Bethania Adventure



2019 Mount Olive Bethania Team
(photo courtesy of Paul Nixdorf)
For over thirty years Bethania Kids has been one of Mount Olive’s mission partners.  And now, for the first time, a group of Mount Olive members will travel to India to learn first-hand about how this ministry has grown.  We will meet children and teachers at three children’s homes, visit numerous child care and after school programs, help children practice their English skills, have dinner with one of the founders, visit the future site of a new Shalom Home for Girls, and visit a women’s empowerment program as well as a rehabilitation center for the disabled. All of these are ministries of Bethania Kids today.
A little history—Bethania Kids ministries are located in the states of Tamil Nadu, Andra Pradesh, and Odisha in southeastern India.  From the Bethania Kids website: “Dayavu Dhanapal, an Indian national, had been caring for poor children out of her back door for years. Her family had been brought to faith in Jesus by the Ida Scudder family about 100 years before. Good family friends of Dayavu and her daughter, Priscilla, were Al and Polly Hennig, along with their son Gene and his wife Kristie (Mount Olive members), and Bob Granner, with his son David and Marilyn. This group came together to build a bridge to help start the ministry of Bethania Kids. We envisioned a partnership in which financially blessed people around the world could share Christ’s love and generously nurture and equip poor children—empowering them to change their own world through the love of Jesus Christ.  When Bethania Kids started in October 1987, we had just nine kids in a rented facility. I remember hearing how the first kids stood in a line, and not having a comb, were pressing their hands down on their hair to flatten it so that they would look better—hoping they would be chosen for this new group home. I remember crying at the thought of a child trying desperately to be neat enough, clean enough and good enough to be wanted.” Now there are more than 1,000 children who are part of Bethania Kids, and partners from around the world. We at Mount Olive are blessed to be one of those partners. Our group will also have the chance to worship with the girls of Shalom Home at the Kodaikanal International School’s chapel as we rededicate pipe organ which Gene Hennig and others helped to get installed in the chapel where they worshipped as children.
Our group has been preparing: getting visas, learning about southern India geography, learning from our own Johnny Vegesna who is from southern India, imagining what 80 degrees in November will feel like. On Sunday, November 3, Mount Olive is privileged to host Josephine Mary Selvan from Bethania Kids for her final stop in her Tour of Love across America. Kate Hennig Teece, Gene and Kristie’s daughter and now the president of the Bethania Kids, will also be present and will join our team for most of our trip to India.

Join us here for team member reflections and trip photos. Be a part of the journey, for we are all partners with Bethania Kids.

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