On recent trip to India, Dianne Reynolds and Jennifer White saw poverty most Americans can only imagine – starving children, open sewers running down village roads and women walking miles just to get water.

The experience had a profound effect on both women. White of Gray said, after she returned, she felt a pain in the pit of her stomach. For a week, she hibernated, refusing to answer the phone and talking about the experience with only her husband.

“I had this overwhelming feeling of grief like someone had died,” said White.

“I cried for two weeks when I got back,” said Reynolds of Gorham.

The two women have vowed to help some of the impoverished people in India. White, who owns A Joyful Noise Christian Daycare centers in Westbrook and Windham, is heading up Global Harvest Outreach, a non-profit relief organization. Reynolds, a retired posal worker and mother, is the group’s secretary.

They are embarking on a fundraising drive to found an orphanage in Coonoor, a village of 52,000 in Tamil Nadu in the mountains of Southern India. In addition, they’re mapping plans to help suffering survivors of the tsunami, which hit nearly five months ago.

The United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, reports that 280,000 died when the tsunami hit the coasts of Southeast Asia and India in December. White and Reynolds said 60,000 of those victims were in India, leaving countless orphans.

“This will be a lifelong mission for us,” said Reynolds.

‘A miracle’

Reynolds first went to India two years ago with a local church group. She returned with White this year intending to buy land for an orphanage.

Arriving in Coonoor in March, their plans changed. They learned through a worker from another ministry on the day they arrived that a former hospital building had become available because of a foreclosure.

“It’s a miracle,” the two women said in unison last week.

The two women, members of Windham Assembly of God Church, submitted a bid of $100,000 and put down a $10,000 deposit on the brick, two-story building. They’ve got a June 26 deadline to raise $75,000, if they’re the winning bidders.

The 12,000-square-foot building would house 80 orphans. It has 17 bedrooms with baths, six large classrooms and a cafeteria. The 11-year-old building has been vacant for two years, but they said it’s in beautiful condition.

It’s perched on a hill overlooking Coonoor, an area 6,000 feet above sea level. Most people in the village there are poor and lack good nutrition and medical supplies.

The need for orphanages is huge in India. The two women say India has 18 million children living on the streets. Many babies are abandoned, with some being tossed in trashcans. Reynolds said rape is prevalent there.

Many baby girls are often killed, according to White, because females are looked down upon. Some there believe they’re doing the girls a favor by killing them. The culture also has a marriage dowry system, and paying a dowry can strain family finances.

Thousands of orphans are struggling to survive in the outdoors near Coonoor. “The world has got to help them,” White said.

Kids are living in mountain huts made of elephant dung. “We’re going to pluck kids out of the bushes,” Reynolds said. “They don’t have a welfare system.”

Terrible suffering

While in Coonoor, White and Reynolds stayed with the family of Jamie Stanly of Comforter Action Mission Trust. He drove the two women on a full day’s ride to deliver supplies to a coastal area devastated by the tsunami in December.

White and Reynolds took seven suitcases of medical and other supplies to aid victims. They walked on a beach in Vedaranniyam where 15,000 people died in the tsunami and locals said most of the dead were buried under the beach sand. The two women handed out packets with toothbrushes, toothpaste, pencils and crayons to the kids.

“We were getting mauled. It’s so desperate,” Reynolds said.

In a coastal village near Pondicherry, the two women met with fishermen who were at sea fishing during the tsunami. They lost their families who were on shore. Many of their wives were washing clothes at the waters edge when the tsunami hit.

The fishermen are cutting trees to rebuild boats they lost. With a boat motor costing $1,000 in U.S. money, the high cost prohibits fishermen from buying them. Reynolds said the government there doesn’t want them catching fish, which feed on bodies of tsunami vicitms floating in the water.

Tsunami survivors are begging for help. Kids there are sick with respiratory diseases and women are still crying. There are no soup kitchens, no homeless shelters and some live in buildings without roofs. Many families are sleeping on the streets.

“They’re suffering terribly,” Reynolds said.

White said relief money coming in from all over the world is not getting through to the poorest because of the caste system – a Hindu social class system – in India. The lowest in the caste system aren’t receiving help.

“The caste system is still alive,” White said. “These people have nothing. It’s like going back 2,000 years. They’re broken. When you hug them, they sob.”

Reynolds’s husband, Craig, serves as treasurer of Global Harvest Outreach and White’s husband, Dean, is also supportive of the mission. White has one child, and Reynolds has three children.

Both women are committed to the project. “I’ll spend every day the rest of my life working to help them,” she said about the poor in India.

White is stepping down as head of the daycare centers on June 1 to dedicate herself full-time to relieve suffering in India. She is planning another trip. Reynolds homeschools her children. She hopes to take her husband and children to India for a few months each year to help orphans there.

“I feel this huge burden to return to make a positive difference, a change. I want to help these people,” White said.

Aiding tsunami victims is a long-term project, and a Catholic Relief Services Web site said recovery from the tsunami would take years. Undeterred, the two women have a plan of action to launch an adopt-a-village program to aid tsunami victims. They envision building community centers, chapels and clinics in villages ravaged by the tsunami.

But the two women see buying the building for an orphanage as the first step. “It’s a great beginning,” White said.

Facing a deadline to raise money to buy the building for the orphanage, White and Reynolds are hoping that businesses along with local churches and civic groups will help. They said 100 percent of the money donated goes to the fund. They pay for their own trips.

Those wishing to help can write Global Harvest Outreach, 120 Tandberg Trail, Windham, Maine 04062; or call 712-7371; or their Web site at www.globalharvestoutreach.com.

Jennifer White, on the left, and Dianne Reynolds with a group of fisherman in Pondicherry. The fishermen said they were fishing when tsunami hit, destroying their boats. Dianne Reynolds kisses a child in Coonoor.

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