I hate to sound like a broken record but what can I say? It was another amazing day in India. Today's plan was exactly like yesterday's with a slight change in location.
We started out the morning at New Hope School. If you are a Google Earth nerd like me you can look up New Town (near Salt Lake) in Kolkata and find the slum village of Udayan Pally. We have worked with New Hope School for many years. You can read more about their story in my earlier blogs. For those of you that have been there you know it is impossible to go to New Hope School and NOT fall in love with these kids. How I end up leaving them all here is beyond me.
Our theme for school the three days that we are here is Science Camp. It has been so much fun. We have taught basic concepts from Biology and Chemistry and on Monday we will learn about about Magnets. If you see the pictures on my Facebook page you can see that they are all wearing little scientist lab coats. It was so cute that we could hardly stand it!
We left New Hope School and headed to our favorite lunch spot...KFC. Y'all I'm not even kidding; Indian KFC is SO MUCH BETTER than American KFC. It is spicy and crunchy and just hits the spot.
After lunch we had a full afternoon with two different units of Sari Bari planned but weren't sure how we would manage the sheer number of women that come from all over the red light area for our Spa Day that we hold every year. We were expecting around 60 women but with only 7 of us there was really no way we could do pedicures for all of them in one afternoon. We were so blessed by our friends here from the local Assembly of God Church as they were able to send 3 young girls to help us! It was such a sweet picture of the body working together across the globe to accomplish one mission. We had never met these girls but yet they INSTANTLY became a part of our team. Besides the pedicures we also set up a photo booth with funny props. We brought a photo printer so they could take it home with them and they loved that. Having photos of yourself is a rare deal so they thought that was really cool. We never take pictures of the ladies or in the red light district for obvious reasons so the fact that they trusted us with a camera in our hands was also signs that we have built so many relationships over the years that we have been coming. Score one for the "short term missionary" that always gets a bad rap!
I know many of you wonder exactly what it is that we do over here. Due to the sensitive nature of the women we are working with I am mostly quiet about the part of the trip that involves working with trafficking victims and women that have left the red light area work. We also never photograph anything or anyone in the red light district. All the pictures that I post are of sights around the city and of course the adorable kids at New Hope but that is just one part of the many ministries we are involved in. I know many of you wonder but I just don't say much or blog much about that part of the trip. I want to honor their lives by storing these things in my heart and I just can't really share much and do it justice anyway. Suffice it to say that these women and girls have experienced the unspeakable and have been given new life. Seriously I have retyped this paragraph numerous times and there really is no other way to say it so I'll just stop.
Love to all and thank you for your prayers!
We started out the morning at New Hope School. If you are a Google Earth nerd like me you can look up New Town (near Salt Lake) in Kolkata and find the slum village of Udayan Pally. We have worked with New Hope School for many years. You can read more about their story in my earlier blogs. For those of you that have been there you know it is impossible to go to New Hope School and NOT fall in love with these kids. How I end up leaving them all here is beyond me.
Our theme for school the three days that we are here is Science Camp. It has been so much fun. We have taught basic concepts from Biology and Chemistry and on Monday we will learn about about Magnets. If you see the pictures on my Facebook page you can see that they are all wearing little scientist lab coats. It was so cute that we could hardly stand it!
We left New Hope School and headed to our favorite lunch spot...KFC. Y'all I'm not even kidding; Indian KFC is SO MUCH BETTER than American KFC. It is spicy and crunchy and just hits the spot.
After lunch we had a full afternoon with two different units of Sari Bari planned but weren't sure how we would manage the sheer number of women that come from all over the red light area for our Spa Day that we hold every year. We were expecting around 60 women but with only 7 of us there was really no way we could do pedicures for all of them in one afternoon. We were so blessed by our friends here from the local Assembly of God Church as they were able to send 3 young girls to help us! It was such a sweet picture of the body working together across the globe to accomplish one mission. We had never met these girls but yet they INSTANTLY became a part of our team. Besides the pedicures we also set up a photo booth with funny props. We brought a photo printer so they could take it home with them and they loved that. Having photos of yourself is a rare deal so they thought that was really cool. We never take pictures of the ladies or in the red light district for obvious reasons so the fact that they trusted us with a camera in our hands was also signs that we have built so many relationships over the years that we have been coming. Score one for the "short term missionary" that always gets a bad rap!
I know many of you wonder exactly what it is that we do over here. Due to the sensitive nature of the women we are working with I am mostly quiet about the part of the trip that involves working with trafficking victims and women that have left the red light area work. We also never photograph anything or anyone in the red light district. All the pictures that I post are of sights around the city and of course the adorable kids at New Hope but that is just one part of the many ministries we are involved in. I know many of you wonder but I just don't say much or blog much about that part of the trip. I want to honor their lives by storing these things in my heart and I just can't really share much and do it justice anyway. Suffice it to say that these women and girls have experienced the unspeakable and have been given new life. Seriously I have retyped this paragraph numerous times and there really is no other way to say it so I'll just stop.
Love to all and thank you for your prayers!
