So, I went to India.
And I want to go back.
People have been asking me how my trip went, what I did, ect, ect... and it is so hard to answer those questions. They are good questions! It's just a bit difficult to answer.
So, I will start off telling you the main reason we went to India: to grow in our relationships with the Father. And to learn more about the culture and the real needs they have in India. But number one was to know more about the Father.
Oh, and this will probably be the longest blog post in the history of blog posts.
That being said, let us begin.
We got to India around 3:00 or 4:00am and we slept until about 8:30 that same morning. But, I have to back up a little before that. When we arrived at the Bangalore airport and everyone was grabbing their bags from baggage claim, exchanging money, ect.... my bag was no where to be found. And it wasn't my personal bag- that would have been ok to lose. It was a bag we had packed for K-Homes (the place we were staying) and it had a lot of stuff in there that they needed, wanted, and would just be good for them to have. We had looked everywhere for it and could not find it. So, we started to file a claim and tell them what happened. We get to the end of that process and one of our team members walks by a baggage cart that we had all walked past several times and says "hey, Rachel, is this it??". It was... it was my bag! After over an hour of searching and then filing a claim- my bag was sitting right there! It was a total God thing because we had all walked by that same baggage cart a bunch of times and no one had seen it. We would have had to go back to the airport the next morning to retrieve my bag. So, that was the first thing that happened when we entered Bangalore- how cool is that?!
On our first full day in India we got to just kinda hang out with the staff and meet everyone. The kids were in school so it was cool to get to meet all of the staff and house parents before they got home.
Then we spent a few days at a place called Home of Hope. HOH is a place where people who don't have jobs, are physically or mentally handicapped, are homeless, or are just a bit old and their family's don't want to take care of them... that's where some of them go. There is a women's side, men's side, and kid's side. Us girls, of course, went to the women's side. Most of the women did not speak English so that made it even more interesting. We brushed hair, painted nails, gave them lotion, prayed over them, sang with them, and just loved and talked with them. It was very impacting. There were some who couldn't walk due to injuries, some who were not at all there mentally, and some who knew exactly where they were and what the conditions were and hated being there. It was very dirty and the women were not very well taken care of because there were SO many of them. We did that for a few days. I could talk forever about Home of Hope but there is more to get to.
Then we went to the kids side of HOH. Most of the kids, when they age out, will go to the men or women's side of HOH. Basically, there is no hope for them. So we pray for them... over and over. And we pray some more. And we DO NOT STOP! And we love them and hold them and play with them. They are so precious and dear to my heart. They are unadoptable- meaning there really is no way adoption is possible for them. So we keep praying. The Lord can do mighty things in and through the lives of these kids!
After that we did something we call The Amazing Race. Which is this: We split up in to teams of two or three, the staff drops us off in the middle of the market, we have a list of things to buy (most of which we don't know what it is), and have to haggle for most everything. After we buy everything on the list, we have to bargain with a rickshaw driver and get him to take us to a restaurant for a reasonable price. It was very fun and exciting!
We also went to a place called Daughters of Hope, run by friends of K-Homes, to help out and get to know more about the organization. They give jobs to at risk women who can otherwise not get a job because they have to take care of their kids and their husband will not/can't work. They offer day-care services and feed all the workers one meal while they are there. THIS IS NOT HEARD OF IN INDIA! For some of them, the meal they receive at DOH is the only meal they will eat each day. They teach the women to make things like pillows, blankets, towels, ect, so they will have a respectable job and be able to keep their family's going at the same time. They also have worship, prayer, and time in the Word each morning before work starts. It is a wonderful place. We got to work alongside some of the women and help make some of the merchandise and then pack it all up for shipment to the states.
Well, there is much more that I could blog about but my brain is shutting down at this point... I know it seems like that isn't very much- and it's not. There is so much more that happened in India. I wish I could portray exactly what I was feeling in every circumstance that we happened upon but I cannot. So here it is. I narrowed it down to a few of the bigger things.
Here are a few pictures:
This is all of the girls on our team.
This is one of the pillows that we helped to make at Daughters of Hope.
This is a picture of Jacob, my teammate, with the rickshaw driver we had to get for the Amazing Race.
This is the required picture of Jacob and I with all of our supplies from the Amazing Race..... and Nathan laying in the middle of the floor in the background. Haha!
This is Sarah- one of our fearless leaders! And me :)
This is a nice view from our terrace of the other half of K-Homes.
And, for all of you wondering, here is our bathroom! To bathe, we filled the big green bucket up with water and dipped the little green bucket into the the big green bucket.
The blue bucket was used for flushing the toilet :)
And very last.... TRASH BURNING!!! Because burning of the trash is one of our favorite pastimes in India (really... give it a try!) I had quite a few photo's to choose from. Heh heh.
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