A week in India has been survived and we’ve come out almost unscathed. A few of us have been stomach sick so far, but nothing doctor worthy. We’ve had the opportunity to dabble in a few different offerings here: church meetings, village outreach, and orphanage visits.
Village outreach is incredibly draining, since it is basically walking to multiple different houses and praying over people. India is very heavily influenced spiritually, both good and bad. We’ve prayed over people that are periodically possessed by demons, those who practice witchcraft, and even one house that had a dismembered baby doll head on the bookshelf. (We all felt oppressed there and it was a pretty creepy feeling.) While I enjoy speaking life over people, it’s very tiring to pour THE SPIRIT over people for 3 days straight and not get a lot of time to recover.
But my favorite thing is visiting the special needs orphanages. There are 2 homes – The victory House and the Angel House. The Victory House has around 60 kids, both boys and girls, and I don’t think any of them are older than 16. The Angel House is about 15 boys ages 2-22.
I have already found a few kids I want to take home with me. (So mom and dad – Are you prepared for me to become the mother of 3 adopted children at 19? 😉 )
The first child I want to steal awa…er, adopt is Esther. [Most of the children have been given web names by the founder of the orphanage homes to protect the innocent.] Esther has weakness in her lower extremities, but she is being worked with and is slowly learning to walk. She always grins at you when you say her name and is quite ticklish, which provided a lot of amusement. She is adorable and I was attached to her the moment she started giggling when I tickled her and then crawled away and back to me to get me to follow her.
The second child stole my heart the moment I laid eyes on him. He was full of smiles and I definitely was a bit of a creeper with him the minute we got to the home since my eyes were always drawn towards him. I don’t know if he has been given a web name yet, so I’m calling him Bartholomew. He never stopped smiling. He has slight mental retardation, but if I saw him without knowing that I would just think he was a very smiley and quiet kid. He doesn’t really talk, but he got along well with us and the other kids, picked up on things quickly and was apt to listen. He was also very considerate of things being clean and was hesitant to climb on the made beds whenever the ball we were playing with went astray.
The third child actually rejected me on Monday for Katie when we first went to the Victory House, but when we returned there on Friday he was attached to me. His special need is that he was born without an anus so the doctors had to move his intestines around for one to act as the escape path. Hopefully the home will get funded enough for doctors to build him a colon and anus and he can have the surgery to get that. He is a total cutie and generally just makes noises instead of words. However, he does say “Ama” which means “Mother” and half way through the day he was referring to me as “Ama.” Granted, it’s probably one of the only words he knows, but it’s still endearing. At one point we were playing and I copied a face that he made. He automatically caught on, having me do all sorts of crazy faces and noises.
All of the kids are adorable and fun, even while your heart is breaking for them. But they are a testimony to what the power of the love of CHRIST can do. The workers are very dedicated and it’s paying off, even if just to expose us and raise awareness to the reality of the broken in India…and how they can find healing.
Freedom and blessings!
P.S. After going to the Angel House, we went to the beach and got to go to the Bay of Bengal. I wanted to put up pictures of all the kids, but that will have to wait until later. Until then!
“When we have nothing left to give, let us give HIM that nothingness. Let us all remain as empty as possible, so that GOD can fill us. Even GOD cannot fill what is already full. GOD won’t force HIMSELF on us. You are filling the world with the love GOD has given you.” – Mother Teresa
