Yesterday marked one week since we arrived here at Grace and
Mercy Orphanage. It’s been a great
experience so far. We have been
well taken care of and have it much better than we will on most of the
race. I’m praying that we don’t get
too comfortable or come to expect such luxuries, but we sure are counting our
blessings here. Yesterday
(Saturday) we took our first rest day where we didn’t really do anything but
recharge. A Sabbath day is a World
Race requirement. We didn’t leave
the orphanage except to get ice cream at a shop down the road, so it was a
little difficult listening to the children playing outside and not going down
to join them. I’m not sure if they
understood why we couldn’t come down, but I know it will benefit them more now
that we had a day of rest because we have recharged and are ready for a new
week of ministry with them.
One of the incredible blessings provided by Grace and Mercy
is free board and food. All they
asked in exchange is that we use the money we would normally pay them to stay
here on the kids and for other ministry opportunities. How fantastic is that? We get to use the money we raised this
month to just pour into the kids and bless them. Since arriving, we have noticed that the children don’t
have many things to play with.
They play a game with four rocks, use their chalkboards to play a unique
version of badminton, and play a LOT of hand clapping games (I’m really not
sure how else to describe those.
Patty cake anyone?). So,
our team saw a need and decided to meet it. Last week our team leaders took a trip into town to buy
sports equipment for the children.
They bought soccer balls, baseballs, basketballs, real badminton birdies
and rackets, and many other things for the kids to play with. We plan on having an activities day
where we introduce the games and sports equipment to the children. In addition, our team supplied four of
the older boys that run the orphanage when Madhava and his family are gone,
with their first pair of tennis shoes.
The excitement on their faces to receive something we so easily take for
granted in the states was priceless.
We are so thankful to just be able to bless these children this month. Madhava has such a big heart and is
changing the face of his country for the love of Christ.
On a typical day at the Orphanage, we awaken around 5:45am
to the sounds of a rooster crowing, children cleaning their clothes, the dog
barking and car horns beeping.
While most of the team just falls back asleep, I tend to be wide awake,
so I’ll get up and exercise, read, or send emails. We are actually pretty fortunate this month, because we have
free time until breakfast at 8:45am. After breakfast, we teach the morning classes. As a team, we have 6 stations where we
teach the children different subjects from 10am to about 12:30pm. Scott and Allison are in charge of Math,
Erin and Melanee teach English, John and Kelly teach bible class with the older
kids, Lauren and Lindsey are in charge of exercise class, Suzi and Anne teach
songs in music class, and Evan and I rock the arts and crafts. For the first three days, we made paper
angels and decorated them. The
kids really enjoyed that, but we had to come up with something new on Friday,
so we decided to teach them how to draw dogs, cats and elephants. I think the kids really enjoyed this,
however it was quite overwhelming for Evan and me, as we had to draw about 15
elephants and 20 dogs and cats for the kids who were not satisfied with their
own artistic flair. Some of the
kids enjoyed the class so much they refused to leave and go to the next
class. At one point I had to pick
up one of the girls and grab the marker out of her hand in order to get her to
move on. It was stressful, but I’m
glad the kids enjoy our classes! J Today before lunch the first grade
children wanted to show their appreciation for making the angels for them, so
they took Evan and me outside to thank us in English. They had all practiced a couple sentences, “Hi. My name is Divia and I am from Mercy and
Grace. I love my angel. Evan and Kristen, thank you for making
my angel for me”. It was super
cute and very uplifting to know that we really are making a difference here.
After morning classes, we typically take a few minutes to
rest before lunch. Following
lunch, the children must finish the rest of their school day so we get some
down time to prepare for our night teachings (or just take a nap and relax). Most of our night activities have
changed each day. One night we formed twelve prayer
circles where we read scripture and prayed over the children. Another night we each taught a short
lesson from the bible. I noticed
we were losing them, so Anne and I decided to put on a short skit about
forgiveness. I think that got
their attention. Our group is
actually in the middle of preparing more age appropriate activities, such as
teaching the kids new songs with hand motions, coming up with skits to relay
the stories of the bible, and teaching collectively on one subject, rather than having multiple lessons per day.
Since we got here, the kids continuously ask us to sing and
dance for them. We find this very
tiring, as most of us do not have any new songs or dances to teach them. I recommend for any future racers
coming to this orphanage-come prepared with songs and dances! I’ve never really done VBS (vacation
bible school) before, so I don’t know a lot of the typical dances that would
accompany some of the songs. So,
to combat this, I decided to write a song. Melanee and I sat down and started brain storing a song
about Noah’s ark. I’m about half
way through with it now. It’s
actually pretty good! We are
hoping to put on a big skit with all of the children. Maybe Evan and I will have the children make animal faces
during arts and crafts so they can play the animals. I’ll let you know how that goes!
On Thursday, our team decided to bring a little of America
to the table, so we made fried chicken for dinner! India is currently in the middle of a 10 day Hindu festival,
so it was the perfect time to introduce the children to something new. A couple of the boys went to pick up
the stuff we needed, and the girls got into the kitchen and prepared the
meal. I’m not so sure that Madhava
and his wife liked it all that much, but the children are still talking about
it! That night, we ate the wings
for dinner and of course rice to go with it. We pretty much eat rice for every meal. I’m okay with that though, because I
like rice! If you know me well,
you know that one of my favorite things in the world is Ketchup. I had stashed a few packets away the
last time our team ate out, so I whipped those out with my fried chicken! You may not think that’s blog worthy,
but it was totally my selfish highlight of the week. J
Today is Sunday, so we put on a church service for the
children. It went really
well! The kids participated and
really enjoyed some of the songs we chose to teach them, such as “The
Revelation Song”, “Lord I Lift Your Name on High”, and “Trading my
Sorrows”. I think week two will go
much better, as we know what to expect and how to prepare better for the
children. I’m pretty excited to
see how God uses us this week!
