Old friends and new bats

On Friday we  set off to see Sanjaya and Sanjeewa (the two boys from Ratmalana who had been taken into care and whom we spent three days trying to find in February). We were delighted to see them happy and well and we gave a cricket bat and balls to the brothers for all of the children at the orphanage to use. We also brought sweets and it was a pleasure to see the joy on the children’s faces.  They played cricket with the new bat. We made a donation towards the continued running of the orphanage and we have promised to visit them next time we return to Sri Lanka.

Presenting the cricket bat

Father Mahendra, whom we met almost directly after the tsunami, has been a driving force behind many of our main projects in Ratmalana, including the clinic and the educational sponsorships. He has since moved parish to Nayakakanda and is now setting up similar projects to those in Ratmalana. Since February 2011 we have been visiting him and contributing towards various projects, including feeding street children on a daily basis and the sponsoring of educational projects. We were invited to meet the newly formed Neighbours In Christ committee who help run these projects in Nayakakanda  and it was great to witness their enthusiasm and commitment.We look forward to meeting them again during our next trip. We gave 2 cricket bats to Father Mahendra to pass onto the street kids whom we were unable to meet on this trip due to the fact that their teacher had been taken ill. However we were delighted that we were able to meet several of the children we sponsor.

The NIC committee in Nayakakanda