Lillian

I want to tell you about Lillian, one of our Worldwide Community Schools/India board members. Lillian started a Christian school for children in need in a place that is a three-hour drive from Bangalore. She is the head of the school but speaks with great humility. “I never thought I would be doing this. I am a nutritionist and it was my intention to work in my own area. However, when you see such a need, you just can’t stand by.”

Lillian’s school serves students from kindergarten through grade 12. We were excited to read her latest email concerning how well the students did on their recent state examinations. We praise God for the wonderful results in the board examinations conducted in March 2007.The results were published yesterday and what a joy to find that all students have secured 1st class and the 1st mark is 91%.The highest mark in maths is 98%,English 88%,Science 88% and Social studies 90%.These students who came in to this school without knowing an alphabet in their mother tongue and English have come to this level by the grace of God .I am so delighted in the Lord to see my vision coming true. I thank you for your prayers and encouragement in carrying out the vision God has given me.

I wonder sometimes how Lillian manages to do everything she does. Worldwide Community Schools provides money so that the school children will have at least one lunch a day. Lillian supervises that preparation. She also prepares the meals for her own family before she leaves for school in the morning. Preparing a meal in India is considerably more work than preparing a meal in a western country because so much of their food preparation involves chopping vegetables. She says that she enjoys that food preparation because she is a nutritionist.

In addition to her work at the school, Lillian has found time to help a family develop a small business that provides the income they need for survival. She taught the mother how to make peanut “chickies”. The chickies are delicious, nutritious, peanut bars and I bought 20 of them to bring home with me. The bars are dense and filling and the 20 bars really added to my luggage weight. One-eighth of a bar is a filling snack to have with a cup of coffee. Lillian allows the woman to make them in the school kitchen. It is comforting for me to know that Lillian supervises the operation. Since I don’t know the woman who makes them, knowing Lillian means that the bars will have no preservatives and will be right for us to eat.

Gypsy, my colleague, told me that the children at Lillian’s school have very little in the line of sports equipment, such as soccer balls. They must learn to read English but have only very few books available to them. It would be so great to send them money for things like that.