Female Infant Refuge

Heart to Heart:

Greetings in Jesus name, this is our privilege to share with you about our ministry and what we are doing for the kingdom of God in Chennai, India. Thanks for your valuable time to go through this site, as you know or may not know, we are running a "Destitute New born Girl Babies Home" in Tamil Nadu. Here we are saving lives of baby girls who otherwise through belief would be killed. Some district people believe that baby girls are not well and a curse to their family and God. So they are killing them as soon as they are born. Here, in this site, we are giving some short details about how they are killing the babies. Also there are some details about us, our baby home, as well as our other tasks.

Something about us and our Vision:

I am Russal Raj, my wife is Kumari Russal, and we were both raised in Christian families and committed to the mission after our marriage. In 1998 we came to the ministry as full time workers. From 1998 to May 2006 we were working in an organization called Youth With A Mission. We were involved with the Church Planting Team and worked with the local churches to train the lay leaders to reach the unreached people of Tamil Nadu. Through this ministry we were visited many remote villages where the people are killing their baby girls.

When we see this terrible things! Our hearts really broke for these innocent infants, even we working with the team; our hearts was grieving for these babies. We had lots of questions in our hearts and ask God why this happening? And who is going to save these babies from the death? And also we prayed, Lord, we want to save these babies for you, if you want to use us; please give us a conformation, then we know that you are with us as the first person, we do not want to do anything with our own will. Five years we were keep prying for this, mean time we had lots of experience and learn lots of new things, also Kumari has a uterus problem and suffering every month, God completely healed her with in this five years.

Conformation of our Vision:

In our marriage life, we were unable to have our own children. Throughout our ministry experience we prayed for many people who couldn't conceive a baby. God heard our prayers and blessed many couples with a beautiful child, we continued praying for our own conception, but this never happened for us. We had a lot of questions. Why God is not giving us a baby? One day during prayer I asked, "God what plan do you have for us? Why are you not giving us a baby?" God spoke to us clearly with the scripture of Gen. 17:4. “As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shall be a father of many nations” (Our Tamil Bible says: "you shall be a father of many Children") we realized that God had a plan for us and He was going to fulfill it. After that I had a dream that 'many small fish were dying because they were out of water. People were stepping on the fishes; some of them were already dead while others were in dying condition. But no one cared about them. Kumari and I took all the fish and put them back into the water safely'. After I woke-up I shared the dream with my wife, she told me that she had the same dream! We realize that God want to save these babies though us, we should not wait any more and we praise God for that confirmation.

Started to save Babies:

After this confirmation, we started to do some research on where and how these babies were being killed. We collected lots of information, visited some organizations and talked with many leaders with lots of experience, and listened to some helpful advice. Slowly but surely we were getting ready. Our five years prayer burden fulfilled at God’s time. On June 2006 we started our Baby home. "Praise the Lord!" one by one we saved 9 lovely, girl babies so far, if we say what we face while we saved these babies!!! That would go more than hundred pages. That much we face lots of problems and difficulties.

A Short Story of receiving Babies:

For example we give you one story shortly. We saved our second baby ANGELINE on 11-08-2006, just ten days difference between first and second baby, everything was new for us, after ten days the parents came with some village people and ask the baby back, but they cannot find where the baby is, that is too far from the village, any way our contact person called us by phone and explained the situation, Kumari and me were crying with the baby, we don’t want to give our lovely baby back to them, we do not know what to do that situation, I talked with some other friends and get their opinion, all of them said the baby is better to be with her parents, so you give baby back to them, again we both pray to God and ask Him what to do? We do not had any peace in our hearts to give baby back to them, God gave me a thought to ask the people why they want to get baby back, immediately I called our contact person and said him to go to the village and know the reason why want baby back. There the truth came out, they parents went to the Hindu priest and said him that their baby has given to someone, the priest said to them, if your baby alive anywhere in the world that is bring curse to your family, so find the baby and kill her immediately. I said him, go back to the people and talk with them boldly, if you not leave from here immediately we will complaint to the police and put all of you into the jail for the murder case, you are seeking baby to murder, we have wideness in the village. So he said the same and the people turn back. Praise the Lord. Now the lovely baby is growing with joy in God’s presence, just she complete her 2 years and 3 months, she is so sweet and intelligent, when we see her smile, our heart is spilling over with joy and glad, always we thank God for the way he leading us and protecting our babies, each babies has thrilling stories like this, other details and the great stories are given in this site. So please take a moment and go through. We urge you to keep praying for us and our lovely babies.

How many babies we want to save?

We are not only just saving babies from being murdered; we want to stop this practice. We conduct many awareness programs in the villages where the murdering is happening. We educate them on how wrong it is to murder babies, that babies are a gift from God, how they can care for them and so on. Since we began conducting these programs in the villages, we have seen changes in their mindset and the number of babies being murdered is going down. 40 percentage of the murdering is stopped; we are sure within several years this practice will no longer be happening. But this moment, 60 percentage babies still being killed, we want to save more as much we can. At present, 9 babies, 4 staff, Kumari and me 15 people are staying in a rental house, this house is not enough even for these 15, if we take more babies, that is very difficult to care them as healthy and it is not a hygienic. Even now, if one baby gets sick, immediately spread to other babies, may be the truth is they do not have the mother feeding, also we have to separate them from the sick, but we do not have enough place to keep them separately. Also the other thing is: people are not willing to give their house to stay these little babies, they think that the babies will make dirty their house. After lots of difficulties we find this house, they agree for 3 years, but early they told to vacate the house before the end of 2009. We are praying to purchase a land and build a house for our babies, then they can play freely, use the house as they wish, no one will ask question to them, also that would be a great help to save new babies and care them safely. We know God will do that, because He is the father of these babies, He just appointed us to care them; He has the real concern about them more than us, please keep this important needs in your prayers.

Growth and health of 9 babies:

First three babies Grace, Angeline and Erika just finished their 2 years old, three of them going to a Christian Pre School, glad to see them take their lunch back and go to the school every morning, from there they learned to pray, sing and dance, in our daily prayer they sit with us, clap their hands and pray with us, from this child hood they started to love Jesus, when a baby do any mistake they say “do not do that, Jesus don’t like this” we are so glad to hear from their lovely voice, always they like to watch Christian worship and Children VCDs, so most of the time we play it for them.

Kelsey and Jenifer is the next senior; Kelsey has some mental growth problem, Doctor found that the mother attempted many abortions when she was in the womb. This has lead to a minor mental disability for Kelsey. We keep consulting doctor and taking medicines for that. Her state is continually improving. She like much milk. Jenifer was the third girl in the family, so her parents tried to kill her. In the process of this abuse they broke Jenifer’s right arm! After we receive, we took her to the orthopedic specialty hospital to join her hand, after 3 months care her hand completely healed. Now she started to walk, we found her right leg is little short than the other leg, we took her to the orthopedic physiotherapy and talking treatment, we want to see her as other normal babies, God has to do a divine miracle over her body. Always she looks other babies’ hands to take the food from them; it is so funny to see her actions.

Next baby is Blessey. She is the weightless baby than others. She has a little bump in her head, but now slowly it is removing, she is very quite baby, always she like to take someone, she is quite ok and growing fast. The next baby is Hannah. She is the most quite baby and very less time went to the hospital for the sickness. She eat well and sleep nicely, love to watch other babies playing, she is rolling around and is quite mobile, now she is trying to walk. The 8 star is Trisha. She is rolling around the hall, but not trying to walk, she stood her feeds with trembling, several times we took her to the Doctor, he told that she takes little more time to walk, otherwise nothing to worry, she love to sleep and laugh, if she started to cry, everyone has to close their ears, that much make sound, if give something to each! She gets quite and plays herself without any noise. The last one is Sharon. She is the youngest baby just 11 months old, she is good health and quite ok, her major disease is cough and running nose, many times we admitted her to the hospital, if she get sick! One or two weeks have to stay in the hospital, so we are very careful to care her.

Nearby our home, within 2k.m distance. There is a child specialist hospital, always the hospital with full of rush, there is a token system, always people will be in the queue, when all the babies get sick together, 4 to 5 times we go to the hospital with babies, each time up to 3 house we have to wait there, that was very difficult and painful to us, one day I pray and talk to the doctor directly, doctor, let us find a grace in your eyes for our babies, we have nine babies with us, each visit we have to wait up to 3 hours, so please help us to come directly without any token or wait, that would be a great help to us and our babies, Praise the Lord, doctor said: don’t worry, you no need to do the same again, you can come directly to me, I’ll talk to the staff. After that mostly we wait only 5 minutes, then go to the doctor room, the staff also show kindness to us, also we have some reduction, some time we take 4 babies at one visit, Doctor check all the babies but charge to one baby, that is really great. May the Lord bless the Doctor, family and his hospital?

Experience:

Russal:

High School certificate,
48 University credit hours towards a degree in Biblical Studies,
Eight years ministry experience in YWAM.
Children ministry master training,
Care cell master training,
Counseling master training,
Administration (SOA. School of Office Administration)
Social health and Community Development,
Leadership master training,
Computer courses.

Kumari:

High School certificate,
Two-years of Bible College with a diploma,
24 credit hours with the University of the Nations,
Eight years ministry experience in YWAM.

Destitute’s Charitable Trust, is a Charitable Trust in the service of mankind, is based at Chennai, India. Established with registration no.2278 dt.23.06.2006. Destitute’s Charitable Trust has been doing service for young female victims of abandonment due to cultural and sexual discrimination in India. We are also registered under Sec.12 AA of the IT Act.