India

India is about one-third the size of the United States with

a population of three and one-half times that of the US,

1,095,351,000.

The button above will allow you to give directly to the India Ministry. Your receipt will be issued by Jacob Generation Ministries International, the non-profit used by the Rice family for IrisIndia. If you have a PayPal account, you can use it. However, you are not required to use or have a PayPal account to make a donation. In other words, if you will not be using a PayPal account, do not log in. Simply follow the other instructions.

The mailing address in the US is as follows:

Jacob Generation Ministries International (JGMI)

P. O. Box 1068

Mi Wuk Village, CA 95346

USA Phone: 209-770-5096

Shelemiah (Shelly) Foley, JGMI Treasurer

Update, September 13, 2007, from Shampa

Dear friends,

This summer has been so amazing and busy that this is the first time since May that we are able to send an update.

On May 29th, our family headed to Mozambique to spend six weeks with Iris Ministries. We spent much of the time both teaching and learning at the Holy Given International School of Missions. This was the best season in our entire Christian lives! When it was time to leave, July 15, we didn't want to go. Saying goodbye to all our new friends was very difficult. God worked awesomely in all of us there. Spiritually, it was like switching from a ladder to a high-speed elevator. The work God did in us there has prepared us for our permanent move back to India.

Ten days after returning from Mozambique, we were off to India where we took a team from the San Jose Christian Alliance church to Chandigarh and Punjab. Each day, we traveled from Amritsar to several rural Punjabi villages, near the Pakistan border. Although it was monsoon season, the rains took a break that week, making it incredibly hot and humid. This is the kind of heat that makes one sweat and melt until there is nothing left to do but slump in sheer exhaustion. I had sun-stroke on the fourth day and was almost hospitalized.

Shampa, Pastor Ed Kwong and the other San Jose Christian Alliance Church (SJCAC) team members took turns preaching and ministering to these precious, hungry Punjabi Christians. Often we were so exhausted that we didn't know what we would share or how we would even say it, until it was time to minister. But, in this state of weakness, we found God’s strength to be much more than sufficient! It was like switching to a reserve fuel tank that none of us knew we had until it was time to start the engine.

Shampa and one of our local Indian leaders introducing the ministry team at a church

in Amritsar, Punjab

After Punjab, the SJCAC team soon returned to America. We went on to Calcutta, in preparation for our upcoming move back to India. I was able to share God’s hope and love with the prostitutes of Calcutta’s Kalighat red light district.

It was traumatic to go to the red light district in Calcutta and hug prostitutes so young. Some are younger than our 17-year-old daughter. My heart went through the blender as I kissed their faces and groaned in my spirit. I lifted up Jesus over and over and saw these women weep along with me. I sang classical Bengali Christian songs to them as the tears rolled down their faces. The other social workers were so surprised to see these prostitutes crying, saying that they are so hardened that they never cry or show much emotion at all.

We then visited the AIDS-infected prostitutes at a hospice a few miles away. Death hung thick in the air. Many infected children were there as well, some just two or three years old, running around and playing, oblivious that they only had a few more years to live.

It was an honor and so humbling to go from bed to bed holding and kissing the faces of women whose bodies have deteriorated to mere skin and bones. Some wept to be touched and kissed. Some thought I was ghost or something, because I was touching them. Most people there refuse to touch them for fear of becoming infected. I have no words, only sorrow that Christ bears so well for us all.

This is such a dark and hellish place, yet I felt the destiny of God staring me in the face and was humbled that God sees it fit for me to be there among these women, bringing hope and love to them in the midst of their misery.

We are now in the USA for several months, until early 2008, when we'll be moving permanently back to Calcutta. We have just crossed the halfway mark for our monthly support goal. But we feel strongly led of the Lord to keep pressing on for a January 2008 departure. If we wait until everything looks perfectly easy and comfortable, we will never go at all. Please pray that God brings in the rest of the support quickly.

Hugging time as Shampa ministers in Ontario, Canada

Our two primary emphases in India will be the continuation leadership training and church planting in Punjab, and our Calcutta outreach to the prostitutes and their children. We will need a huge financial provision to purchase land and build a rehabilitation center for the women, and a boarding school and facilities for these children.

One thing that’s been on our hearts for almost a year is to build a skate-park on the facility, so we can reach out to the many youth of Calcutta who are gaining a great interest in skateboarding but have nowhere to do it. If you're not familiar with this sport, you can see it in the "X-Games" on TV. Both my husband and kids are avid skateboarders and know that it can be a powerful outreach for youth.

We have huge God-sized dreams and will never stop trusting Him to fulfill them for His Kingdom Purposes. Thank you so much for standing with us in prayer and finance.


In His Great Love,

Shampa Rice


Please send contributions to:

Jacob Generation Ministries International (J.G.M.I.)
P. O. Box 1068
Mi Wuk Village, CA 95346

Email: IrisIndia1040@aol.com

Late News from India, August 27-September 1, 2007

The following letter is written by a friend we work with in..., India:

"We appreciate all your prayers as there are so many things to deal with and it seems it all hits you at the same time. On Tuesday, we were at the AIDS Hospice visiting.... The lady that was very sick beside...'s bed died a few days ago. While we were there, a young woman came into the room, dropped to the floor and started weeping uncontrollably. S... asked someone what happened and they said the woman's husband just died in the next room. Some of the staff gathered and carried out the body. The saddest part of it was to see the look of fear and sorrow on the faces of all the other AIDS patients in the room, wondering if they will be the next to die.

The good news for...is that she is recovering well and the doctor said she could be discharged any time now. The bad news is that we do not know what to do next. We do not want...to go back to her tiny dark room in the brothels because she will get sick again. She needs to be supervised to make sure that she takes all her medicine at the right time and that she eats well. We may ask...if...can stay with her and we will pay for their rent to help them out. The sad thing is when the other sex-workers know that she has AIDS, they don't want to help her. The ironic thing is that many of these women have AIDS and don't know it. There are not really any long-term places for people with AIDS in the city and there are no shelters available for women from the red light area who want to change their life. Please pray that God will show us how we can help...."

Love you and hugs,

Shampa

February 26, 2007

Shampa Rice , Director

Please email her by clicking on the name above. Shampa's speaking schedule is posted on the "Speaking Schedule" webpage of www.irismin.com

We have been advised to limit our website reporting for India. Our local advisor pastor has had 9 of his pastors martyred in Northern India.

Shampa Rice and her husband have been appointed by Rolland and Heidi Baker as our new Directors of Iris India. Both currently reside in the US. Shampa was born in India and spent many years ministering throughout India.  She has returned to India twice in the last year. The heart of Shampa and her husband is to establish a work among at-risk children in Northeast India.

Until our new directors are located in northeastern India, contributions that are designated for India will be held until they have relocated to India.

Since many continue to support our work in India, we have decided to post some pictures of Iris staff and visitors that do no reside in the country. We are adding some pictures of Shampa Rice below. Since Shampa was born in Indian and holds an Indian passport, she has suggested that we can post some pictures of her activity in India on her visits and in the US as the Rice's continue to raise the necessary resources to relocate to her beloved India. Shampa made three trips to India last year and just returned from there recently.

Shampa Rice pictured in one of her loving hugs at a conference in the US

Indian children in prayer

A beautiful young face is among the millions in India, the second largest population nation in the world after China.

Shampa Rice ministering in India. Her back is to the camera on the right with the long dark hair and striped shirt.

Some facts you may not know about India...

Numbers in India are sometimes staggering compared to others. India's passenger railway system is the largest in the world. Five billion people are carried each year on the 39,000 miles of track with 7,000 stations.  There are 8,000 named passenger trains with daily departures. The system is the world's largest employer of 1.6 million employees.

Tradition states that Thomas, Jesus' disciple, founded seven Christian congregations in Southwest India at the time when India was the spice center of the world.

Source: Delta Sky magazine, January '07, pp. 76-79.