We came to India

We came to India.  Our friend, Tim, an experienced traveler, said “The thing about India is that it is so ‘in your face’”.  That proved to be our experience as well.  The smells (spices, incense, and opened sewage), the traffic, the poverty ( 60% of the people live below poverty level, 20% unemployment rate), the ancient history, and the sites of random cows, dogs, garbage everywhere.  It would be easy for an American girl to get overwhelmed.  I was, indeed overwhelmed.  So much so, that I almost missed the important stuff.

Maybe you have heard of the “Starfish Story.”  It goes something like, a man was walking on the beach after a storm had passed in the area.  There were hundreds of star fish washed ashore on the beach.  He noticed a little boy picking up  one at a time and throwing it back into the sea.  The man approached the boy and said, “Why bother doing this?  There are too many star fish.  What difference will it make?”  The boy responds, as he throws back another star fish into the sea, “It makes a difference to that one.”

I looked at the work of SCH and ….all of India (there are over 1 billion people) and thought “this is too big, what difference will it make?”  But I saw children that were once malnourished, positively plump!  I saw children learning to walk for the first time at 4 and 5 years of age.  I saw children who have received life altering surgery for a birth defect.  I saw my daughter totally loving and engaging with each of the 106 children, and she knows them by name.  These were the important sights to see in India.

It reminds me of the verse in 1Thess 1:11-12,  “..That by his power he may fulfill every good purpose of yours and every act prompted by your faith.  We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and you in him..”  I am glad I got to see the good work at SCH and Anna’s participation in that.  I will cherish it always.  Keep on helping those “star fish” that come your way, it makes a difference to them, and to God.

* Anna here! Incidentally one of my foreign sisters and housemothers here at SCH writes a blog called "One Tiny Starfish". She is an excellent writer and mama check it out here: http://onetinystarfish.blogspot.com/