The teams are arriving home Friday, August 1 and God has used the teams in great ways. It was great reading the updates and watching God at work in their lives and in the lives of those they ministered too.

If you are picking up your son/daughter by car, you can pick them up on August 2, at the hotel between 8AM and 11AM or at the airport between 8AM and 12PM. Below is the address to the hotel that debrief is conducted. 

Debrief is the night before and parents are welcome to attend, but do realize that this is the last time they will be with their team and good-byes are hard for them. We have seen parents come and yes, your child is excited to see you, but they want to be with their team that they bonded with and will not see again. So don't go into it expecting too much.

Thanks for entrusting your child with our organization. We count it a privilege to have worked with you and your child.

God Bless!

Before I left for India, during our last day at training camp, I prayed that God would break my heart and show me what it meant to love with His love. He answered my prayer the first day that we were in India. I don't know which child I met first but the children who live outside our house have broken my heart every single day for two months. They are the most precious and loving children in India. They have absolutely nothing, and some live in trash, but they insist on giving me food whenever they have it and they pick wild flowers and hand them to me. It's funny, I thought that I was going to bless them, but it feels like they have blessed me more! At the same time it is the most frustrating thing in the whole world. Since playing outside is not a ministry site, and our host does not like us to go outside often, it makes it very challenging to find time to play. If there is time in the day to play then a guy has to come outside as well, and all our chores have to be finished. So after meeting all these requirements, we finally go to play but we speak no Hindi and the children speak very little, extremely broken English.  Sharing Christ with them verbally has not happened because of the language barrier. At first when I realized that I could not tell them about Jesus, I was devastated. I thought that they were lost and would not be found because I could not speak Hindi. But God really has worked through that lie.  He has taught me that even though I may never see the children come to know Jesus, He would never stop working in their lives. That HIS love breaks down All barriers, verbally and culturally. And even though I leave in a week, Christ will always be there fighting to win their hearts over for Him. About a week ago we were having worship in the front room with the front door open, and I was sitting in the door way and four of the children were standing outside the door listing to the song, "How Great is Our God" ,when one of the little boys, Tinku starting to sing along to the chorus. I don't think he understood what he was singing or who he was singing about, but listing to his little voice sing praises to the one true God broke my heart into pieces. I started crying and one of the older girls, Pinkie who was also standing in the door way wiped away my tears with her hands. It was one of the most beautiful moments on this trip, one that made me realize that God has it all under control. Apart from God teaching me to trust and rely in Him, He has taught me about His love. How He loves the people who follow after Him, and how He chases the ones who turn away from Him. He never stops fighting for His lost sheep, He never gives up hope, He simply loves. It feels like such a small and easy thing to do, love the children. But after a long day of loving on orphans and lepers coming home and loving even more children can be very challenging since everyone on team just wants a break, but God has given us the strength and the endurance to love them even more.  It will be one of the hardest things to leave them, but I know that God has all the children in His hands, and that He will provide for them and reveal Himself to them.

Over the course of this trip there have been many frustrating days, particularly at our Leper Colony. Each time we have gone, a few relationships begin to bud but the overall climate of our trip is uneasy. The neighborhood around the Leper Colony is classified as a slum and therefore there are tons of children running around. It's been a joy to have children to play with while we are there but it seems to have inhibited our relationships with some of the adults. It's been so easy to play with the children, which is definitely a good thing to do, but we have fewer and more shallow relationships with a lot of the adults because our time has been split.

On Wednesday many children followed us into the Leper Colony as usual. Some of our group split to talk to a few of the adults while others went and played with these children. This day was different though in that the children were unusually aggressive with each other. The kids began to fight with each other and cause a lot of problems. We had to break up a fight between two of the girls and that caused chaos. Our translator, Sapna, had to tell the children that if they were going to fight they had to leave. More chaos ensued as an angry parent came to yell at us and then later questioned why we didn't beat her child for starting a fight. The whole scene was heartbreaking because these kids are so hurting. Hurt people hurt people. 

Despite the hard day on Wednesday, we entered the Leper Colony on Friday hoping to form some strong relationships with the adults. Friday turned out to be my favorite day so far. I had talked a few days to a beautiful young mom named Jaya. She has two children, Presan (who is 1) and Suman (who is 3). He husband went to Bible College and works at a local school. She doesn't have leprosy, nor does her husband as far as I know, but her father does and so she still lives in the leper colony. I am always so encouraged by her joy and generosity and hope that I am able to be an encouragement to her also. She is funny and vibrant and the love of our Savior seeps out of her.   Her love for her parents and her children is evident in all of her behavior. The first day that I met her she showed me her wedding photos and a few pictures of another girl from America who she bonded with. It has been such a blessing to meet her and develop a relationship with her. 

Occasionally a group of Hindu's come and feed the people at our Leper Colony. The people there say they are all believers. When the Hindu's come, however, most of them go and worship at the Temple in order to get food. I pray that they are believers and this is simply a sin they struggle with. It is such a powerful reminder of the idols that we all worship at in our own lives as well. We can be so tempted to criticize them for resorting to worshiping a Hindu idol to receive food while we will go and bow down to our idols of entertainment or consumerism and don't even receive anything in return.   But as we were watching these families walk from their houses to worship at the temple, we saw a few families stay back. They had the strength to resist getting food at the cost of idol worship. They were stronger than that. Jaya stayed back and relied on God's ability to provide for food for her family. What a powerful testimony of reliance on her Savior. We have two more days at the Leper Colony; four more hours to spend with this lovely woman and her family. I pray that God will bless that time and allow us to encourage her as much as she has inspired and encouraged us. 

Our team has found over the last month-and-a-half that while we dedicate one entire day of our week to planning for our ministry, more often than not we end up throwing our plans out as soon as we pass through the gates.

On Thursday this week we arrived at our normal time—around 10:00—and found the children hard at work pulling weeds and planting flowers. We climbed out of the TATA (our mode of transportation for the summer) and headed over to offer our help.

“Auntie come…Auntie come pull!” Sujata sounded as she ran up and grabbed my hand.

Our morning quite simply consisted of yard work—there were no theological programs, crafts, or songs…  just working side-by-side children pulling weeds. This was interrupted a few times first by the random discovery of a spider’s nest and a few more times by breaks of silliness.

After we were finished for the day with landscaping it was bath time for the children. This consisted of all the girls lining up and being doused with water. Then Omar ( the girls’ supervisor/nanny lady) went down the line and quickly and vigorously scrubbed them with soap. After the scrubbing they were doused with another round of water.

When the work was finished and all the girls were clean we congregated in the large church room for some quality rest time. Little did we know that the remainder of our day would turn into one giant nap. For the rest of the afternoon, the majority of this children’s home were all sprawled out on the church’s stone floor under the ceiling fans feeling accomplished and refreshed after a good morning’s work.

While laying there with little Bajeeya in my arms, I remember thinking back to my own childhood. I would frequently lie in my mother’s arms to sleep –this single memory holds feelings of love, safety, and affection.

 …Just this simple act of being held.

 It made me realize that these children (aside from the passing philanthropic group) do not have this. They have no one to hold them when they sleep – no one to show them individual love or affection.

The thing about this place, though, is that the children are more sound in their faith than I can ever remember myself being. It is not to say that they do not miss their families…but in their circumstances they cling all the more to their heavenly Father. Although it would seem they do not receive a great deal of tangible love at Emmanuel, they continue to shower us with love on a daily basis. It is an incredible thing.

 So enough about the food. But if you want to know more, just ask me upon return. I can tell you about experiences with a question almost every Indian knows, “on fire”?

 As for the living situation, we are staying in a three story building, with an extra “roof top” floor. Our building is one of the taller structures around, so it’s really nice to go up there and look out onto the surrounding area. (It kind of reminds me of Aladdin).   To the right of the house, not more than a mile or so away, is the Delhi Airport, which also makes the roof top a fun place to watch take offs and landings in the evenings.

The house is very open to the outside; all the hallways and walkways are visible to the surrounding area. The rooms are all private, but since it’s so warm here we keep all the doors and windows open. It was interesting the first couple nights, walking up the stairs to go to bed and having the neighbors from the street tell you “bye”. As for the rooms, everyone gets some roommates with a couple bunk beds in each room. I was one of the lucky ones to get a “bed bug” infested mattress, hence the blog title! After a few days of being eaten alive (even with several coats of bug spray) I decided it was time to fight back. I wanted to be a friendly but resourceful opponent, so with some trash bags and lime green duct tape I fortified my mattress. After these improvements, I am proud to announce that I am back on top in this on-going battle. I’ll keep you updated on the front lines…

Thanks for reading guys!

 A few weeks have passed and I personally find that the days at our ministry sites are getting better and better. As relationships are blossoming, trust is developing and the language barrier seems to become a little less dominant. My ministry group spends our days alternating between a leper colony and orphanage, and a slum (which is unique to our group). The slum is about an hour and a half to two hour drive, depending on how lost we get.  Now spending that long in New Delhi traffic with more people in the car than sardines in a can is enough to make anyone suffer from motion sickness. The drive is scenic though, and so far some of the highlights have included camels, monkeys, a “marching” funeral, and about 300 sheep being herded through buses, cars, and motorcycles on what should be a one-way road. 

“Where did you learn to speak English so well?” I asked as we sat cross-legged on her bed.

“It is compulsory in the good schools after grade six. Is it not compulsory in America to learn another language?”

“No, not really.”

“Well, it is silly to only learn to dance to one song.” [I must agree].

Allie and I both received new names that were easier for her to remember. (I had been working under the misconception that my name was rather easy for people to remember, until I discovered I was being called “Henna”, or the Hindi word for “dye”—pretty close to perfect I suppose…otherwise, all of the orphans call me “Didi”—the Hindi word for “sister”). Allie is now “Pooja”, or the Hindi word for “worship”; I am now “Arti”, or the Hindi word for “offering”.

The children of the orphanage are becoming more trusting of us, and it is encouraging to see them pile out of the door excitedly when we arrive. I love getting to understand more of the children’s personalities—and not just their names. (This one will need encouraging during tutoring hour, this child will lead prayer time well and this girl likes to sneak out when I close my eyes to pray). The pastor and wife that run the orphanage are also inspiring—their true passion and love for their children is unmistakable. It’s amazing but true—children, no matter where in the world you are, love much the same things. Personal attention, kicking a ball, coloring a piece of construction paper, stickers, and genuine affection…

We say “T.I.D.I.” (“this is definitely India”) when things happen that could only happen in India. It is quite normal to pass cows strolling through maddening and dangerous traffic or reclining on the median; swerving to let a whole family of 5 plus luggage and chicken zipping by on their motorcycle pass; watching the rain as a woman in a leper colony kneels to paint my toenails bright (bright!) pink.
 

“The place where God calls you is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”- Frederick Buechner-