May 21, 2004

St. Rose of Lima couple gives hope to children in India

Ned Andrew Solomon
Tennessee Register

“It’s true it’s only a small drop in the ocean. But it would be a different ocean without that drop.” – Mother Teresa

MURFREESBORO. Dr. Bob Dray, an urologist living in Lascassas, Tenn., took his first trip to India in 1997 as part of a medical mission trip. He has returned to India every year since, working with an organization in America called Hopegivers and its Indian counterpart, Emmanuel Ministries, both founded by humanitarian and theologian Dr. M.A. Thomas.

Bob’ s wife Debbie started her treks to India two years later. Although she is a registered nurse, she did not go in that capacity. “I was open and willing to do anything,” explains Debbie.  

It didn’t take long for Debbie to notice, and then become emotionally overwhelmed by the number of children – abandoned or orphaned – who were walking the streets. 

“There are 86 million street children in India, of the 150 million in the world,” says Debbie. “I mention this because it lays the foundation for understanding our commitment. All you have to do is walk down the street in India, and the poverty is so incredible. You almost don’t know how to breathe, when you see these tiny children, four- or five-year-olds holding babies, literally scraping through garbage looking for any morsel of food in order to survive until the next day.” 

Many of these children never leave the begging life. Thousands are pressed into child labor or prostitution. “There are probably 3-4 million of these children in Bombay alone,” says Bob. “The numbers are staggering.” 

Dr. Thomas and his son Samuel, who currently serves as president of the Ministry, have made the orphan problem in India one of their highest priorities. In fact, the goal of Emmanuel is to take care of one million orphans, a number that sounds enormous and nearly impossible, but like Mother Teresa’s quote, is just a drop in the ocean compared to the vast number of abandoned or orphaned children in India alone.  

The Drays have bought into the Thomas vision, and are doing their part to make that far reaching goal a reality. This past year, Debbie visited the small remote village of Piploda in Rajasthan, North India, a community with no electricity or even paved roads. Her initial thought was to write about the children and their plight, to make the American public, and her fellow parishioners at St. Rose of Lima Church in Murfreesboro, more aware of the magnitude of the poverty. That was until the day she discovered 75 children living in a barn.  

Bob recalls, “She came home to me and said, ‘I can’t just write about this. I’ve got to do something.’”  

That something was to undertake, with the help of Emmanuel Ministries, the building of an orphanage that could provide shelter, education and medical care. She presented the concept to the folks at St. Rose, and wrote scores of letters to her friends, describing the dire situation and seeking financial support. 

Debbie returned to India in early April of last year to meet with members of Emmanuel and architects and contractors. They designed the structure, surveyed the land, obtained the necessary documentation from the government, and received final approval from Hopegivers.  

Debbie began digging in the ditch herself to lay the foundation, during an Easter Sunday groundbreaking. She stayed in close contact by phone when she was back in the states raising money, and over the course of the year, spent four months in Piploda overseeing the project. 

It was no easy task, considering the contractors and architects could get much easier and better paying work in the cities. It was especially difficult finding and retaining laborers in the remote village, causing a contractor to nearly walk off the site. Debbie pleaded with him to stay. “He told me the only reason he was staying with the project was because of Debbie’s tears,” says Bob. 

The majority of the funds for the orphanage have come from American donations, and a huge portion of it from the people of St. Rose.  

“It was such an awesome thing for me to see so many different people come together to make this work happen,” says Debbie. “Isn’t that what Christ told us – to feed, clothe and take care of the children? We were doing that as a joined faith community.” 

The next big challenge was to furnish the orphanage, and the primary furnishing was triple bunk beds with drawers for the children.  

In addition, funds were needed for mattresses, sheets, pillows and blankets, and clothing. That’s when the children of St. Rose of Lima School went into action, with a passion. During Advent they carried small, cardboard boxes with the name Hopegivers on them, along with pictures of the orphans. They made large thermometer posters at the school to measure their progress. Remarkably, the kids raised $1,159.69 in a relatively short period of time. 

“What was wonderful was to see not only the church community at St. Rose get involved, but also the school and the children,” says Debbie. “We could talk with them and share with them that while they all go home to a comfortable bed, these children in India really have no hope unless someone jumps in to help them.” 

Two days before Christmas, the Drays went back to India and dedicated the completed building, named The Emmanuel Children’s Home at Piploda.  

It was purposeful that the shelter was not called an orphanage. “Because when people say the word orphan, people assume the parents are gone,” says Debbie. “Well that is not the case. A good percentage of these children are abandoned. In India, because of the poverty, if a mother is going to see six of her children starve to death, it’s easier for her to walk away from them.” 

The Children’s Home was built to house 70 children. It is also a safe place where many more village children can come and hang out with a roof over their heads, attend classes at the school and receive medical attention. 

Successfully seeing this project through to its fruition, the Drays have become more optimistic about M.A. Thomas’s million-orphan mission, and have even seen a positive shift in India, where the wealthier castes of India have typically not reached out to the poor.  

“I see attitudes changing,” says Debbie. “It may be that they think, ‘Gosh, if Americans are willing to come over here to help, maybe we should do something.’” 

Bob and Debbie have also witnessed another growing phenomenon in the area of spirituality. For several years now, Emmanuel has maintained a very active Bible school ministry. When they reach the age of 16 or 17, many of the orphan children choose to go to one of the Bible schools. This past year 2,000 students graduated from these institutions. 

“These Bible students then go to very remote areas, where there is no Christian influence at all, and start a very small church by taking four or five orphans into their own homes,” says Bob. “Five years later we go back and they’re starting to build a small orphanage there. So the orphan children that are taken into the ministry are the ones who are ministering to the great need of caring for the other orphans.” 

There has been another significant, though unexpected benefit from the Dray’s Piploda project. Making the St. Rose parishioners aware of the situation in India and what can be accomplished with limited funds and a few concerned individuals has caused them to rethink their commitment to their twinned parish in Haiti.  

“That has just snowballed,” says Debbie. “They have really taken this on as a heartfelt mission. We’ve had that sister parish in Haiti for a long time, but never had that fire to do something. Because of the India project, peoples’ hearts in our parish were opened. Something happened that caused us to say, ‘We need to step outside of our own lives, we need to realize we’re part of this whole world, and we need to answer God’s call.’” 

The Dray’s mission is far from over. Debbie’s current focus is building an orphanage in Mumbai (the Indian name for Bombay), and spreading the word about getting more kids sponsored.  

“If you have 100 kids in an orphanage, and only 20 of them are sponsored at $23 a month, you’re going to take the $23 times 20 and feed the hundred,” explains Debbie. “The ministry is working on a thread, but they’re working. That is what has been a draw for both Bob and I. It has to be a God thing, because it’s growing like wildfire. There are more baptisms, and more people converting to Christianity from Hinduism, Buddhism than ever before. God is definitely working in India.” 

Those interested in helping out with the ministry or sponsoring an orphan can visit the Hopegivers website at www.hopegivers.com, or contact Deb or Bob at 615-893-0225, or by E-mail at ddray4757@aol.com. And for those willing to take the next step by traveling to India, there will be a trip in October.