Badlapur, May 7, 2008, midafternoon

[BLOG WRITTEN IN RETROSPECT]

The first time I saw him, I thought he was a small one year old. With medium brown skin, big brown eyes, and sitting up, Sandeep had thin arms and legs--little more than skin and bone--limply attached to a small torso. Sitting on the bottom mattress of a bunk bed in Jubilee 4--one of four homes in Badlapur where Bombay Teen Challenge houses orphans and children rescued from the streets and/or the red light district--Sandeep looked very tiny and somewhat overwhelmed at the sight of eight white people standing around and looking at him.

Then Timothy--our guide for the day--told us that Sandeep was four and a half years old.

I still have a hard time wrapping my mind around that. When I first saw him, I knew that he was undernourished, but I had no idea by how much until Timothy told us more about him. Four and a half years old, rescued from the streets the previous week, brought to Jubilee 4 just in time to save his life--all of these details silenced me into thought. My heart hurt and my head reeled.

As we got to know the other children at Jubilee 4 over the next week and a half--or so--we found out that the other children at this home ranged from Sandeep's age up to about nine or ten. Both girls and boys live at Jubilee 4, and about half of those children are HIV positive. Some of their mothers were/are prostitutes, and some of them were simply brought to BTC (Bombay Teen Challenge) because their parents had found out that they would be cared for at BTC.

Because of their health concerns, Jubilee 4 has a nurse assigned to them and every night, the children obediently go through nightly medicinal regimes. They receive good healthcare combined with a clean environment, nutritious food prepared by Daniel the cook, filtered water. Educated on site, these children also have daily devotionals where they sing, pray, and study the Bible.

These children put my faith to shame with their intensity and perseverence, but the fact of the matter is, most of these children already have seen the dark side of humanity firsthand. They know that God makes the difference in life, and their faith is rock solid. I am very excited to see how their lives continue to shape up as they grow and mature. They're going to be movers and shakers when, or if, they grow up.

Please, remember these children. They have so much promise, and they are definitely better off than they were, but the fact of the matter is that with half of them HIV positive, we really don't know how long they will live. (There are so many variables with HIV/AIDS.) They are precious, sweet children who love automatically and blessed my heart.

Badlapur, May 18, 2008, at 7am

About to take my final bucket bath in India, I stand in the hot and humid "hotel" bathroom--a 3'x5' tiled room--and look at myself in the mirror. I feel very Hindi except for my height, and I am not ready to leave this place yet even though I said my goodbyes yesterday.

As I look at my face, I reach up and touch my hair, soft and silky from being massaged with coconut oil the day before--a weekly event at Ashagram (Hindi for "Village of Hope"), where I worked throughout our stay in India. My Hindi friends offered to oil my hair the last day because they were already oiling theirs--a replacement for shampoo and conditioner and a much hidden beauty secret that explains why all Indian women have gorgeous hair. Mine looks pretty darn good, and I've only had it done once.

Friday, the girls were "threading" their eyebrows and offered to do the same to the girls on our team. Of course, we all jumped at the unique opportunity and now have shapely brows of our own, thanks to Shabana--the girl with the most attitude and cheek ever with a hilarious sense of humor. Having my eyebrows reshaped makes my eyes bigger--brown eyes that earned me the compliment "You have beautiful eyes--Indian eyes" from one of the men at Bombay Teen Challenge.

I fiddle with my nose ring--another feature that brought me attention and made me look more Hindi--before admiring my recent mehendi. Mehendi, or henna designs, is a traditional form of female adornment throughout the Middle East and parts of Asia. In India, women put mehendi on hands and feet for special occasions or for any occasion when they have the time. As May is the hottest month of the year in India, the girls at Ashagram have summer vacation and all the time in the world for henna.

Reflecting back on the trip, I wonder at God's work in India. India is a tough case, but clearly not too tough for God or for His faithful followers. Meeting with our brothers and sisters at Bombay Teen Challenge proved that. I have learned a lot about faith and endurance, joy and hope, and I know that I have much yet to learn.

I have many more stories to come, but I need to continue processing. In the meantime, I need to go shopping for a pattern so I can sew the choli and petticoat to go with my sari that I bought in Badlapur.