First of all I ask your pardon for having waited so long to give you any of my news, not that I think my letters are interesting to you but I must have since long already have expressed my joy on earing[1] of your calling for director of the English sisters perhaps you do not enjoy it so well as I do think but still everyone says me that you seem to be very happy and very much loved by the dear sisters, Mary wrote my[2] about your lovely home and the beautiful garden in which you are living, may it be for many years! as a forthaste of paradise my dear Uncle I think to please you by giving a little news about our mission the only and first thing I can say is (,graet[3] poverty and want of money) I don’tp22think on begging no, I know quietwell[4] that in Belgium and especially in Bruges there is plenty of poverty and want, but how can I tell the truth without saying as it really is, now since we are here we have got tree[5] of[6] four times a little rain only for a few hours and it uses to rain for months and months, and this dryness causes famine[7] in many countries hundred and hundred persons men women and children come to Lahore half dead of hunger asking for work and food and are lying along the streets dying with hunger, the Indous and many others sextes[8] attributing this to their sins, do pray and make sacrifices to theirs gods to obtain rain but all in vain theirs gudas[9] so called remain deaf to their cries and do not answer their suplications,[10] here in the middel[11] of Lahore upon a market their[12] is standing are[13] enormeous[14] gun (kanon) and there on certain days the Indous meet and offer to that gun, sweets, fruits, gold, silver etc, etc, and worship and pray and make sacrifices and do all kind of things, to adore and worship their god. In our garden here their[15] are a few trees which the Indous worship and make fire and dance and pray around them, so told me the children of the orphenage.[16] p33the other day there was a funeral while I was with the children and they told me that it was a baby whom they where going to bury it was accompanied by mucic[17] and some women who were constantly beating and slapping their own selves for grief and sorrow, and when it is a grownup person who is to be burried[18] they tro[19] the body to its bed as fast as possible place it on an (houtstapel) make a fire underneath and so in weeping and mourning they let it burn away, All what you hear and see is deaprooted idolatry the only good is to be done by the children in schools and hospitals like our Sisters do, not one day passes without baptisms the women bring their poor sick little ones to a lady doctor to be treated or for medicine our sisters are there dayly[20] and when there[21] little creatures half dead are in their hands they say to their mother; let me wash a little your child it needs a bad[22] and she take it into another room and so get baptised, and then when the mother comes back the sister asks; well mother how is our child, they answer (dead) maragiya missab[23] and they begin to beat their breast and to trew[24] their arms about, but heaven as[25] received a little angle[26] more; is that not consoling?p4Dear Uncle my writhing is very bad is it not but yesterday I sat with my paper on my knees now it goes better on a table. I am sorry not to know better how to write English. but I think you will exuce me willingly I have now to learn the Indoustanie language which is awfully difficult I think to please dear Uncle by sending you an Indoustanie newspaper I got it from the schoolmaster which is an Indou-priest a very good man, next winter I shall send some photos of the mission and I think his Lordship the Bishop of Lahore will pay you a visit in the month of January or February If the dear Reverend Mother where[27] intented to give alms before that time please remember her our poor orphan children famine girls who suffer still very much from the famine from last year. now again we shall get some more poor miserable ones who want so much care to get them back as they where[28] before the famine, nearly all of them have sorces and many die from consomption I am sorry to tell you Dear and Reverend Uncle but the only think[29] wanted in Indië[30] is money for the Catholic Mission bij[31] the prostestants[32] there is more than plenty and so they cause much arm[33]*p1Dear Uncle please present my respects to the reverend mother and Sisters although unknown to me and remember us please in their prayers for here more than elsewhere we are in want of them.