What a day! From the Courtyard Marriott and its amazing complimentary breakfast (nothing continental about this one! We are talking omelettes, freshly squeezed juices from mango to watermelon and pineapple to grape. not to mention all the spicy Indian delectable delights!) three hours south, dodging pedestrians, motorcycles, rickshaws, and watching cows graze on the median down the middle of the road to finally pull in to the Rising Star campus.
We hit the ground running after a brief orientation as we went to the school for playtime. Beautiful smiles. Everyone calls us Auntie! Auntie! What is your name? Come! Are you marriage? Is that a real diamond? Where did you get your jewelry? When I told one girl that I make jewelry, her eyes opened wide and said "You are a craftsman!" I had my traditional four bracelets on one wrist, and a girl changed two to the other so there was symmetry. I'm keeping them that way. One little five year old guy braved the tricky bars by himself several times -- high fives every time as he completed each pass, only to drop exhausted, knocking his mouth on his knee. He was so tough and looked at me with those beautiful brave eyes as he fought back the tears. I just had to give him a squeeze, and he was back at it again!
After playtime, there is prayer time when things start to settle down. The children are divided into "families" of 20 or so, and they all share a hostel with a house mother. We volunteers lead prayer time. The kids sing a song in their native tongue Tamil, and then someone is asked to pray. The chose me. We all knelt in a circle as I thanked my Heavenly Father for these beautiful new friends I was making. It was a really cool experience. These kids are from all different religions from Christian, to Muslim and Hindi. We are assigned a topic for the week and rotate through the hostels. This week's topic is self esteem. We talked about how we are all different, but that not one of us is better than anyone else. We don't have to be the best at something to try something new. We can celebrate the good successes of each other. Then we looked to the person on our right and said something we admired or appreciated about them. There were smiles and sparkling black eyes everywhere. I finished up by teaching them a song called "I'm a VIP". They picked it up quickly, and we sang it several times at the tops of our lungs! After we had a closing prayer given by one of the older girls, one girl who looked to be around nine years old, came to me with pen and paper in hand and started writing the words to the song. So bright and excited. She didn't want to forget. I left happy and filled with the joy of these sweet girls.
Annie had her own prayer time in another hostel. I'll let her post her experience later. She collapsed happily exhausted. I'm smiling as I recall visions of my Annie girl playing tag with ten kids or more, grinning ear to ear, ponytail swinging in the wind as she worked up a sweat playing like a little kid. And so it began...
(Pictures to come...)
We hit the ground running after a brief orientation as we went to the school for playtime. Beautiful smiles. Everyone calls us Auntie! Auntie! What is your name? Come! Are you marriage? Is that a real diamond? Where did you get your jewelry? When I told one girl that I make jewelry, her eyes opened wide and said "You are a craftsman!" I had my traditional four bracelets on one wrist, and a girl changed two to the other so there was symmetry. I'm keeping them that way. One little five year old guy braved the tricky bars by himself several times -- high fives every time as he completed each pass, only to drop exhausted, knocking his mouth on his knee. He was so tough and looked at me with those beautiful brave eyes as he fought back the tears. I just had to give him a squeeze, and he was back at it again!
After playtime, there is prayer time when things start to settle down. The children are divided into "families" of 20 or so, and they all share a hostel with a house mother. We volunteers lead prayer time. The kids sing a song in their native tongue Tamil, and then someone is asked to pray. The chose me. We all knelt in a circle as I thanked my Heavenly Father for these beautiful new friends I was making. It was a really cool experience. These kids are from all different religions from Christian, to Muslim and Hindi. We are assigned a topic for the week and rotate through the hostels. This week's topic is self esteem. We talked about how we are all different, but that not one of us is better than anyone else. We don't have to be the best at something to try something new. We can celebrate the good successes of each other. Then we looked to the person on our right and said something we admired or appreciated about them. There were smiles and sparkling black eyes everywhere. I finished up by teaching them a song called "I'm a VIP". They picked it up quickly, and we sang it several times at the tops of our lungs! After we had a closing prayer given by one of the older girls, one girl who looked to be around nine years old, came to me with pen and paper in hand and started writing the words to the song. So bright and excited. She didn't want to forget. I left happy and filled with the joy of these sweet girls.
Annie had her own prayer time in another hostel. I'll let her post her experience later. She collapsed happily exhausted. I'm smiling as I recall visions of my Annie girl playing tag with ten kids or more, grinning ear to ear, ponytail swinging in the wind as she worked up a sweat playing like a little kid. And so it began...
(Pictures to come...)
testing with Brad
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