Thank a teacher

Ned's sister-in-law Lindsay, a teacher, wrote this on Facebook:  This week I've gotten a little bit of a pat on the back that helps bolster my resolve to carry on this important task. Several of my parents have sent me emails like "thank you for always being there for us" and "you go above and beyond for our student" and it feels good. Not gonna lie. It feels real good.

In response, our friend Suellyn (we met on a Viking cruise to Russia) wrote In thanks for the public education that I received, and in support of all those who teach in public schools .... and then listed a lot of her teachers.  Someone else said she could remember every one of her teachers.  I thought I'd travel back and see what I think about my teachers.

I don't remember the name of my kindergarten teacher, but I remember that I started school late...actually a year early.  I was so upset that my friend Stephen was going to school and I was not that they let me go into kindergarten early, and then I did so well, I was allowed to pass on to first grade with my class.   Remember Sister complimenting me on my curls, and I remember the big playhouse in the classroom.  That's all I remember of kindergarten!

In first grade I had Sister Mary St. Patrice and I don't remember a lot about her except that I have been grateful my whole life for her letting me write with my left and not forcing me to switch to the right hand.  I also remember learning to raise one finger if I had to pee and 2 fingers if things were going to be more serious!

Sister Mary Humbeline had second grade.  I remember her as being very pale and very thin.  Also very sweet.  We had a May Crown celebration each may where one child was chosen to crown a statue of Mary and others were chosen to be various members of the court.  I remember that she passed around a box and you picked out a folded piece of paper  She said that if something was written on it, we should bring it to her and she would read it for her.  But I had no trouble reading "queen" on my slip of paper!  I was the one who got to place the crown on Mary's head.

Sister Mary Bernardone was our teacher for both third and fifth grade.  She is still alive, in her 90s an I spoke with her on the phone a couple of months ago.  She was probably my favorite grammar school teacher, though I can't remember why now.

Sister Mary John Ett taught 4th grade.  I started having problems with math in this class.  For fun, sister had a stamp collection and we got to go through her stamps now and then.  I still feel guilty for stealing one that I particularly liked.  It was also Sister Mary John Ett who accused me of being a hypocrite in front of the whole class when she felt I had done something (which I had not...I had done other things but not that thing).  I didn't like her much.

On the other hand, Sister Mary Johnetta was a fun teacher who taught us in sixth grade.  I once confused her and John Ett on line and to my amazement I received an angry letter from her setting me straight.  She never answered my letter of apology.

I can't remember who we had for 7th and 8th grade.  But the teachers who had the biggest impact on my life were those I met in high school.  Sister Louise was my freshman homeroom teacher and I was thrilled to be able to have lunch with her at our 50th class reunion back in 2010.  She and Sister Anne, my typing teacher and best friend until her death in about 1995 were good friends.

Sister Benedicta was homeroom for sophomore year.  She also taught me Latin and algebra.  Or rather she tried to teach me algebra.  I was a terrible student.  She even took me for algebra 2 as a private student since I needed the class to get into college and my small school didn't offer it.  To this day I don't know what a logarithm is.  But she was fun, this little round older lady who could easily distracted.  If you asked her a question on something off the subject she would go on and on about that subject until the class was over  I think she eventually wised up to what we were doing and didn't let us get away with it.  But I got a solid foundation in Latin, which still helps me today, especially in Jeopardy.

Sister Mary William perhaps had the one of the biggest impacts on my life.  I don't think she was a homeroom teacher but she led the choir (to which I belonged) and she was the yearbook advisor.  At the end of my freshman year, she invited me to join the yearbook staff and I worked my way up to Editor in my senior year, learning a lot about writing and layout (and deadlines!).  I always wanted to stay in contact with her, but she never answered any of my letters.  She was the first teacher to whom I wrote a "thank you for being one of my more memorable teachers" letters.

Sister Mary Bernardone was the home ec teacher and I took a sewing class from her.  She was a gargantuan woman who joked that she checked the obituaries every morning to see if she was still alive.  She helped me make a dress and was very excited about how it was turning out until I screwed it up and then I think she was more disappointed than I was.  I wore it once for the fashion show and then never again.

Sister Colette was the biology teacher who was embarrassed by anything having to do with reproduction, so just skipped those chapters.  She was not cut out to be a teacher and should have been a nurse.  She taught us so poorly that anyone who wanted to go to college had to re-take biology the next year, taught by a different teacher.

It was rare for me to have a non-Sister teacher, but Mary Gavin was my French teacher for two years.  Strange woman, with bleach blonde marcelled hair, but she taught me to speak French and I loved her class.  She and I also shared a love of diagramming sentences (she was also my English teacher for a semester).  Years later, I had news of her death and the obituary said that she and her son died together and hinted that it might have been a murder-suicide.  Or maybe it was an auto accident.  in any event, it was a tragedy.  She had lost a son in the war and had written an emotional piece which we performed for a speech competition.  I had the lead role and my line, which I repeated over and over again was "Why?  Why MY son?"  Didn't realize at the time how that question would be appropriate for ME as well.

Sister Zoe.  Ahhh...Sister Zoe.  We were all terrified of her.  She was my homeroom teacher for my senior year and it seemed we were always at odds.  My whole opinion of her changed when I learned that the yearbooks were going to be late.  I had had zero help from anybody except my friend Anne, and the two of us were pretty much doing the whole thing by ourselves.  I was standing outside the classroom when I heard Zoe giving the bad news to my classmates and their angry reaction...and then the wonderful scolding she gave them, standing up for me.  I get teary-eyed today thinking about it.  Anne and I ended up hand delivering every Senior yearbook after graduation...sixty different students.

And of course there was Sister Anne, my typing teacher, who changed my life.  Because of her I almost entered the convent and because of her I decided not to enter the convent.  We kept in contact by letter wherever she was in the country and Jeri's middle name is Anne after her (though Walt insists it's after me).  When she was sent to the Daughter of Charity retirement community in Evanston, Indiana, she drove to St. Louis, where I was attending a meeting, so she could give me a tour of St. Louis and then take me back to the mother house to spend the week end. Turned out she was the brewer for the convent and it was very strange sitting in the living room of the guest house drinking beer with her!  I sent her a VHS tape showing her our house and the kids and dogs and it was one of the best things I did because she responded with her own videotape, which I treasure today.

How to Sublimate

So we all saw it...or probably most of us did.  Senator Elizabeth Warren stood in the Senate and attempted to read a letter about Jeff Sessions from Coretta Scott King, written when he was under consideration for a federal judgeship.  Following her letter, he was denied that post.  Warren felt that it was important to read it into the record during the discussion of Sessions becoming Secretary of State.

But Mitch McConnell objected and Warren was censured.  McConnell invoked the rarely used Senate Rule 19, stating that she had imputed the integrity of a fellow Senator and she was silenced for the rest of the discussion on Sessions' candidacy.

That made me furious.

But then this morning I woke up and discovered that Tom Udall, Sherrod Brown,  Bernie Sanders, and Jeff Markley, all Democratic senators, also read Mrs. King's letter into the record without censure or apparent complaint from anyone.  Yet Senator Warren is still forbidden to speak again on Session's candidacy.

King's letter was written in 1986 in opposition to Sessions' appointment as a federal judge in Alabama. In the letter, King criticized Sessions' record on voting rights, saying the Voting Rights Act "was, and still is, vitally important to the future of democracy in the United States."

"The irony of Mr. Sessions' nomination is that, if confirmed, he will be given life tenure for doing with a federal prosecution what the local sheriffs accomplished twenty years ago with clubs and cattle prods," King continued.

The Democratic lawmakers expressed outrage that King's letter could not be read.  McConnell said the other senators were not censured because they hadn't preceded the reading with comments against Sessions.

Undaunted, Warren went on Facebook and read the letter anyway (and probably got more people hearing it than she would have if she had read it within the Senate)

Rather than sit and stew all day, I put on a Grey's Anatomy marathon and made a pocket letter  I haven't done a pocket letter in a couple of months now and this particular one, with a music theme, was overdue, so I needed to finish it all in one day.

To do that, I had to first clean off the work station part of my desk. but then putting the pocket letter together actually went pretty smoothly, if it took several hours.

I had hoped to get this into the mail today, but then I realized that each of the pockets needed to have a little "gift" in it..  By the time I got all the pockets filled, the mailman had come and gone.  But it will go out tomorrow.  But it's done.

Just in time for Chris Matthews, Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow.  Talking about disheartened and demoralized.

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It was the day our Blue Apron box arrives.  Always a fun voyage of discovery to open the box and find the list of 3 meals included inside the box.

They pack things so well with big blocks of ice that the meats come half frozen, so Wednesday is not the day to cook a Blue Apron meal.

Instead, I pulled out my wonderful new copper pan

The grandkids gave it to me for Christmas and I just love it.  Last night I made some great short ribs and then made a batch of Red Lobster biscuits.  Someone had told me that Costco sold a mix that tasted just like the real thing.  She was right...they were delicious, and the perfect complement to the short ribs.

Food, Glorious Food

I don't know how long I've been watching The Food Network, but probably since it began.  I always liked watching cooking shows on PBS, like fabulous Julia Child, funny Joyce Chen (you should hear Char talk about Chen's recipe for Peking duck...and I still think of "oil" as "oir," which is how she pronounced it), and Martin Yan, from whom I took two series of cooking classes here in Davis.  What fun he was to learn from!

I don't cook Chinese much any more, but there was a time when I could prepare a 7 course meal without hardly blinking (Tupperware is a necessity!)

But then the Food Network came along.  At first it was similar to the PBS shows, with chefs like Emeril Lagasse, who was there to show that fancy recipes weren't that difficult after all.  His signature "Bam!" was when he tossed his special spice mixture into a pot with panache.  The audience applauded.

The problem with Emeril, for a cook like me, is that while he made it all look simple, a look at the length of the "easy" steps was often daunting and I don't know that I ever made any of his recipes.

Rachael Ray was probably the first Food Network "star" who was relatable to the average home cook.  Her "Thirty Minute Meals" made cooking fancy stuff seem like child's play and I enjoyed her.  Unfortunately her fame propelled her into overkill, with a line of cookware, and even furniture, and now a daily show (is it still on?).  After a few years, I went into Rachael overkill and stopped watching her.  Entirely too perky!

But the thing about Rachael Ray is that she ushered in a new look in food programs for The Food Channel.  I don't know exactly how it started, but maybe it was the "Next Food Network Star," a competition program, like The Apprentice, where a bunch of home cooks fie to get their own cooking show.  The first winner(s) were a gay couple, The Hearty Boys, who did a show for two seasons about entertaining.  We even find losers on the Food Network in some capacities like Carla Hall (who was on Bravo's Top Chef, but lost).

The bizarre, yet lovable Guy Fieri was another early winner.  He has parlayed his win into a dominating presence on The Food Channel, with not only a cooking show but a game show (Grocery Games) and the ubiquitous Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, which I swear runs more often than Law and Order SVU.  Show after show of burgers and other comfort food in dives across the country.  Even I am often appalled by the amount of grease consumed in the average show, though there have been some places I've seen that have intrigued me (like a crab place in San Francisco that I will visit someday!

It's kind of embarrassing how many of the winners of Next Food Network Star I can remember.  Like the adorable Indian cook Aarti Sequeira; the saccharine Demaris Phillips, whose food I like but whose personality rubs me the wrong way; Jeff Mauro, the sandwich king; Eddie Jackson, the most recent winner; and Richard Blais, who moved from show host to show judge, as he often appears on shows like Chopped, or Cooks vs. Cons.

The Food Network still has chefs that I consider real "chefs," like Ina Garten (the Barefoot Contessa), Bobby Flay, and all those chefs on Iron Chef America.

It was a crossover when Ree Drumond, "The Pioneer Woman," whose food blog I followed for years was signed for a season on The Food Network, which has run into several seasons, now -- we've watched her kids grow up on television.

The network now even has make-over shows with chefs like Robert Irvine, who takes restaurants that are in danger of failing and helps them recover.

Then we began seeing celebrities doing cooking, supposedly from their homes. Chefs like Giada DiLaurentis (granddaughter of director Dino), Valerie Bertinelli (One Day at a Time), Tiffany Thiessen (White Collar), Patricia Heaton, Marilu Henner, and my favorite, country singer Trisha Yearwood, perhaps the most relatable (for me), since she cooks like I do!  (I've been watching The Food Network for so long that I remember before Giada got married, when she was pregnant, after she gave birth, and now her divorce!)

The one show I have no desire to watch is a new show called Ginormous Food, where a guy eats enormous quantities of food.  Pizzas larger than truck tires, 10-patty hamburgers, taller almost than the guy who is eating it (with onion rings on each burger), enormous bowls of spaghetti etc.  It is done with a cheering audience  Some how in this day and age where hunger is so prominent, this show has zero appeal for me.

Duff Goldman became famous for making incredible cakes and had a regular program (Ace of Cakes), showcasing those cakes.  (He made Obama's inauguration cake, which was copied this year by Trump).  But he now has become a host of the Kids Baking Championship, where he helps and encourages young bakers to create amazing things.

That's the latest thing in the Food Network....kids' competitions.  It boggles my mind watching these young bakers, some as young as 9 (Brianna will be 9 in April).  They make such incredible things and they have the lingo down pat.  They talk about "depth of favor" and "flavor profile," and their personal point of view.  I wouldn't know a depth of flavor if it bit me on the butt.  But these kids know the lingo and they know how to "plate" attractive foods.  They put me to shame!

The most amazing kids are those who appear in the show Chopped, where contestants are presented with baskets of ingredients which must be used in creating a dish (on Halloween, one basked contained eels, candied bats, and congealed blood!); another round on another show featured whelk snails and lemon bars.  An easier round was making an appetizer out of chicken soup, pork, squash and BBQ sauce.

The Food Network has come a long way from Emeril Lagasse, and now has a second cable channel as well, The Cooking Channel, for the shows that don't fit into the Food Network schedule.

I suspect it has done wonders for home cooks, and maybe more people are trying cooking at home than buying dinner out every night.

I should add parenthetically here that I had no idea how much I knew about The Food Network before I started writing this ... and I haven't even gotten to Cooks vs. Cons or Bakers vs. Fakers.

Benny Crap

I had not had a completely sleepless night in years...maybe not in decades, but last night I simply could. not. sleep.  I finally dozed off at 7 and slept a couple of hours,  but it was going to be a weird day.

At 1 I had an appointment with the dental hygienist.   I found myself limp and nearly fell asleep while she was cleaning my teeth.  I was so sleepy that I had my cell phone in my pocket thinking of taking a selfie and never thought of it.  I was mesmerized by the posters of fruit on the ceiling, centering in on that ghastly durian featured so prominently.

But after the dentist, I went off to the Dollar Store to see about getting Valentine stuff for Benny and realized that this could be an expensive project.

I have so much crap for Benny.

I have Valentine's crap, St. Patrick's Day crap, misc crap including hats and sunglasses (they have enough that would please even Elton John), things to sit on, things to wear, party favors, a glass with hearts on it, floral arrangement, and then an assortment of things to send to the girls with their weekly letter.  

There was just a plethora of things from which to choose!

I had a great time and since it was the Dollar Store, it didn't cost nearly as much as I thought it was going to when I unloaded the cart at the check out counter.

Best thing was that it sparked my creative gene pushing that cart around the store, thinking ahead to upcoming holidays and things I could do between holidays.  I left a lot of things behind (too soon to shop for Easter) and raced home to see how I could dress Benny for Valentine's day, which will be the next letter for the girls.

(I also just realized I have started collecting a bunch of cheap used-once junk and...where will I keep it? I finally figured out a use for all of those Blue Apron boxes Walt has been piling up to use "sometime")

I liked what I did for the next Benny letter, though I didn't use everything I bought (a head start for next year!).

Who knows how long this is going to last, but now, in the infancy of the project.

Nicest thing, though, is that it has inspired a letter from Brianna.  She is writing so well now and crafted a really good letter.  She said that maybe she and "Gasper" could send me photos too.  I had to write to Tom to find out who Gasper is.

I loved her letter where she told me about a visit to an ostrich farm and then told me she had finished reading all the Harry Potter books and was now reading the Narnia books and then I had to laugh when she asked if I was reading a series or not.  Essentially she was saying "read any good books lately?"

This just feels like such a good project to have started!

The whole thing is because of my cousin Kathy.  When her firstborn grandson was born, he lived (and still does) in Iowa and she saw him rarely, but she wanted him to grow up having a relationship with her, so she started writing him letters.  The difference is she never heard whether he got or liked the letters at all.  Every time I see a photo of her grandson on Facebook and especially his sister, who was born shortly before Kathy died, it makes me very sad for what she has missed.

Brianna and Lacie won't forget who I am!

Oh, How I Wish....

How I wish I should show you what I've been working on all day today.  Back when Benny entered my life, it was through the inspiration of my friend Claire, who had been doing a similar thing for a young friend of hers.  She showed me a couple of pictures she had created and one struck me as something I really wanted to try.

It won't be for a couple of weeks yet, since next week will be Valentine's day for Benny and the picture I made today will probably be the next week, at which time I'll print it here.

It involved posing Benny, which turned out to be easier than I thought for this particular scene.  But then I had to eliminate the background, substitute a different background and add other touches from pictures I found on Google images.

I think all together it probably took me 3 hours to make this picture but I am so pleased with how it came out.  I can hardly wait to show you!

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Walt and I went to this concert last night.  It was a fund raiser for Citizens who Care for the Elderly, an organization for which Walt has been on the board for many years.

This is the 25th year that CWC has put on a concert to raise money for the organization.  When it first began a group of wonderful, talented local singers and dancers put on a show which featured the work of a composers like Noel Coward, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Hoagy Carmichael, etc.  Or the music of music icons like Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, etc.  It was all done to the always interesting, always entertaining background of each song written and read by MC and performer Stephen Peithman, while the performers -- 3 tables of 2 each -- waited until their time to perform.

The concert was wildly successful.  All the performers were probably friends of nearly everyone in the audience, they had been performing in local musical for years and the show was always a sell-out.  In the early days, they brought groups of people from places like Atria to come and see the show.  It was CWC's biggest fundraiser of the year.

But over the years, the group of performers changed.  People dropped out and were replaced, a couple of people died  In fact, the guy who was in charge of it every year since the beginning died and Walt took over that job.

Then three years ago, Stephen's father was 100 years old and having health problems.  Stephen did not think he would be able to put in the time necessary to write, rehearse and perform the show. Some other arrangement had to be made, since this was, as I said, the group's biggest fund raiser.  And remember that for all those years, all of these talented folks donated their time and energy for CWC.  Could they find another group of performers willing to donate their time to put on a show?

Somebody knew somebody who knew people who liked to perform and they put on a different kind of show.  It was entertaining, but was nowhere near what we had seen from the core group for so many years. At least one of the members of the original group came to that concert and liked it.  She said it was time for new blood and that she, herself, the oldest in the group was ready to retire (she died a year or so later).  The old faithful audience was getting older and many were dying and it was time to find something that would appeal to a younger crowd.

The new group who performed liked what they did and agreed to do it again the following year.  By this, the third year, it had become accepted that they would do the show.  Sadly, the audience is not coming out like they used to and ticket sales are down, but they do a decent job and the end result is enjoyable.

This year's theme was advertised as kind of a history of rock and roll, but with songs like "Summertime" and "I could have danced all night" it was more ballads of the 50s and 60s along with rock numbers.  I did like the music.

They did a decent job, but the show desperately needed an impartial director, it definitely needed more rehearsal with the sound system, since the pre-recorded music in too many instances covered up the singers.  The MC, who was fun and did a good job of covering up when goofs occurred, could not read his notes all the time because the font was too small.  Now, this was the second performance they had given.  They had done a show the night before too, and wouldn't the logical thing be to re-run the script in a larger font??

I also had some serious critiques of a couple of people's choice of costume for various numbers, but I am not writing a review, so I will not go into detail here.

The most fun number was when a little girl who looked to be about 5 years old, came out on stage by herself and sang "This land is your land," being joined by a chorus after she finished the first run through of the song. She was just adorable, but her name does not appear in the program and nobody introduced her or told how old she was.  (Since this show wasn't being reviewed, it doesn't really matter, I guess, but it's too bad the audience didn't know who she was.)

The group gave it their all and I think the audience had a good time.  We don't know what the ticket sales were until all the receipts are counted, but whether this was the last concert of this sort is unknown.  Maybe 25 years is the right year to go out on.  But that leaves CWC in search of another fund raiser!

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After the concert, we went back to Sushi Unlimited.  It was David's 45th birthday and it was time for Japanese again.  I chose tempura this time instead of sushi.  And we drank a toast to Dave.  Now we are free and clear until April and Paul's anniversary, followed by May and Dave's.  We have weird calendars.

No Logos Today

My first Thursday without Logos.  Whatever would I do with myself?  I know.  The very thing.  Walt and I went to Costco.

Ever since I became a Compassion sponsor, I feel guilty whenever I go to Costco.

This is excess in the extreme, each aisle filled with large sized everything. I think of my kids living in places where this would be unimaginable.  But I shop anyway.

You never know when you're going to find something new and interesting.   There were lots of samples today but these were the best

There were four different flavors but I liked these the best, so we bought a bag.  However, I decided to pass on these.

We got away for less than I usually spend, which was nice.  I was telling Walt that when I go to Costco now, I have to factor in Blue Apron dinners and how much space there is in the refrigerator and freezer, neither of which hold as much as our old one did, so I can't get carried away with stuff to freeze.

We left Costco and I dropped Walt off at home, took a package to the post office and delivered my mother's laundry to her.  She is now doing weird things with her laundry and mixing up the hamper with the garbage can...and sometimes the odd bag lying around her bedroom.  Whatever was in with the undies this time, dissolved in my washer and left a weird substance everywhere in the dryer.  I knew it was hopeless, but I tried to explain to her the importance of putting only underwear in her hamper.  She was very confused and didn't have a clue what I was talking about but she could see I was upset and she said she would try to remember.  I know I have to change the way I do her laundry now.

We sat and looked at each other for an hour before I left.  I keep trying to find very simple topics to talk with her about, but we just talk about the same things over and over again an in between, I start to doze off.  I wish I could find something to say to her or do with her to enrich her day, but I have not been able to find that elusive thing.  Mostly we talk about how she knows she's supposed to be doing something, but doesn't know what and do I ever feel that way?

I came home and took a nap; Walt went down to the pub where he has gone for a beer every Thursday while I'm working, just for old times sake.  He also stopped in Logos to see how things were going and met several friends there.

Stocking up for the next four years

Heartbreak

The politics in India have changed and it appears that by the middle of next month Compassion International will have to end its sponsorship programs in that country.  I sponsor two children there.  

I began sponsoring Venkanna since June of 2014.  He is 14 and is in 8th grade.  He was scheduled to complete the program in 2025.  He lives northwest of Vijaywada in the state of Andhra Pradesh.  In the area where he lives, there are no water or electricity services and part of the Compassion program is to teach the children about basic hygiene.

His father is a farmer and he has an older sister (22) and a brother whose age I don't know.  He is one of my better letter writers.  He writes in English and unlike some of the other children who seem to write in standard phrases, he always gives me information about his house, his school, his activities and, when there are local celebrations, he lets me know about the holiday and how they celebrated (I spend a lot of time on the internet checking out Indian holidays)

Though I care about him and write to him frequently, I don't feel as close to him as I do to Anjali, who was the very first child I sponsored through Compassion in 2009.  I chose her because she was kind of a chubby kid and I remember how I felt as a chubby kid and thought perhaps she would not be easily selected by others.

She has grown into a beautiful young lady and she writes more often than any of my other kids, and much longer than any other of the children.  She lives with both her father and her mother and has two siblings.  She lives on the plains of Nandyal, in the south of India and is now 12 years old

In her first letter, she could barely write in English.  She wrote this and then there was a letter written by someone from Compassion.

Now, 8 years later, she writes her own long newsy letters in English.  This is the close of the last letter I will receive from her.

I feel so close to her and it is breaking my heart to know that I will not be able to contact her again, or even to send her an end-of-sponsorship gift.  I will miss the unique way she writes her r's.

 

This is how Compassion explains the problem:

For 48 years, Compassion has operated in India, helping over a quarter of a million children break the cycle of poverty.

The situation that has forced us to leave India actually began back in 2011, when the Indian government made significant changes to the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA).  FCRA regulates nongovernmental charitable organizations’ reception of foreign funds into the country. These revisions allow the government to restrict charitable organizations whose purpose differs from India’s political ideology. This means the Indian government can restrict Christian charitable organizations’ activity if they feel it threatens their nationalistic interest.

Compassion only works through local church partners. In each of the 26 countries in which we work, we make needed adjustments to our programs to ensure we always comply with the local laws. In India, that has meant we have worked within the confines of Indian law to provide our Child Sponsorship, Child Survival and Leadership Development programs through existing church partners that possess a valid license to receive foreign aid. Last year, in February 2016, the Indian government issued an order against Compassion requiring prior clearance from the government before funds could be transferred to all our partners in India. We have never been offered an explanation for why this order was issued. We do know that Compassion is not alone in facing this challenge. In the last two years, 11,319 other nongovernmental charitable organizations have lost their licenses.

I don't completely understand it all, but Compassion has exhausted every avenue they can for the past several months, in vain.  Most of their centers in India have had to close and they expect they will all close by the middle of March.  In all honesty, I wont miss Venkanna all that much, but I am heartbroken to think of losing Anjali.  I was looking forward to following her into adulthood.  

Compassion has not used any of the monthly payments I have sent to each of the two kids so when/if this becomes final I can use the funds for 10 months of sponsorship for two more kids, which I probably will do.  But with as many kids as I sponsor, I don't think there will ever be another child with whom I feel the closeness I do to Anjali.  She was the first and only during the early years.