part of every day for me. If we go
down the road to grab lunch or catch a ride in a 3-wheeler we are
guaranteed to see beggars at any point during the day. They
approach cars, stick their hand in your face as you walk by and
call out to you from afar. The beggars may or may not work for
someone else so it's not a good idea to give them money because we
have NO idea where it will go. Sometimes they won't even take food
when we offer it to them.
The night time is a different world. As we walk home at night, the
main road in Colombo is lined with homeless. They are not the
beggars we see during the day. These people do not have a place to
sleep. Young and old create makeshift beds, even if it's just a
sheet of cardboard, and hunker down for the night. It is a painful
and gut-wrenching, in-my-face reality.
The beggars are usually deformed in one way or another:
facial growths, missing limbs, enlarged or swollen appendages and
even open wounds. The homeless at night, however, are just
individuals and sometimes families with nowhere to sleep. We are
praying about whether we should hand out food to the homeless one
night a week but this could turn into a dependency issue. This is a
constant prayer for us: how can we help those in desperate need
without enabling them to become dependent on us?
HEAT - Like I mentioned in our prayer requests, it's been
unseasonably hot here. The hottest part of the year is usually
April. We don't have air conditioning so sleeping can sometimes be
a challenge. It rained the other night and cooled it down for about
a day. Looks like temps are rising again and makes things a bit
more difficult. It drains our energy during the day and it's hard
to sleep at night. I know, I know...most of you are reading this,
buried under 3 feet of snow and have zero sympathy. I'm pretty sure
I'd be thinking the same thing. I'm not complaining...just sharing
the reality of life in
Sri Lanka. I didn't
say I wanted to jump back into the snow or anything : )
JOY IN THE MIDST - As depressing as all this may sound there
are some beautiful and amazing things already happening in this
country. Yes, there is a lot of sadness, chaos and confusion in
this country - that is quite evident. But, when there is hurt, joy
is close behind. God promises to be near to the brokenhearted.
There is still a lot of progress to be made in this country but
there is a lot of joy too. As you can see from some of the pictures
last month, we were able to visit Smile International in Hambantota.
The kids in the program are from the poorest families in the
community and chosen to get an education and daily meals from the
facility. The joy on the kids faces makes the sadness almost
obsolete at moments. I would literally forget where I was when I
would see those kids laughing or eating or enjoying the one-on-one
attention from "Sudu Auntie." (They call any visitor or friend
auntie or uncle and sudu auntie means white auntie - I'm still not
used to being called white; I guess I haven't spent enough time at
the beach).
There are also a group of the poorest widows in the community,
chosen to participate in their program that provides them with
sewing classes, monthly fellowship at the facility and food to last
almost a month. The women and children are so incredibly enriched
and blessed by this outreach and it is OBVIOUS by the looks on
their face when they leave. One step at a time, right? Jeremy
and Jasmine April 2009
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Live Your Love!
Hello Friends, Our three months in California came
to an end and it was incredibly productive. We are amazed, every
day, at how things have come together over the past couple of
months. We arrived in Sri Lanka on the 22nd of January, and we are
overwhelmed with ideas and excited to get to know the country.
Our purpose in Sri Lanka is to find the greatest need of the poor
and help them out of poverty. We plan to do this one person at a
time by getting involved within the community, building
relationships with the needy and finding practical and attainable
ways to aid those in need. We want to Raise Awareness for the need
in Sri Lanka for education, livelihood projects and for the people
them-selves.
We
know that you have such great hearts and desire to help those in
need. We are so blessed to get to be the ones to facilitate those
needs. We want to Empower the People by creating micro-financing
projects, and getting involved in the garment and tea industries
that produce most of the countries exports.
We
are scheduled to teach English to college students and volunteer
with kids in the city slums as well as Community Concern Society in
their schools for poor children. Our vision is still to be in Sri
Lanka long term but, for our first trip, we will be in the country
for six months. The focus of our time will be to start laying the
foundations for our long-term vision called Live Your Love which
embodies everything we hope to achieve in Sri Lanka. We are most
excited about the future of Live Your Love and how it will not only
impact the lives of Sri
Lanka's poor but also
the lives of people around the world...including you.
Our goal is to have about $13,500 for our first six months and we
only need $3,000 more! Although this may seem like a big number, we
know that it is 100% attainable considering we have almost 400
people involved and even $10 from everyone would surpass that goal.
We pray that you will believe with us as we step out of the boat.
‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul
and with all your mind'. This is the first and greatest
commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as
yourself.’
As
we settle into our new home, please pray for safety in our
apartment and our neighborhood as we travel the busy city every
day. We are meeting people almost every day and we're praying that
God will open all the opportunities to move forward. Please pray
along with us that God will continue to open all the right doors
and close all the wrong ones! Love, Jeremy and Jasmine Ready, Set
... Sri Lanka!
Contact Jeremy and Jasmine at: Renaissance Church, c/o The Deans,
745 Westminister Street, Providence, RI 02903. Their blogs, YouTube
videos, and new photos are online at:
www.srilankablogs.weebly.com. You can also read about Jasmine's
Sri Lanka 2005 visit:
www.jasmineinsrilanka.blogspot.com. March 2009
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