A Great Need More Apparent

On July 25, 2011 I awoke at 3:30am because of the time difference. I was amazed because at 5am I heard singing in the courtyard. It sounded angelic. The children get up every morning at 5am, pray, and sing worship songs. It gave me chills. As I showered the power went out. Power outages are pretty typical in India. Some families only have electricity for 4 hours a day and running water twice a week. That is hard for us to imagine because we are so technology driven. After an American breakfast of pancakes and apples, we took a tour of the campus at Mercy Home. This included the "bedrooms," classrooms, and "kitchen." The children were in class so we interrupted to say hello. We then had a crowd of children following us. More kids were wanting to shake my hand and telling me their names. They are all so loving and open to us being there. Most of the children speak minimal English, enough to ask what your name is and tell you theirs.

Child in Class

Classroom

Crowd Surrounding Us

Next we went to the "bedrooms." It really breaks your heart to see the living conditions of these children. Many simply roll out a little rug and sleep on the concrete floor. Those that have a twin bed share with three or four other children. Many, if lucky, just have a locked case of their belongings.

Locked Case of Belongings and Wash Bucket

Shared Beds and Others Sleep on Floor

Next we saw the "kitchen" if you want to call it that. It was outside and consisted of a fire-pit. What needs to be kept in mind when looking at the picture below is that there are over 200 children that need fed from this kitchen. It is so heart-breaking.

Kitchen

Following that we went to our rooms and gathered all the donations brought from the U.S. to sort. We separated them into piles representing the different orphanages based on needs. Soon after that it was time to play with the children! The boys and girls play separately for cultural reasons so I went to play with the boys. There were so many of them and they were so happy to see us coming to play with them. We played volleyball, cricket, ball, cubberty, and frisbee. They wanted lots of pictures with us as usual. This was the best part of the day for me because I got to interact with kids. They were trying to teach me Telugu. It breaks my heart to see these kids because they just want to be loved. I had two boys tell me their names and ask me to please remember them, Samson and Rajesh. This was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. I immediately wanted to give up everything for all of these kids.

Sitting with the Boys at Lunch

Play Time with the Boys at Mercy Home

One of Many Pics

Later that day we went to prayer time with the girls. They sang songs of praise to God. We sang some songs to them as well. They were very excited to pray with us. They greeted us by saying, "Praise God."

Prayer Time with Mercy Home Girls

We then had dinner and did the usual debrief with the "picture-of-the-day." The rest of the night was spent on preparing for the upcoming days as we were planning a skit for the children.