Share your story!

Grab your cameras and show everyone what you've been up to with the Rice Bag Project!

Email your photos, along with any stories, quotes, or ideas, to sonlight@missionindia.org. We'll post these on our website each week and give you a chance to tell other Sonlight families what you're doing.

Kids, we want to hear from you too! Tell us what you've learned so far or share your prayer for the women and families of India. How has the Rice Bag Project helped touch your heart? Include your first name and age, and if you'd like, your state or country.

(By sharing your stories and photos you give Mission India permission to publish this information on our website and/or in other print materials.)

Isaiah and Elijah count and graph their coins for the Rice Bag Project.

Here's what Sonlighters have been telling us:

Robynne, 11, says:

Being able to collect money for those in need is cool and I'm so happy when I find out that another person has been saved.

Ben, 14, says:
Thank you so much for what you have been doing for the people of India you really are doing a good job. I have been collecting some change in my rice bag I know it will do a lot of good. I enjoy learning about India so keep up the good work.

Bethany in Maine emailed us a photo of her sons:

We are counting and graphing our weekly coins. This week when Isaiah saw we haven't done as well as our first week he ran to his bank and offered 75 more cents. Here is a picture of Isaiah and Elijah counting and graphing our coins.

Jenny in Minnesota says:

Josiah, 7, and Sam, 10, shared what they've been learning with their grandmother's Bible study and invited them to help save loose change for India's illiterate women!

We are really enjoying being able to learn more about India through this project. It is very timely, as we just started the adoption process in order to adopt a little girl from India! Since this country is so dear to our hearts, the boys and I decided to go to Grandma's Bible Study and invite them to join us in saving their change for Mission India. We showed the DVD, shared India facts, prayed for India and left each of them with a rice bag that we will collect in a few weeks!

Diane, a homeschooling mom of four in Wisconsin, shares her family's unique way of saving loose change:

We have used the Sonlight/Mission India project in conjunction with a geography study that our family is doing as a part of our school year. We decided to do things within our home to fill the rice bags.

Our main idea was to put the bags in places in our home where we have things or conveniences that those in India live without. For example, there is a bag in each bathroom. Before using the bathroom for anything that uses water, we put a coin into the bag, reminding us that those in India go without indoor plumbing or clean running water all the time.

We also have a bag by where we keep our homeschooling books, each day our children each put in a coin to remind us that we have the priviledge of learning and the girls and women in India do not have that priviledge.

Other ideas have been to put it by the car keys for each time we use our car. Another to put in a coin each night when our Dad comes home from work to remind us that there fathers often don't come home for many days or weeks, sometimes months at a time. We have ranked each of these things and so each priviledge that we have receives a different coin value.

Our children have really had fun watching the bags fill up and it gives us many reminders throughout the day to pray for those in India and to also thank the Lord for all that He has given to us.