A year ago I went I spent two months in India. I got to know some amazing kids at several orphanages, but spent most of the time with the thirty or so at Hope of Glory in Pune, India. These kids became family. One of them, Nikil, comes from a family of three boys all who are exceptionally intelligent and creative.

The brothers spent their early year before coming to the Hope of Glory home picking through garbage trying to find things to sell. And things to eat. Recently, Nikil’s genius has been realized, as he aced his school exam with an 100, and was found to be the 4th ranking student in the entire city of Pune, a city of 3.5 million people!

Two days ago, Nikhil was brought to the hospital. Here is a story from Hope of Glory’s blog:

Two days ago, after school Nikhil came home with his nose bleeding. We’ve immediately thought it was by sun stroke and we just helped him with first aid.

But that night while Nikhil was sleeping blood was coming out of his nose and month and it wasn’t stopping at all. We immediately  took him to the hospital and now after seeing a doctor and had tests done, they’ve found out that Nikhil white blood cell is very low.

The normal count for white blood cell is of  4,500 – 10,000, but Nikhil’s (wbc) is only of 1,000.

He is in very serious condition in the hospital. Needing 8 bags of blood to be put in to his little body  immediately. Each bag cost Rs. 800 (20U$) . He then needs  plus medical expenses of the hospital he is in.

The doctors are still testing him to get to know what the main problem is. They’ve done the blood test and tonight they will do the bone marrow test as well.

I posted on facebook this morning, and already have raised $620 towards his medical bills! Amazing! If you would like to give, simply click on the donate button below- It will go to my paypal. Once the money is collected, I am either going to transfer it their bank account, or if that doesn’t go through (India can be tricky) I am going to send them a check through the mail.

Thank you for being a part of this. I know Nikhil matters to God and he has a great future ahead of him.

Watch this a video my team and I did.

This is Gloria. I got to know her in the spring when I was in India. She is beautiful, she reminds me of the younger, Bollywood version of Rachel Lee Cook. Gloria is quiet, observing the world around her with obvious intelligence. Once she lets you in to be her friend, she is your best friend.

When Gloria was very small, her parents died and her and her older sisters went to live with their cruel, abusive uncle.  Eventually, the teenage sisters ran away and found the only work they could- prostitution. When Gloria turned 10, the sisters came to “rescue” her from their uncles clutches- to join them in the brothel.

The inevitable plan was once Gloria was 12, she would earn her keep the same way as them. But Hope of Glory, the wonderful Orphanage my team and I worked with, convinced the sisters Gloria would be better off with them. They rescued her, giving her a place safe and loving place to grow up, an education, and taught her the love of Jesus.

I visited the brothel Gloria came from several times. I got to know her sisters. The contrast between their lives and hers was black and white. It was one of the most painful things of my life facing the reality of what those young women faced at the brothel, but when I looked at girls like Gloria who had been given a second chance, I was filled with hope.

Gloria's sister at the brothel.

I wish I could tell you this story has a happy ending, but I write this is tears telling you that I found out yesterday that Gloria is back in the brothel. Her sisters took her for a festival saying they would return her, then said that Gloria was sick and she wouldn’t be coming back. Their is nothing anyone can do because legally, they are her guardians.

Maybe you’ve heard stories like this, maybe not.
But let me tell you. This is not just another story, this little girl is real.
I know her.
I love her.
She is there, right now. God only knows what the circumstances are.
Please, please, join me in praying for a miracle in this story.

Pray for her healing, physically and emotionally.

For her sister’s to have a change of heart and be freed themselves.

For her rescue to happen once again, and this time for it to be permanent.

For the story told first hand by the couple that runs Hope of Glory- click here-

I’ve been back for a bit now. It’s been interesting. It is good, I love being back with people I love, and all. I miss the kids mostly. I am still sorting through and processing everything that happened. There is a lot of changed going on in my life right now.  I am leaving YWAM in a week, I know it’s time to move on.  I am praying about a couple different options, for now I am going to be road tripping to several different places, visiting some people. I am ready to live out of a suitcase for a bit. Such is the nature of my life. To go, and to write about it.

Here’s an Article I got published on Assist News.

http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/2010/s10060029.htm

Well, I am home. It’s been a journey to say the least.

India for me has been a love-hate relationship. I didn’t think I could cope at first. It was an odd feeling, me being the world traveler, and adventurer. It felt like too much, too many old women with hands left as stubs from leprosy, too many five year old girls with tangled hair and dirty faces looking at me with pleading eyes. Too many sad stories. How do you reconcile your life after something like that? How do you live “normally” pretending to care about all the things that used to mean so much? I didn’t think it would be that big of a culture shock, and so it was. I didn’t think I could be as calloused as I was at times, only to break open in a frenzy of tears. There were times when the faces and stories would build in my mind until I finally just had to grieve.

Yet those breaking moments were necessary and made it all worthwhile. It was only after breaking when I could see the light shine through. That joy, that hope I experienced seemed to transcend the most difficult of realities.

The other week we took a group of eight girls from the red light district to a water park. That morning, our contact went to pick them up, there was a police raid. Girls scattered, some were caught and beaten, thrown in inhumane prisons. The newspaper headlines boasted of underaged girls being rescued, but we knew it wasn’t a rescue for those who were over 18. Even if they had been sold into the chains of the brothel at a young age, if they were an adult, it was their fault, and they would be punished.

Those eight girls had wide smiles, despite their narrow escape and their bone deep tiredness after working all night. Days were usually meant for sleeping. That day, it was fun in the sun and water. We rushed down the water slide, racing, piling on mats to go faster. We splashed and knocked each other off of tubes, allowed laughter to be our common language.

There was no separation between us- we were women, allowed to be girls for an afternoon, smiling, waking up, enjoying the feeling of water on our skin in a land so hot and dusty. I watched the girls, brown eyes sparkling, childhood returning, and I knew we were the same.

The joy and innocence of the day was broken beginning with the knowing stares of a few men. I saw those looks and it turned my stomach. A fierce feeling that I needed to protect them came over me and I glared at them with a look at authority. They turned away, temporarily. Next came a ego-filled jock collage guy who felt like it was his civic duty to inform us tourists just who the girls we were hanging out with were. “They must have tricked you! They are not who you think they are! Tourists are like gods in our country, you should not be mixing with such people!”

We calmly informed him that we knew exactly who they were, they were our friends.

He got more and more riled up, yelling about how tourists were gods and they were polluting us. A righteous anger rose up inside of me. I marched over to the group of guys with more courage then I knew I had. I told them that we were not gods, actually we serve the real God, and He made everyone equal, including those precious girls. He wouldn’t have it.

Things escalated. Our contact Joy, finally came out and began talking sternly to the group in the local language. While this was happening, the guy I had told off had stormed off to the garden where charlotte was standing with one of the girls. This girl was sweet yet not mentally all there. She had propositioned the guy earlier, which we didn’t find out till later, was why he was so mad. The guy yelled in her face. Charlotte tried to block him, but he pushed her aside, pushing the girl to the ground, punching her, kicking her.

We saw first hand the hate and prejudiced created by a society where a person’s value is determined by what they are born or forced into.
I kept waiting for Jesus to walk into the scene, draw a line in the sand and say “Whoever has no sin among you throw the first stone.” Afterward, I realized, in our own way, we were doing just that.

Drawing a line in the sand in choosing to simply give of our day to people the rest of the world may deem as garbage. To claim  a person is valuable just because they are alive, because they were created by God, is a bold declaration. Every injustice problem in the world is rooted at the idea that some people are more important than others. In India, we got to reverse that.

I don’t think I will ever forget the people I met, the 8 prostitutes we saw as girls for one afternoon,  the 34 kids who invaded my heart in a deeper way then I thought possible. I know without a doubt, I will continue to write there stories.

“Each one of them is Jesus in disguise.” -Mother Teresa

Promo Video for the Children’s Home we worked on

Week 5 Update
Zoos & Underground Sugar Zane Shops

Every day we walk through our neighborhood, about 10 minutes to the Children’s home. We pass “Raj’s Shoppe” where we buy milk, bread and mango ice cream. We pass about 8 stray dogs, often picking though trash, We cut through field with a family of girls that run out dirty and barefoot from their tin shelter to shake our hands.

It’s so interesting how the foreign can quickly become so familiar, how you can learn to sleep through construction going on outside your window at 3 am, or the eerie Muslim call of prayer playing over a loud speaker 2 hours later. Every day we arrive at the children’s home and are greeted by white teeth grinning from a brown face, sparkling big eyes, arms tugging on us. But these kids have become so much more than faces. They are more then the tragedy of their pasts, or the hope of their future. They have become our friends.

Naomi is a five year old who has completely melted my heart. She is the youngest of 12, born to a scheming woman who trained her children to beg and steal. Naomi had been taken off the streets because her mother gave her up, put into another orphanage where she was adopted into a family in Germany. After being their three months, her mother claimed she had been stolen and she was sent back to India, back to the abuse of the streets and a mother who just wanted to get money out of her. Finally, she was rescued by Hope of Glory Foundation. Naomi is sweet, and imaginative. I love seeing her eyes light up when she sees me.

The other day, we took all 31 kids plus all the staff to the zoo. It was quite the logistical mess to say the least. The grand total of everyones tickets was under $9 US. We had a picnic in the shade (no PB&J- Fried rice and cucumber carrot salad with our fingers!) Then spent the afternoon walking around with the kids. My “buddy” was Ruth, the youngest of the bunch, (age 3) she was in awe at the snakes and elephants. Ruth was given to the Children’s home along with her two older brothers when she was a baby. Her mother loves her children, but had to part with them because she lost a leg due to polio and turned to prostitution to survive. She knew she would rather give up her kids then have them raised in that situation.

We’ve been faced with the sickening reality of prostitution since we have been here. We have visited the red light district several times and are getting to know some of the girls. The other day we were hanging out there, chatting with the girls, about to start a bible study,  when one of them looked out of the window and started panicking. A couple of the girls quickly got up and left. Our contact explained that they saw police and had to make a run for it. Once in a while, the police would show up demanding money. If they didn’t pay them, the girls could get thrown in prison for two years, or worse. We also found out one of the girls had been murdered the night before by her customer.

After the bible study, as we were heading back to our van, we saw the group of girls that had left. Our contact invited them for a glass of sugar cane juice, so we headed to an underground shop, hoping we wouldn’t look too suspicious. We hung out,  attempting to break the language barrier through laughter. The machine that made the sugar cane juice had bells on it, so we sang “Jingle Bells” for them. We found out one of the girls we were with had only been there a week. She was from another state and had been sold by a family member. She had tried to escape, but the rickshaw she was in had dropped her off at the brothel door and she didn’t know where else to go. She couldn’t even speak the local language, and was afraid if she tried to go home she would be killed. We prayed for her, asking God for a way out.

Next week we are going to take the girls from the brothel to a Water park! The leader of the home agreed. We are excited to be able to steal them away from the reality of their lives, even if is only for a day. We believe for a way out for these girls, for life to come to their tired bodies.

It would be easy for me to be overwhelmed, being faced daily with such incredible need, so many broken people. But everyday I am also faced with 31 lives that should be prostitutes and criminals. Now, they are dancing, singing praise songs, coloring, learning English. Now, they want to be pastors, rock-climbers, doctors, and flight-attendants. Their faith challenges mine, when I watch even the youngest fervently ask God for their school fees, for healing for the staff.

I am so humbled every day by these kids. They have no self-pity for the hell they have been through. They are a well working family, serving and taking care of each other.

In the eyes of these children, I see the kingdom of heaven.

Yesterday, I walked the steps to the top floor of a brothel. They were narrow, wooden, creaky, dark. It was late afternoon, almost time to wake up, to begin business. I wondered how many walked these dark stairs before, and what their motives were.

We followed Jasmine, a young girl with a slender nose and bright red lips. She showed us to her room, a small dirty place, walls lined with rusty metal trunks, locked, floor lined with girls who’s belongings were inside, some stirring, some sound asleep still. I could hardly stand up the ceiling was so low. An electric burner  on the floor held pots crusted with old food that must had been their kitchen. A large window with bars across showed a prison like view of the busy traffic below. Evening in Pune, India meant everything cooled down, and people were out shopping.

On this street you could buy whatever you wanted- fresh fruit, electronics, rice, sex.

Jasmine pulled out a straw mat for us to sit on, motioning to another girl who was awake. She left the room and returned with glass bottle of cold mango juice for us. We made small talk through our translator. Jasmine has a sister, Emily, in the children’s home we are working with. She is a beautiful quiet girl, I have grown to love the past few days. Jasmine had brought Emily to the brothel with her in order to escape living with their abusive uncle. The people from the children’s home had finally convinced Jasmine her young sister would be better off with them. They still visit her and the other mothers of the kids, which is why we were there.

We sat around, trying not to be awkward with the language barrier, trying to see hard faces soften with a smile. More of the girls began to wake up, and we introduced ourselves to each one. I saw desperation in her face of one of the young girls like I have never seen. I knew just looking at her, she was a walking corpse. I wanted to cry, hug her, drag her out of her dark reality, show her the sunshine and the great, big beautiful world. I wanted to show her there was so much more then this crowded room, sleeping during the day, living a nightmare night after night, then countless bodies just using and discarding. But I just smiled at her.

I thought about Sara, another one of  “my girls” at the children’s home. The first day I was there, some boys made fun of her drawing and she cried and cried. I tried to hug her, but she just stared at me blankly. I told her she was an amazing artist, and a great girl, and she shouldn’t listen to those silly boys. Later, she came back to me, a smile on her face. She gave me her picture, her with her friends at the children’s home, under a happy sun, green glitter making the whole picture sparkle.

Sara was born in a brothel. Her mother died from “being overworked” and the madam of the house was going to use Sara as her “retirement fund” as soon as she turned 12. The workers from the children’s home pleaded again and again to let Sara go with them. Out of nowhere one day the Madam agreed saying that may be the only good thing she did with her life. Sara is 9 now, she’s been in the home almost a year. I thought about the fate that would have awaited her just a few years from now, had she not have been rescued.

I looked around at each women, imagining the little girl in them. Did they still hold onto any hope they could escape that place? Did they still dream of a better future, of true love, of a family? In a few faces I recognized a glimmer of hope, most seemed to have discarded that long ago. How many nights of this before you lose your dignity, your worth, yourself?

The translator asked if we wanted to say anything. I told them they weren’t just beautiful on the outside, but God saw them as beautiful on the inside. That He saw who they really were, still a little girl, innocent,  that nothing could ever separate them from His love.

It’s hard to believe it in a place like that, but I had to, I needed to, for these girls, for me for humanity itself. I found myself believing it the more and more I said it. I wanted to tell him how Jesus came from the lineage of a prostitute, how He offered nothing but grace when the world offered stones. I just told them He loved them and knew that was the only thing worth knowing. If they could just really see it.

I know as many of the Jasmine’s there are, there are also so many Sara’s and Emily’s. Aren’t we all at one point in our life trapped in a dark place, waiting for someone to tell us hope is not dead, waiting for a rescuer? We’ve got to to be brave and compassionate enough to walk out the rescuing side of Jesus’ character. We just have to.

I walked down the stairs of the brothel, knowing I would carry that day with me forever.

walking up the dark stairs
my heart sinks in despair
your daughters are trapped
in abuse and lies, does anyone care?
but I see the barred windows lets the light shine through
I know beyond reason it will be ok
there will be a brighter day

hungry eyes, haunting desperation
dirty hands, tugging, begging for attention
these streets have beaten the best out of you
stolen your precious childhood
but somehow redemption is possible
somehow, even this can turn to good

that dark places between tough and hard
is your home
the only thing stronger then this pain
is the fear you will be all alone
hope seems like a distant land
you can’t get a visa for
but we can get there together
take my hand
we can get there together

I don’t know how this ends
but I know its an ashes to beauty story
I can’t see the road we are on
but I know we’ll get from suffering to glory
this can’t be a tragedy
no matter how sad the tale
It’s a mystery how it happens
but I know love will always prevail

*names changed

Tonight, we are getting on a train to ride 24 hours to Pune. We are saying goodbye to the city that has slowly become a temporary home the past few weeks. The faces I have met will stay with me.

Joshua* had a flashy bright blue shirt that made him stand out from the other kids. He was HIV positive, like the rest of the 13 kids he lives with, but it didn’t stop him from running around, popping balloons and grinning. Years earlier, his mother was in the final stages of AIDS. She couldn’t get treatment, and soon the pain became unbearable. She set fire to herself, burning alive in order to escape this world. He was three years old at the time, and with her.

Pria*  looks like a bollywood version of Shirley Temple with her bouncy black curls and infectious grin. She is six years old and the size of a three year old, because when she was 2, her mom didn’t want to take care of her and her brother anymore, so she decided to starve them. She locked them in a mud hut and left them alone for weeks. They managed to survive on leaves that blew in under the door, and mud that washed in when it rained. Pria still goes by the nickname “baby” because of her size when she was rescued.

As I sit in these children’s home’s in India, listening to incredible stories, I feel humbled and honored. I am amazed God would chose me to be the recipient of such redemption and grace showing in these kids lives.

The redemptive lives of Joshua and Pria may never be best selling books, but now because you have read this, one more person has entered into their stories. As any good story, it spreads and multiplies one person at a time, a whisper in an ear, a chat over coffee, a shout from the rooftop. Light enters into dark corners, truth beats deception, what was unknown is suddenly known.

I wrote this the other day about a woman who sat next to me at the slum church we ministered at.

What stories are hidden behind those old eyes?
That face, scarred by burns?
If I could decipher your foreign tongue, I would.
If I could open your heart and read it like I book, I would.
What brought you here, to this time and place,
to intersect your life and mine?
Have you ever found love?
What are your dreams, your hopes?
How do you see the world?
In a moment, a flash, a look, a nod,
tears flowing at the same time
I know, perhaps beyond all differences
we are made of the same ingredients,
just slightly re-arranged
Maybe 8,000 years from now
we will be neighbors
then we’ll sit on my front porch, drinking wine
and I’ll finally hear your story

On a lighter note, I have been working on a list of reasons why India is great in my mind. Here is what I have so far:

Surprising Things About India That Make Me Smile
*It is perfectly acceptable (and encouraged) to eat rice with your hands, but when we had a pizza party, the kids ate their slices with a fork.
*You can be 40, wear bright pink polka dots, stripes, gold jewelry and flowers in your hair and not be considered gaudy.
*The endearing head bobble. (although it still confuses me “Do you mean yes? Or no? huh??)
*Ice cream stands on every corner.
*Posted rules (such as traffic rules) are more like suggestions. “It would maybe be a good idea if….”
*Appy Fizz. (Fizzy apple juice. Not just for new years.)
*Every little girl is allowed to dress like a princess every day. Even when your 20.
*Sweet green jelly and red onions mixed into chicken and rice.
*India is very much their own country- even the youth don’t seem to be trying very hard to be western. It is refreshing.
*Random kids calling you auntie and wanting to shake your hand.

Please be praying for compassion and creativity for my team. It has been a struggle and a fight to write. We know there are so many more stories to tell in the  next month and we don’t want to grow calloused to it.

“The time is coming when everything will be revealed; all that is secret will be made public. Whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be shouted from the housetops for all to hear! ” – Luke 12:2-3

I believe storytelling is much more then an ancient art around a campfire, or a group of kids in a circle at the library, it is eternally important, it is spiritual warfare. The act of daring to  speak out truth or put it on paper is a brave one, it is lighting a candle where there was only darkness before. In doing this, we bring the kingdom of heaven to earth.

*Names changed.

(I don’t have any pictures of the leper colony cause it wasn’t allowed.)

We walked into the barren clinic on the edge of the leprosy colony. A familiar face hung on both sides of the wall, Mother Teresa, a picture of loving the “least of these” we were about to meet. I made my way along the bench in the waiting room, shaking hands and introducing myself to each person waiting for their weekly care. Some hands couldn’t make a grip, as the disease had eaten away at their appendages. A thin man slumped on the floor by the door, the ends of his legs stubs wrapped in thick white bandages. One lady with coarse graying hair and toothy grin motioned for me to pray for her. She said her name was Sandra Mary, like Mary, she pointed out the glassed-in shrine of Jesus sitting on the shelf across from us. Her brown eyes were starting to cloud over blue-gray with cataracts. I didn’t know how much she could see. Maggie and I prayed for her. I felt humbled and outside myself, like I had nothing to give this woman, I was simply a small character in a much bigger story. I also felt a connection in my spirit, and as if my heart were opening really for the first time since I have been in this mad country.

Sandra wanted to try on my sunglasses so I ended up giving them to her. She made the whole clinic laugh, this wrinkled Indian woman, no longer just a leper, but a celebrity with her “movie star” shades covering half her face. It made my day.

It’s funny, I have heard horror stories about leper colonies, or people romanticizing the idea of touching outcasts. Not to downplay it, but It felt a lot more normal then that. Yes, I can’t imagine that being my life day in and day out- going from clinic to clinic, cleaning out wounds, washing feet, cutting away infected and filthy skin, but to the medical team, it was life. It was what they knew they had to do and so they did it- I am sure with days of frustration, apathy, love and everything in between.

The other day we were at a children’s home. The couple that runs the home, the people who we have been staying with, won’t call it an orphanage because once a child is there, they are adopted into a big family. It was so evident visiting these kids are well-loved and not lacking attention. They weren’t waiting for a missions team to come and entertain them to validate their existence- they entertained us. I wandered into the kitchen and met a teenage boy roasting peanuts on a cast iron skillet. He told me he was 15 and had lived in the home since he was five. I asked him what he wanted to do when he grew up. He told me he wanted to be in ministry as he cautiously stirred the peanuts. “Like, you want to be a pastor, or a missionary?” I asked, somewhat naively. He looked slightly confused, “No…here.” I watched as he poured the slightly blackened nuts into a dish and offered me some, white teeth flashing. Here.

It’s a strange and humbling thing, when God takes you half way around the world, to a place famous for being this exotic, “dark” missions field in need of Him, and all you can see is how much they get it and you don’t.

We went the top of a mountain and worship with a church where most of it’s attendees still live on the streets. They fed us heaps of rice under the shade of a tree in the hot of the day.

We are not the celebrities here. People care less about our skin color. They are not dying to be our friend or to take what we have. And it’s the best thing that could happen.

Last night at church I met a woman who had tried to sell her kidney after her husband left her with a debt and she had no other way to take care of her three kids. When someone had told her that was a good idea, she thought maybe it would be better to kill herself because there is no other way out. The debt is only about $500 US. Charlotte and I got to pray over her and encourage her and we could tell something was really breaking through.

I’ve been thinking of this Sara Groves song since I have been here. It runs as a soundtrack in my head often,

“Something on the road
Cut me to the soul.
Your pain has changed me
Your dream inspires
Your face a memory
Your hope a fire
Your courage asks me what I’m afraid of
And what I know of love.”

I need India more then India needs me.