My Breakup with India

As cliché as this blog might sound to some…I have come to realize that until you have experienced life in a third-world country…you really do not know what it is like. Life is so completely different. I knew I would have to give up Target, Starbucks, and my cozy bed however, without even knowing it I am giving up a little piece of myself in every country.  
After leaving India, I started having mixed feelings of sadness and anger. I was sad we had to leave the orphanage and children we had made progress with behind. It was similar to the feelings you have after a breakup…the terrible feeling of knowing you have just lost someone close to you. Sometimes it is easy and we want to move on, but sometimes there is the resistance of wanting to stay in those old comfortable feelings. Some might call those residual feelings self-destructive and others might call them growth opportunities. The residual feelings I have from India are similar to those of a breakup. How did they sneak up on me? I was not necessarily enjoying my time in India the first couple weeks. I was too busy filling my mind with thoughts of homesickness and discouragement, but yet here I am now feeling heartbroken.

Life in Ongole, India:
Our schedule in India was very routine: six days a week we would go to Sarah’s Covenant Home (an orphanage for mentally disabled children) from 8am-4pm. Which to some might not sound very long, but our days were filled with jumping, biting, yelling, laughing, running, and playing with children. Children are very exhausting!  
As a team we struggled with wanting to break out of the same 8-5 routine we had hoped to leave back home in the states.  However, I found myself on the same schedule. I would get up at 5:45am everyday, work out, eat breakfast, and go to our ministry site by 8:00am. After we would get home around 4:30 we would have to go to the grocery store, cook dinner, do laundry via buckets, and have team time and feedback. Overall, our days were packed back to back with the busyness of life. We were left exhausted with little time to process what we were seeing at the orphanage.
 
Working at the Orphanage:
Seeing the kids at the orphanage was difficult knowing that their living conditions did not nearly match those in the states. It was truly heartbreaking to see how some of these children are forced to live, knowing their conditions could be easily cared for and even possibly treated back home. However, the reality is that India does not have the same resources we do and the care the children received at Sarah’s home was the best in India. They received Pediasure, consistent meals, Huggies diapers, and showers, which is a big deal for India. We were told many orphanages have orphans lying on the ground without diapers or food day in and day out. 
 

L:
L is the sassy and sweet little girl I met while I was at the orphanage. She has one finger and two toes, but that does not stop her from living a completely normal life. The only reason she was placed at the home was because of her “condition,” although there is nothing wrong with her mentally. While I was in India, I watched L eat, color, paint her nails, put on her shoes, play with toys, carry things around, and love others. She is no different than any other “normal” child with ten fingers and ten toes, but because she has this birth defect she is considered cursed and placed in the lowest cast system and India.

Our last day at the orphanage, we stood crying staring at each other through the big iron gate, knowing we might never see each other again. My heart was breaking knowing that I was leaving her behind, not able to care for her every day. Although I knew there are more World Race teams to come and more people to love on her, I will never forget the footprints she left on my heart while I was in India.
 
I do not have any regrets about loving as deep as I did, but it reminds me of all the hellos and goodbyes that are yet to come on the race. Although I wish I could figure out how to better prepare my heart for the next 10 months, I do not think there is a way. Can a heart prepare itself for a breakup, a loss, or a death? The World Race stirs things inside of people that we thought were long gone. The reality is, when you come on the race, you don’t loose the old you, but you are constantly being shaped and molded into a better version of you. This unfortunately involves hurt and pain and grieving the goodbyes of those who have left footprints on our hearts. Although it hurts, I hope my heart is imprinted all over from those I love and leave behind.

Here is the website for Sarah's Covenant Home in India if you are interested in sponsoring a child or finding out more information: http://www.schindia.com

 Here is a video from SCH before we got there of the kids having a fun paint day 🙂