Life in India

Our house

 Life in India is good and we have been wonderfully blessed in our first week.  We have a very nice house about 20 minutes walk from VCT were we are working.  It is an upper middle class Indian home with a living/dining room, kitchen and two bedrooms.    It has amenities we don’t even have at home like a working dishwasher and satellite TV.  It doesn’t have the one thing I would trade all of this for, AC.  Our neighbor hood is nice and not to noisy considering we are in a city of 7 million.  We even have nice, helpful neighbors.

Buying veggies.

We have been exploring and learning how to get around.  We have figured out how to get our cistern refilled with water, bought a local cell phone, and gotten internet connection at our house (albeit very a VERY slow connection).   We have discovered several “super markets” where we can buy rice and lentils, the staple foods here and other necessities.  There is one within walking distance that has foreign foods as well.  There are also many people selling fruits and vegetables from stands on the street.

Every morning the girls and I walk to Vathsalya Charitable Trust.  Vathsalya means “mother’s love” in Sanskrit, the ancient language of India.  There are 40 children in foster care through the organization.  About 15 of them, ages 3 to 12, come to a day care and informal school at the center daily.  There are also about 20 in need of more intense medical care who live at the center.  Martine, Gabi and Nephtalie spend their days with these children.  In the day care they teach the kids numbers, letters and words in English (ironic, two Haitians teaching English), sing songs and play games with them.  They also spend time with the handicapped children playing with them, feeding them and singing them to sleep.

Martine teaching the youngest students.

While the girls are working with the children at the center, I am spending time with one of the four social workers or the director.  Thus far I have been visiting foster homes with the workers on their monthly visits and interviewing foster parents to get their perspective on the program. 

Jeff has not begun his work his Indian work yet.  The man he will be working with is out of the city and will return later this week.  Jeff has been teaching two online classes for Anderson.  Amazing one can teach a class from the other side of the world!  

We appreciate your prayers for wisdom in speaking with Hindus we meet.  It is interesting, in one Hindu home the Christian social worker prayed with the family.  They are not at all offended by God and will acknowledge Him as a god among many, but not the God.  They see no reason to limit oneself to one god.   Another prayer point is that we are exploring a trip to Nepal at the end of July.  This would allow us to meet with pastors there and discuss the possibility of a church centered foster care program.  It is actually very inexpensive to fly there from here, but being five of us it will still be a major addition to our expenses and so is something we don’t take lightly.  Additionally we are attempting to make sure we girls do not have any visa issues if we leave and return to the country and if Jeff can get a tourist visa to come back into India and fly home July 30.  Excitingly, God has continued to give me a more distinct vision and led me to several important resources regarding foster care in Nepal.  

Thank you for your prayers for Nephtalie.  She has adjusted to the time difference which has made a huge impact on her mood. 

This is Naugu.  He was found as an infant abandon and having been attacked by an animal.  He has been here three years but will soon join his new family in the US.  He loves having his picture taken and is constantly asking "photo? photo?".  He also loves to sing "Jingle Bells" and is extremely spoiled by everyone at VCT.

Safe arrival

Hi everyone,

 

We have arrived safely!  We arrived yesterday Thursday at 2 AM after a long day (24 hours of travel).  We slept well last night. 

 

We are staying at someone's house and they have a land line.  You should be able to call us directly by dialing:   011-91-80-254-30505.  Remember we are 9.5 hours ahead of you if you are on the East Coast.

 

Praises:

 

Very safe place to stay that is 15 minute walk from the orphanage.

Extremely kind hosts and staff.

Not as blistering hot as Haiti!

I'm able to eat the food :) (Jeff & Talie speaking here).

God's peace is tangible.

The girls are naturals at caring for the orphan children.

 

Requests:

 

Able to secure internet access for online classes.

God's direction to become clear for Rebecca and her work.

Talie's settling down with the new environmnet.

Psalm 37: 3 Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture

More to come soon,

Jeff & Rebecca

 

The 5 W's

Who, why, what, where, when - Our journey to India first began two years ago. I was praying for guidance. I felt like I was supposed to be preparing for something, for somewhere. But where? We had been to many places and definitely had a passion for homeless children and empowering families. I prayed and searched and waited. The Holy Spirit showed me the need in Nepal and the desire of indigenous churches to care for children. Nepal is one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world were more than half the children are malnourished. There are many homeless children vulnerable to trafficking and exploitation. I began to search for more insight and look for doors to open to preparing for Nepal.

It became clear my next step would be to learn how foster care and adoption works in the culture of the Indian Sub-continent. Various doors opened over the next year. God brought to mind Vathsalya Charitable Trust (VCT), the program where Robert was cared for during the three years before he came to us. VCT is a wonderful program twenty-four years old which provides foster care, a small orphanage, domestic and international adoption, care for underweight babies, girls education, and skill training for abandon women. It is the perfect model for me to learn from. When I contacted them with my plans and asked if I could come to VCT to learn from them, they immediately said yes. They had always wanted to import their program to Nepal and were excited about the possibility. I still had to finish a field placement internship for my graduate studies at USC. Although it had never been done before, USC agreed to let me count my time in India as an internship. God was making a way for me to prepare for the work He had for me.

At first Jeff was not excited about the prospect of spending the summer in India. He wanted to go to India but the thought of us all going for three months just seemed like too much. In faith however, he began to look for open doors as well. He found he knew all kinds of people with ties to India. An opportunity came for him to work with the Indian Evangelical Mission (IEM) in administration and Breakthrough Ministries in curriculum development. IEM is the largest indigenous missions’ organization in India and works in everything from Bible translation to healthcare to leadership development. They even send Indian missionaries to places such as Ghana, Thailand and the UK. God also brought him connections through businessmen here in the Upstate to do academic research in India and present at a academic conference. These were important factors as they allowed Jeff to use some of his time in academic work which his employer, Anderson University, would finance.

I shouldn't really have said this journey began two years ago. For two years before that Gabi had been praying for India nightly. Her prayer went something like this, "God send people to teach the Indians about you. And I hope it's me you send." India had been on her heart ever since her brother came when she was four years old. When we told her we were going she said, "Wow, I never thought my prayer would be answered so quickly."

So here we are, ready to leave. Or as ready as we will ever be. Robert has a full-time job this summer and will be holding down the fort. Josiah was not interested in India but does have a heart for Honduras. Last year we had traveled to Honduras to work in an orphanage and he enjoyed it more than he ever imagined he would. Our wonderful friends, the Botkins (see the link to their blog on this page), are now full-time workers there and Josiah chose to go help them for two months. In July he will be travelling to Norwich University for a summer program for two weeks.

This first post has been a long one to explain the background behind this trip but I'd like to end with ways you can pray for us.

·Jeff's visa actually ends 3 days before his flight out of India. He will get this fixed when we are there...if they let him in the country in the first place.

·We have a total of 18 hours of flying time plus 5 hours in airports so we appreciate prayer for easy travel without any mishaps.

·Pray our hearts would be prepared to love the people and their country. It is so easy to become judgmental of another culture.

·As Gabi prays, "That God would give us the knowledge of how to reach people and the right words to say." She is our evangelist and eager for an opportunity to share the Good News.

Ready for a grand adventure, Rebecca