BUD Centre – February Update

We hope and pray that your 2022 year is off to a good start. We finished off the year with our Christmas hampers and started out the year prayerfully seeking the Lord for direction and fresh vision. There is something about freshness and the feeling of new beginning at the start of a year. We know the circumstances in the world around us are far from ideal but we are choosing to look at things with hope in God who is faithful in all circumstances.

We want to take a moment to express the appreciation we have for all of the love, care and support we received from each and everyone of you. We ended our 2021 budget on a good note and enter the 2022 year on track. The generosity to the projects we took on this year of Covid relief, feeding programs, Christmas hampers and much more were a blessing to those on the receiving end. Here’s a look back at some of our year end involvements as well as our this years goals and plans.

Christmas Hampers & Gifts

Every year we are blessed to partner with supporters to provide food hampers for families that come to the centre. This year knowing the economic challenges we wanted to extend the giving beyond what we have done in previous years. We gave out over 100 hampers and 300 gifts bags with goodies for kids. The outpouring of thankfulness was immensely heart felt and some with deep emotions that showed the impact. We always include a letter of the story of Christmas and how Christ came as the gift for all mankind. We provided 10 kilograms of rice, meat, flour, spices, oil, toiletries, tea, sugar and much more. For kids we gave apples, milk, biscuits, and candies. With all our hearts we were thrilled to be able to distribute these things in person.

Zoom Meetings

We have spent a lot of time on Zoom connecting with supporting churches. We also have regular meetings with our PAOC lead team and head office in Canada. It’s been a nice outlet to stay in touch especially during these isolating times we have all been through. If your church would like to connect or have a video update from us be sure to email us and we’d be happy to connect. Kristin.Kandangama@paoc.org or Nishanthe.Kandangama@paoc.org

Family update

Our family is doing well. We are thankful for our health and that restrictions we were living under have lessoned substantially. Our kids are thriving and growing like weeds. We celebrated Kyla’s first birthday in January. We continue to homeschool our children and are thankful for it especially when the ups and downs of Covid have deeply complicated the school systems here. We have had more opportunities to travel and do more. We even had the for a family get away early in December. Our kids had been dreaming to go to the beach and so we did exactly that.

Year Ahead Plans

The Bud Centre has rebooted once again and it feels so great to gather with the kids in the village again. They have been over run with online school and life pressures and therefore we felt strongly that we need to be a place where they can put the stresses and pressures in their lives aside and just be kids. Nishanthe has invited the youth to come and through outdoor activities like Volleyball we are facilitating them and providing snacks for the afternoons we spend together. We are only gathering ages 13 to 18 at this time and will take things in stride. As we chat with kids we are hearing that many have faced many challenges, stresses, anxiety and therefore mental health matters stand at the forefront.

Prayer points

Pray for us as we strategize for creative ways to reestablish the Bud Centre. We need staff but until then Nishanthe & I will pave the way for this new structure and programming. Pray for potential international or national partners to join us as staff.

Pray for the mental health of kids in Sri Lanka. Many have gone through some traumatizing challenges during the lockdowns. Pray that we will have the Holy Spirit guide our conversations them as we reach out through the Bud Centre.

Pray for our family as we balance life. Our focuses are the Bud Centre, homeschooling our kids, finishing a guest house for future ministry teams, and serving at our local church.

Pray for Nishanthe’s Permanent Resident card as its been two years of very little movement on it. We finally might have some answers in regards to in by the end of the month. This will determine whether a visit to Canada will be possible or not.

Know that we do keep Canada and all of you in our prays as well.

We thank God for all of you,

Blessings from the Kandangama family!