Monday, April 16, 2012

Arrival in Kolkata!

     Well, it has been a crazy journey these past few weeks! We left saturday from Lonavala and traveled 2 hrs on a local train to Pune. From there, we took a 30 hr train ride to Kolkata, India! We were so blessed because we were in an air conditioned sleeper carriage in the train. It was the first time we have had air conditioning! It was a long train ride but it was good. We were also served meals and recieved blankets, pillows, sheets, water and snacks along the way. It was amazing to be sitting in a train looking out over the beautiful landscape as we crossed the entire country within 30 hours! What an experience. Looking out the window, we saw swamps where women and children were bathing and washing their clothes and dishes. The train would slow down as we traveled through many slums throughout the countryside. The houses/shelters are made out of wood, sheets of metal, sticks and basically anything they can find. The middle class houses are made out of concrete and mortar. The landscape would change from desert to slums, to villages as we crossed over bridges and under tunnels. At around 6:45 pm on Sunday evening, we arrived in Kolkata, India. Immediately, as we stepped out of the train, the humidity wiped over us and embraced us. Hundreds of people were bustling past us at the train station holding huge bags of rice and supplies. Women were balancing huge bags on their heads as we pushed our way through with our huge hiking backpacks weighing our backs down and with our carry on backpacks strapped on our shoulders on our front. Our arms were completely full!
     We then found our contact who lives with his wife in Kolkata. They run a ministry called Life Connections which is a children's restoration home in which they take in street children who are either runaways or who are homeless at the train station. Some of their mothers are involved in the human sex trade and some are physically, emotionally and spiritually abused. We will be working with their organization starting on thursday. Basically, we will be registering the kids every day, bathing and feeding them, giving them clothes to wear, giving them meals, teaching them about education, hygiene and sunday school lessons. We will spend lots of time playing with them and interacting with them through games. Unforunately, Life Connections does not have room to keep the children overnight so it is a day program that they run. We will be working with them for the next month. During the day, half of our team will go to the train station where we will be doing prayer walks, asking God for healing over people and ministering. We are going to be walking with Jesus and be led by the Holy Spirit. Please pray that God will continue to direct and guide us! We will be living in a flat/apartment complex near the organization. God has kept us safe and we are excited to see how He is going to continue to use us.
    Currently, we are living in a missionary house for a few days working with a pastor and his ministry where they set up Houses of Revival ( which are schools and houses in which children whose parents are involved in the sex trade, abuse, alcoholism ect, where the kids come to recieve an education, meal and learn about Jesus. Today we walked a mile or so away to work with one of these houses. THere were around 20 children that we taught. We taught them fun Bible songs, did a skit and then Macy and I taught them about the  body parts through memorization and fun songs! It was such a blast! we had no idea that we would be teaching a group of kindergartners-3rd graders for a while, but we definitely improvised and God gave us the idea to teach on! They were then also fed a meal of dahl and now we are back at the missionary house about to eat some lunch. God is good! Hopefully, I can update you all soon!

No comments:

Post a Comment