Tennessee Catholic couple helps build children's home in India

Published: 2004-07-12

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (CNS) -- When Debbie Dray visited Piploda, a small, remote village in northern India with no electricity or paved roads, it did not take long for her to become emotionally overwhelmed by the number of abandoned and orphaned children walking the streets. Her initial thought was to write about their plight. She hoped to make her fellow parishioners at St. Rose of Lima Church in Murfreesboro and Americans in general more aware of the magnitude of the problem. That was until the day she discovered 75 children living in a barn. "She came home to me and said, 'I can't just write about this. I've got to do something,'" said her husband, Bob, a urologist, who took his first trip to India in 1997 as part of a medical mission. Bob Dray, who with his wife lives in Lascassas, Tenn., has returned to India every year since with the U.S.-based charitable organization Hopegivers and its Indian counterpart, Emmanuel Ministries. Debbie Dray, who first went to India in 1999 and visited Piploda this past year, set out to build a home in India that could provide shelter, education and medical care for abandoned children. The majority of the funds for the orphanage have come from U.S. donations, and a huge portion from the people of St. Rose.

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