India is completely
breaking my heart. My world has been turned upside down as India has become my
new home for the time being. The sights, the smells and the culture are
indescribable but I will do my best to give you an idea to the ministry I am
involved in and what we are doing here in Kolkata.
I began ministry
at Life Connection (the children’s restoration day program ministry) on Monday
and WOW-God has broke my heart for the little boys (ages 4-15) that I will be working
with for the next three weeks while in Kolkata. On Tuesday, there was probably
10 kids who came to Life Connection-which is amazing because apparently for the
past few months, there has only been 4 or so kids who have attended. Wednesday,
we had 13 boys come! We are still praying for girls to come but recently its
been only boys. Basically what happens is our India team splits up into 2
groups. Sona and Chuba are a married couple who live in the apartment next to
us. Sona is 8 months pregnant and expecting in a few weeks. They are the
founders of Life Connection and have about 5 staff working under them.
Every morning, our
team gets together for worship, intercession and prayer at 6:15 am. We then eat
breakfast at 7, get ready and leave by 7:30 to walk to our ministry. We break
into 2 groups. Most of the group will go to Life Connection (which is a 20 min
walk). The other group will go with another translator staff. They then walk 20
min to catch a local train to Howrah Train Station. Howrah is one of the
biggest stations in India. 10 million people pass through it everyday.
Basically, when you walk through the station, it feels like you are in a circus
(dodging people during a Black Friday sale in the mall.) It’s Insane! In India,
there are many children who run-away from home. Many of these kids are boys who
are very young. The movie. Slumdog Millionaire becomes a reality and
comes to life when you experience India in person. Although, the train stations
and railroad tracks are completely covered in garbage, human and animal feces,
food, sleeping dogs and passed out people. You can imagine the horrific smells
while walking through the stations or next to the tracks. All the waste from
the trains is dumped on the tracks. This is basically their idea of a sewage
system. Many children runaway from home due to violence, abuse or too many
people in the household. With that, many kids live at Howrah Train Station. At
Howrah, there is specifically one man who knows how to attract the runaways. He
is a Hindu man who does his little “business” with the children there. He finds
some way to appeal to them and offers to “take care of them.” In reality, he
finds the runaways, gives them an ID card (to keep track of them or to bail
them out of jail). He sometimes feeds them and for awhile the children had to
pay him 5 rupies. (50 rupies=1 American dollar) Many of the kids are employed
under him and there are other adults who have become Controllers of the
children as well.
During the day,
the children usually sleep at the train station and during the night, the
children go on their search for empty water bottles because they can get 1
rupie per 1 waterbottle. They then have to turn in a certain percentage of
money to their “boss” in whom they call Uncle. This man is nothing like an
uncle or care provider. We hear stories from the children of this man beating
them or the police beating them. Because
the boys don’t have positive role models to look up to and they are trying to
do anything to survive, there is stealing and crime that occurs. Many children
have become masters at stealing money from other children and from passengers.
With the money that the boys have remaining, from their bottle collecting or
whatever-they usually end up buying Glue. They then find rags and pour some
glue on the rags, then put the rags in their mouth to inhale it and sniff it.
They do this to get high and the majority of children are high in the station.
When they get high, they are unaware of their surroundings and many end up
finding razor blades in which they use to cut themselves deeply leaving gashes
all over their bodies. When we walk through the train stations, many children and
teenagers are passed out with rags next to their mouths because they were using
glue.
At the train
station, we do a prayer walk three times a week along with working at Life
Connection. We walk up and down the 23 platforms for a few hours praying and
talking to children-trying to build relationships with them and doing our best
to convince them to come to Life Connection with us. When we see children, we
wake them up but it is often challenging to get responses from them because
they are so high. They struggle to open up their glazed-over eyes. The children are between the ages of 3-18 or
so. It makes me wonder, “How do children ages 4-17 learn to get high off of
glue and then cut themselves with razors?” This absolutely breaks my heart.
Where is the childlike innocence? This is not just a nightmare, but a nightmare
being brought to life. This is reality for these children (daily life.)
After part of the
group goes to the train station for the morning prayer walk, they start
traveling back to Life Connection to meet the other group who has been there
all morning working with the kids. Everyone does at least 8-11 hrs of ministry
a day. They boys who come to Life Connection every day usually catch a ride on
the local train from Howrah to the road where they walk 15 min or so to the ministry
house. They usually show up around 7:30 am-8. Below is a schedule of our day at
Life Connection:
8: Arrival, pocket check for the boys and registration
Team and staff intercession and worship
Bath time, powder and oil. All the boys bathe and shower. We
then put powder on them which is like deodorant and it helps them sweat less.
We then give them oil to put in their hair.
Breakfast and Lunch prep (requires lots of peeling, chopping
and cooking for staff and kids)
Breakfast and Prayer
Worship and Prayer for the kids and we do it with them
(interactive songs)
Story time (One of us tells an interactive Bible story which
we like acting out)
Informal Study (we help the boys learn English and Bengali,
their numbers and the alphabet) Also, during the time, we switch of playing
games as well.
Lunch (usually consisting of rice, dahl (lentils), meat, and
potatoes)
Chores, (sweeping, cleaning, dishes ect)
Games/Movie for a few hrs.
Clean-up and leave
Unfortunately, the boys have to leave the ministry at 4 to
go back to the train station because there is no other house for them to stay
at. Sona and Chuba are praying for a boys home in which they hope to open. They
would need to be blessed with finances, a building and another committed staff
in order for that to happen though. They want to open up a boy’ s home in which
they can take in boys and keep them there throughout the day and night. Please
be praying for this situation.
Working with this ministry
has broken my heart for the children of India. We don’t just help provide a day
camp at the restoration home but we feed them breakfast and lunch. They get to
eat as much as they want until they are full. If the boys have wounds and razor
cuts, we help bandage them. They get a bath, new clothes to change into and
people to Love on them. We teach them education and during story time, we each
take turns telling Bible stories. I love seeing the boy’s faces come alive with
anticipation when we are doing skits, telling stories, playing games, watching
movies or just interacting with them. They are so hungry for Jesus and when we
all pray, they sit there intently with their hands folded praying to Jesus as
well. A few days ago, we were praying over each of the boys as the boys were
praying themselves as well. One of them started crying and he later told us
that he had seen Jesus in front of him while he was praying. He then told Jesus
that he didn’t want to live at Howrah any longer. And he told us that Jesus
said back to him, “Don’t worry, I will be with you.” This boy is probably 8
years old. All the boys have such a childlike faith and want to know more about
Jesus! You see it in their eyes when they pray for each other and for
themselves. These boys need attention and they long to be loved. We all do our
best to just love on them and spend time with each and everyone of them.
This is a bird’s eye
view into what we are doing here in India during this month! Please be praying
for all of us. We have all gotten sick at some point during this past month. It
is very hot and humid as it is nearing summer. Thank you so much for your
prayers and thoughts. This is a crazy adventure of a lifetime. Hopefully, next
week when I have internet, I will post more of what we are doing and more
stories! Love you all!
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