Month 6 of the race was spent in Delhi, India working with a children’s home called Asha Mission. Asha is a Hindi word that means “Hope.” Asha is a perfect name for the home because it literally brings hope to 35 children. Some of these children have been at Asha since they were two or three days old because they were abandoned in the hospital. Other kids have families but they were unable to care for their children so they allowed them to go to Asha so that they could receive an education and better care. The kids with families may go back to their families some day but most will still at Asha until they have job and life of their own.
Working at Asha has been an amazing experience. Just seeing how the kids live day to day is quite the story. Here’s what a typical day looks like for the children:
· 5:00 am- wake up
· 5:30-6:00- morning prayer
· 6:00-7:30- take care of daily morning chores and get ready for school
· 8:00-2:00- school six days/week
· 2:00- lunch time
· 2:30- afternoon prayer
· 3:00- rest or play time
· 4:00- study time
· 5:00- play time
· 6:00- evening prayer
· 6:30-7:00- my team is responsible for teaching a lesson
· 7:00- dinner
· 8:00- bed time
Every day the kids are kept on this busy schedule.
My team and I didn’t have a lot of responsibilities this month other than spending a lot of time with the kids. So that’s what we’ve been doing all month. Every morning we would walk over to the house and walk the kids to school. After that my team would come back to our little apartment for an hour of worship and prayer. Then we’d go back to Asha and spend the morning either relaxing, washing clothes, a couple days we did some painting, and we also kept a couple of the really young children occupied by doing different activities with them. In the afternoons, we would help the kids with homework during study time, play with the kids, join the kids for prayer times, and teach our lesson at 6:30. This was our usual schedule Mon.-Sat. On Sundays our team was responsible for leading the Sunday school hour and leading the church service, which included the sermon and worship.
We were also able to spend one day visiting and praying for people of a leper colony and a slum community. Several of the Asha children came from these two places because the families simply aren’t able to afford an education for their kids.
Overall it’s been another good month of the race. Even though India is a stinky, dirty, smelly place, the gospel is being preached, the Holy Spirit is moving, and the lives of children are being changed through the work of people at Asha Mission. I’m excited to see in the future how God will continue to use the children of Asha to share the love of Jesus wherever they go in life.
*Also check my teamate Raquel Pinto's blog to see pictures of the whole month. http://raquelpinto.theworldrace.org/?filename=our-days-in-india
