This month my team and I are at one of the much coveted ministries on the world race- Sarah’s Covenant Home (SCH). It is in Hyderabad India and it is a ministry that takes in abandoned special needs children and provides them with medical care and a loving home. I am absolutely in love with this place. My heart is so full being here. If you want a visible representation of what love looks like this ministry is your place. The volunteers and workers at SCH have such a heart and passion for these kids to not only rescue them from their current hopeless situations but these volunteers also want the absolute best for these children. They are dedicated to making sure these children are not lacking anything and that they have one-on-one attention as much as possible.
The way the center is set up there is a rescue home, that is where we are staying for the month. This is where children are first brought to and they remain here as long as they need medical care and until they can find a place in another home for them. Then there are numerous different foster homes with various numbers of children, age ranges and disabilities. The children are paired up with houses that fit their needs and this is where they will remain until they are either moved to a home for older children or adopted. There are various workers in all the homes that serve as a nurse/nanny and each of these workers is responsible for the care of 2-3 children. There are also foster moms or foster couples that are there for emotional support and the day to day duties of running the household. Volunteers come in to provide one on one attention to the children and to help the foster moms with whatever activities they may need. The ministry has a great set-up in that it has needs for missionaries looking for trips ranging anywhere from 2 weeks to life.
I spend three hours each morning with a little girl named Jamila. She came to the rescue center when she was six months old after she was abandoned by her birth parents and severely malnourished. She has hemiplegia so the left side of her body is pretty weak and she tends to not like to use that arm or leg. I do some exercises to get her up and walking and to get her to use her left hand and of course we spend time singing, dancing and cuddling. She is such a bundle of love and joy and she has come to recognize my presence and voice so any time I come upstairs she is quickly scooting across the floor towards me. She also loves to blow kisses to anyone and everyone and has a smile that lights up the whole room. She is quickly stealing my heart and this will be one of the hardest goodbyes of the race.
Our afternoons look different each day. Sometimes we are doing office work, helping with the filing of the copious amount of medical paperwork of the children. Sometimes we do little service projects for the foster homes and sometimes we take the children on outings that could include walks around the neighbourhood or going to places in the city like the zoo or children’s museum.
There is also a bunch of precious little babies at the rescue center so it is like every woman’s dream. There is no need to fight over the children because there is more than enough babies for everyone and so there is lots of cuddlings with the newborns in the evenings. And we each have kind of picked our favorites that we spend the most time with so it works out perfectly. I have come to love twin girls that are six months old and only about 8 pouds.
India is nothing like I expected it would be but I have a fascination and love for this culture. It seems strange to me that women must cover their ankles and shoulders but their midriffs can be showing and so many of the cultural norms seem so backwards to my upbringing in North America. But it has provided a really unique opportunity to reflect on things that I have grown up believing are normal that are not normal in all parts of the world.
I was waiting to post this blog hoping I could include some pictures but due to new government legislation in India photos of children are not allowed to be posted online. Be in prayer that this can change as social media is a major source of funding for SCH.
