march 8, 2010
We woke up this morning around 6:30am. We were served chai tea as we were coming out of our tents. That stuff is amazing! Kind of helps me forget Starbucks a little bit while I'm over here...:) It is already about 85 degrees, but the breeze feels good. We got to hang out with the children this morning and just play with them before we had to start in on our work. It's so much fun to just be around the children as they are super excited every morning to see you. :)
{Monjou, Sarah & Gwendema relaxing before the day starts}
{adorable Chandra Madhi...she stole my heart}
As we ate breakfast, about 11 children got dressed in their school uniforms and were getting ready to head off to the English Intermediate School. Only 11 of the children in the village are being sponsored by GCC so far and are able to attend this school. It's an expensive school and so none of the children in the village were attending school before we started working in the village a couple years ago. Our hope is to continue to send more children to the school as we raise more money to be able to send them. The rest of the children stay in the village during the day or they help work for their families. It was so wonderful to see these children be able to attend school. I just wish they all had the opportunity to go. So sad...:(
{the 11 children that attend school}
After breakfast, I got the opportunity to take my first walk through the village. Wow...I don't even know where to begin. It brought me to tears. A couple of the children went with my group, and just held our hands as we walked up and down the streets. These people have absolutely nothing. They have made huts out of straw and mud and everything is so dirty. There are government houses that were also built for them, but because they are considered the "untouchables" they used cheap material which is causing most of the houses to collapse. Each time we come, we try to build a couple houses for them to get them out of the huts and into a home again. Words just cannot explain this or how I feel right now. It just crushes my heart that this is how they live...and they know nothing different. As I was holding the little girls hand, it broke my heart to think that this is her way of life...and that she doesn't have great opportunity for a future ahead of her.
{blue houses are the houses that GCC is helping build}
{government houses that are crumbling}
{straw huts as homes}
As the day wore on, my team got to speak with some of the heads of the households. Over the week, that is our team goal. To figure out the demographic information of the households (how many people in house, names, ages, education level, type of work, monthly income, etc). It was so interesting to talk with them and find out what brought them to this village, and to find out that most of them didn't even know how old they were. That just really hit home with me...so hard to realize that the way they live their life is so completely different then what I've always known living in the US. And to find out that they didn't even know their own age just baffled me.
{a mother with her sleeping baby}
{indian woman we interviewed about her life story}
After we found out all the demographic information about each family, we had the opportunity to hear if they were becoming Christ followers or to see if they were still following the Hindu gods. Over in India, they believe that they are not 100% christ followers until they are baptized. So even if some of the families were not worshiping their Hindu gods anymore, they still didn't believe that they were considered a christian until they got baptized. In talking with the people about half of the families believed in Jesus, but were still worshiping their Hindu gods. The other half were Christ followers and believed that there was only one God...and no longer worshiped Hindu gods. It was so cool to see the transformation that we were doing for them over there. Only about 5 people in the village have been baptized as of now...but we hope to continue to work God's light into each of them on upcoming trips by bringing up there, down here. :) I pray and pray that we can be a beacon of light for these people while we are here and that we can help them as much as possible. I want them to learn to love God more then anything and know that He will provide in the hard times.
The thing that was most interesting for me to hear when I was talking with the families was that they were all happy. They were happy with their families, and their way of life, and were happy that we were working with them to help their village get better. They lead such a simple life, and have very little...but still find the best in everything they can. Something that struck me deep in the heart...
{the most adorable little boy that I got to hang out with all week}
I never knew just how lucky I am to be where I am at in my life. This has been a real eye opening experience for me...and it's only Monday.
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