It has been a very insightful week. For the last several days we have been on the church campground of our leader here in Sri Lanka, Adrian De Visser. The call it "the Farm" but it's real name is Ape Kadela (which means "the nest"). It is an incredible place. First, it houses their orphanage. They have 45 wonderful children--about half boys and half girls. They range from newborn to early teenager. They love Adrian and his wife Ophelia. Whenever they are staying out at the farm, each school day morning they come to the guest house around 6 AM and line up at Adrian's door to be "blessed" before they go to school (pictured is the guest house one afternoon. Adrian is on the right with some of the kids). They love him to bless them. He does, putting his hand on each child's head and giving a short blessing to them. It is a very touching site (my room was right next to Adrian's which is why I was 'blessed' to watch the ritual).
They want the orphanage to become sustainable within the next 2 - 5 years. So they are doing lots of things toward that end. First, they have cows, pigs, and chickens that they raise and sell their products. Second, they have a flower garden where they grow plants to export. Currently they are building out the church camp capacity to be able to host groups of 200 people. The profit from hosting the camps will go back into the orphanage. They have lots of other creative income sources including making and selling their own jam and yogurt.
Of course, we were there just to have our leadership meetings. It was the perfect retreat setting to do that. Seven of us spent our time planning our upcoming March Summit (will be in Vietnam) and working on opening a new country. Now we have just arrived back in Colombo, the capital, for the graduation ceremony of our leadership class that has just finished their two year program in Sri Lanka.
Please pray for safe travels as I start back home tomorrow.
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