the trip

sarah's covenant homes

eMi2 project 8211

Our project trip took us 30 hours by train to the south of India. eMi's newly appointed CEO, John Dallman, flew into New Delhi and rode down on the train with Graham (our project leader), Christine (eMi2 long-term graphic design volunteer), David (engineering intern) and myself. It was a fun ride for the most part and went by quickly. When we first found our seats, we were all separated and language (or perhaps stubbornness) prevented anyone from switching seats with us. We accepted our fate and settled in, and then I just decided I would give it a try and speak to the men myself. To our surprise, a sweet older man switched with me right away and so Christine and I were able to have the two slightly separate seats near the window. It was so nice because we could draw the curtains to avoid unwelcome stares, of which there was no shortage. We read and talked and I stitched, and we drank lots and lots of chai with buscuits.

my cozy little train home

delicious egg biryani on the train

Before I knew it, 24 hours had passed and we were in Hyderabad...

We arrived at our guest house in the evening and our two volunteers were already there waiting for us! Nick is an engineer from Florida and he would be helping with the surveying and civil planning for our site. Mark is an architect also from Florida and he would be the chief of our design partnership for the duration of our trip until he handed over the reigns to me to finish our report. They are both wonderful and it was great to share a late dinner at the guest house and begin to get to know one another. The next day, we explored and took an auto into town. We visited the Charminar (four minarets). Once up inside, I was taken back to my time in Italy. The view was incredible and there were winding alleys radiating from the central Charminar. Just like Italy, but completely different.

the charminar

our CEO, John!
it was an honor to be on his first (of many) eMi project trips

We walked around the market just a bit and looked around. There were really interesting things being sold that I had never seen in the north. On one road, it was like a sidewalk, antique-junk fair. After we visited some pearl shops (Hyderabad is famous for its pearls) we went to our final and most exciting destination: lunch. Hyderabad is also famous for a dish called Biryani. Biryani is served all over India but originated in Hyderabad. So, we went to the best restaurant for Biryani in Hyderabad - in essence, we had the best Biryani in the world. It was delicious.

cool flea-market-esque things on the street

this guy I think wins coolest stuff on the block...
and best sneaky attitude

autos are painted differently in different regions of India!

just walking around getting everyone
acclimated to the hustle and bustle of India!

Then, it was time to head for Ongole to get to work! A 6-hour train ride and we were there!

the whole team ready to get goin'

Very early in the morning: 5:50 am to be exact. Some men from the ministry picked us up and took us to the flat we would be staying in for the next week. I have to be honest, the town and the accommodations were not quite what I was used to. The first night sleeping on my cot, I was mauled by ants and mosquitoes. I was a little nervous about how the week was going to turn out, but after getting settled in and learning to spray on the repellent before bed things started looking up!

Ongole was pretty different from the home we were used to in Delhi. Because it is smaller and more remote, it's far more conservative and I think it sees fewer white folks. 

Anyways, we had a devotion and then had about an hour to regroup and settle before we would go tour the existing facilities. Here I am regrouping... on a pile of towels:

oopsies

After we were refreshed, we began getting to know the people of SCH, mainly Eric, and touring the existing facilities. Mark and I took measurements of the facilities and observed the current organization, construction methods, and programmatic needs. The engineers observed the current systems (water and waste). 

After that, it was time to go to our site! It's about 15-20 minutes outside of town. Ongole is apparently growing rather quickly. There is a gigantic, brand-new engineering college across the street from our site, there are development plans for two of our adjacent lots and land prices are skyrocketing. It was excited to see the land as a blank slate, but over the course of the week, I realized that there is no such thing as a blank slate. Our site presents many challenges in many areas. As my watercolor teacher Gouranga always says, "we are never free." 

There is one building already going up on the site. It will be the headquarters for the parent ministry, India Christian Ministries. The vision is for the site to one day include a bible college, school, SCH facility and maybe even residential space. 

ICM building

We explored the building and the surrounding area and had the opportunity to ask someone from ICM who was with us tons of questions about the ministry, the vision, the site, etc. We looked around from the roof of this building and right as we were getting ready to walk our 11-acre site, it began to rain. We sought shelter for a few minutes while it passed.. .and then we walked the muddy, muddy site. 

crazy props to Christine Gerhart for this epic project team photo

We were a mess by the end of our exploration and so several of the guys from the ministry helped us clean our shoes before piling back into the car. It was a really moving way for them to serve us. Especially because shoes are kind of offensive in India.

david most likely said something funny
that david

So now we had the basis to begin our work. The engineers would spend the next few days in the field to survey and determine fixed boundaries, topography and to do perc tests for the soil. When I thought I was hot, I remembered that they were outside all day and stopped whining to myself. 

As for Mark and I, it was to the drawing boards to start laying out and programming the facility. Mark has a lot of work and life experience and coming straight from school, it was nice to be on a team with someone who was such a bank of knowledge. We worked sometimes in the ICM office and sometimes in the flat where we were staying. We were drawing mostly by hand in the beginning and then shifted more to the computer towards the end of the week. It was challenging to work in Ongole because there are scheduled power outages twice a day, though they are not always at exactly the same time every day. One from about 9 am to 11:30 am and then again from 3:30 pm to 5 pm. They were often longer than this. Because Ongole is more conservative, if we left the flat we had to wear kurtas and pants complete with dupattas (long shirt, big pants, and scarf). Ongole was around 93 F average while we were there - even hotter than Delhi! This made working throughout the day with no fans a bit of a challenge.

hard at work

I love Mark's sketches

Anyhow, we worked days and nights taking breaks to eat and to have meetings every now and then with Eric and Tisrah (sch) and James (founder of icm). It was great to get frequent input from them and really have a dialogue about the project, the needs and the design.

meeting with James + Eric one night

we worked late... but we had cake

One night after a particularly long day, I realized it was already dark and I would not be able to go out to grab any treats. As if he read my mind, David had gone out to buy ice cream!!! There were some very interesting flavors and it was fun to try them. It's not the same - not even close to the same - as ice cream in the states but, hey, it does the trick. This particular night, we were also having unpredictable power outages.. so we had to be prepared. And we had to eat all of the ice cream. Hey! It wasn't going to keep if we didn't have power!!

honeymooner's delight
just saying.. it was funky and fruity.

just in case the lights cut out
I was not going to let this go to waste

Before I knew it, our time in Ongole was coming to an end. The night before our final presentation, our friends from the ministry took us along with their friends and families to a private beach on some land that ICM owns on the coast of the Bay of Bengal. It was wonderful. Completely undeveloped and in the middle of nowhere. There were huge ants and tiny crabs, but everyone just got along. We brought dinner with us and some s'mores ingredients. The kids ran around and some people swam. It was really beautiful and quiet and I got some time to walk alone down the beach in the dark. I could see stars but I couldn't distinguish between the water and the velvety-black sky. It was, perhaps one of the darkest places I've ever been in my life but I didn't feel scared walking alone. I felt so blessed and so free. Once I got away from our bonfire, I knew that no one could see me if they were trying and I think that was the first time I had been really alone in months. I just sat and took my hair down (scandalous and suggestive in small towns) and let the wind blow through it and I just reflected on the week and all the hard things God had brought up for me to face and address and grow through and I just felt so thankful that in the midst of chaos and difficulty, God brought us out here to just enjoy His creation and each other's company. I stood there and moved around letting the tide wash away the foot prints I had made, letting the water restore the sand to the pristine, smooth surface it was before I ruined it. I couldn't help but see this as a symbol of what God does for us. The world leaves it's mark on us, we leave marks on one another, and perhaps most of all we tend to leave marks on ourselves. We can take hope that our mighty God made the oceans and knows how many grains of sand there are and even how many are displaced by my every step. And in the same way that He can restore and replace that sand after I move and disturb it, how much more can He restore and redeem our hearts. We come to Him so warped and broken and lost, and as simply and easily as an ocean wave, he makes us whole and smooth and beautiful again. It was a wonderful, refreshing way to finish our week in Ongole.

We still had one more meeting - which I will tell you all about in my next post! I am off to Mussoorie this weekend for retreat from the heat and a little quiet time! 

Work on this project has been keeping me busy and excited, but I promise not to disappear for so long between posts again!

I miss you all and would love to hear from you!

the ministry

sarah's covenant homes

eMi2 project 8211

I just want to start by saying how encouraging our visit was with Sarah's Covenant Homes. A huge work is being done through the people in Ongole and I feel so honored to serve this ministry.

Sarah's Covenant Homes is an organization who is dedicated to the care of disabled children in India who have been abandoned or relinquished by their families due to their disability or special needs. Often, these children are referred to SCH by government facilities who are completely overcapacity and understaffed. In the government facilities, many children die from completely preventable causes, simply because of the lacking facilities and care. 

To fully understand the weight of what SCH does, its important to understand the broader picture in India. In  the West, there are hundreds of organizations dedicated to the care and empowerment of individuals with special needs and they are widely and comfortably integrated into the public school system. Most westerners view these people as those who need a little extra love and are more than willing to give to them. 

Indian society holds a much different view for many reasons. Disabled individuals are truly regarded as inferior. This is tied to the Hindu caste system, which although is illegal is absolutely upheld at present. The disabled are often believed to have done something in their previous lives to warrant being reincarnated in this physical or mental state. Hindu beliefs emphasize that the only way for one to better their position in the next life is to live out their circumstances dutifully and to the best of their abilities. This is dharma. If a person attempts to better their circumstances this is adharma and though they may live a better worldly life, they will pay for this rebellion in their next life. Similarly, if someone else attempts to prevent a person from fulfilling their given life course, for example rescuing and rehabilitating someone who is abandoned because of disability, they also are preforming adharma and will suffer in their next life. 

Aside from the physical or mental restrictions, the stigma of being handicapped and paying for past adharma may make it difficult for someone in this position to find work. They, then, must use the only thing they have - their disability - to try to beg for food or a little money. This begging further perpetuates the negative light upon the disabled, keeping them oppressed. 

As this is the situation in much of India, parents of infants with disabilities often cannot imagine a viable future for their child, and may fear social isolation or shame for the entire family. Many of these children are abandoned or given over into government care. These beautiful innocent children are the most likely to be abandoned and the least likely to be adopted. Also, due to restrictions from the government of Andhra Pradesh, adoptions in general have been halted for the last few years. Adoption has recently opened up but, in attempt to hinder sexual slavery, is limited to children under the age of 12. Which means, if these children are not adopted by the age of 12, they never will be. 

Enter the brave and loving people of Sarah's Covenant Homes. Sarah, an American is living in Ongole with her husband James, who is from there. (see her full story here) Another American family, Eric and Tisra and their four sweet children have recently moved to Ongole, as well, to help in the administration, daily operations and adoption efforts of SCH. They have been there for 8 months and have already made such a huge difference. (watch their story at the end of the post!)

eric beginning to share the vision of sch with our team

SCH currently has 105 children who have all been diagnosed (and some even misdiagnosed) by the Indian government as 'mentally retarded.' Some of these sweet kids have only minor disabilities. One little boy we met was simply blind, fully mentally capable, but due to lack of care, can hardly walk. He is slowly building up his leg muscles in SCH's Victory Home. There are currently three sites for 105 children, most of whom are living at Victory Home, 80 to be exact. Victory Home is a gigantic leap from the government orphanages and hospitals from which the children were rescued, however, SCH's vision extends far beyond this limited facility. 

the victory home courtyard and two iyas

christine playing with nolan
- he couldn't get enough of climbing up
her legs like a little monkey

david's new friend and dance partner

some of the older girls, doing some home school work
meghan has the big smile in front

We were able to see one flat that SCH currently owns and cares for some younger children in. This is nearer to the ministry's vision of family-style care and living for these children. An American volunteer, Cassie, lives in this flat and acts as a sort of foster mother for a group of eight precious kiddos with the help of an Indian iya or nurse. 

an iya feeding a little one in the family-style flat

This family-centered set-up is really the desire of SCH for all of their children, and the best scenario for the rehabilitation, growth and development of these children by loving foster-type parents until they are adopted by their real parents! This is the vision eMi2 hopes to help them realize. 

eric explaining the idea of the family-style living
(evan's in front and aloe behind him )

After leaving Delhi in January 2010 and returning to Austin for school, I remember just sitting down one afternoon in my house and weeping for the things I had seen. So much beauty, but inextricably intertwined, so much pain and suffering. During my first week back in Delhi in August, I was struck by how hardened my heart seemed to be. Was it protecting itself? Was I trying to close myself off to feeling so strongly as I did before in order to live here for 4 months? I just prayed for God to soften me, to open my heart to these people I so desperately wanted to serve. I knew, conversely, I couldn't afford to be broken and immobilized by empathy, but I wanted to be stirred for them again. 

my little buddy, evan, who I got to see a few times in the week

he had something imaginarily delicious in that spoon
and all he wanted to do was share it with everyone

Standing in that flat and staring into the faces of these sweet little children, I saw the faces of all the kids I have taught swimming lessons to these past 6 summers. Are they so different? I fully comprehended, for the first time, that these children's parents had held them, looked in their innocent eyes and given them up. I felt the weight of the truth that society doesn't believe they are worth a thing, and further that India does not understand or believe in the work of SCH - in fact many Indians think these people who have sacrificed their own American comfort to move to Ongole have completely lost their minds - and not in a good way. As one little boy, Evan, ran at me to share some imaginary spoonful of food, I felt myself about to come undone. I felt hot, sick tears forming behind my eyes, and burning in my throat. He was full of such joy and light, and all it took was a little tickle and he was on the floor giggling and squealing. How could anyone discard him? Luckily, our volunteer architect Mark stole me away to grab some measurements and I could regroup. I felt, then, and still feel now thankfulness that these children are with SCH now and are being loved so well, but it's mixed with a confusion and anger towards the religion that provides justification for this sort of apathy and mistreatment. Maybe God, knowing my fragility was saving my heart in those early weeks to break it for these children who I will be designing for. 

another cutie in cassie's flat, with her loving iya

sweet jamila in cassie's flat

eric + tisra tell their story and share the sch vision better than I can!

check out the 105 in 105 campaign to get all the sch kiddos fully sponsored this year!

www.schindia.com

casting off worry

emi2 project trip 8211

We returned from Ongole, Andhra Pradesh on September 25 and it has taken me what seems like forever to reflect on my time there, working with our team, meeting the people of Sarah's Covenant Homes and seeing the sweet children God has rescued out of the despair of government facilities and placed in SCH's care. 

Part of the reason it has taken me so long to blog about the trip is my own processing time but part of the lag, I have to admit to you is my own worry. How can my words possibly be sufficient? How can I possibly share with you in full what God is doing in Ongole and what he did in my heart?

While we were in Ongole, God kept pressing on me to release my worries to Him. My worries about the children we met, the work that needed to be done, my own abilities, and on and on. First, in my daily devotion Jesus Calling (as a side note: this book was given to me by a dear friend and mentor in perfect timing to see me through some of the hardest days of my life last year. I highly recommend it to anyone and everyone. I am now in my second year of reading it daily and each day God uses it to meet me and encourage me where I am even in a whole new year in all new circumstances)

It said: 

"Trust me and refuse to worry, for I am your Strength and Song. You are feeling wobbly this morning, looking at difficult times looming ahead, measuring them against your own strength. However, they are not today's tasks - or even tomorrow's. So leave them in the future and come home to the present, where you will find me waiting for you. Since I am your Strength, I can empower you to handle each task as it comes. Because I am your Song, I can give you Joy as you work along side Me."

Within the next few days, I continued to stumble upon encouraging scripture and grew more and more convicted - what is this worry and who does it serve?

Trust in the Lord with all your heart
    and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight
- Proverbs 3:5-6 - 


     For his compassions never fail.
Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, 
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
- Lamenations 3:22-23 - 

Then, just to completely seal the deal in my heart, in our last day in Ongole, John Dallman, eMi's new CEO preached in the local church we attended on Matthew 6 verses 25-34:
"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

God brought my worry to my attention and in my time since returning from Ongole has already asked me to live out my trust as He has revealed some opportunities, realities and really difficult decisions for what I will do when my time with eMi is over. It's clearly not an easy task to live without worry, and I'm starting to realize that though we can't really control worry or do away with it, we can be in control of our own response and I'm just praying for the strength to answer worry with prayerfulness, faith and thankfulness, knowing that God can use us right where we are and as we are, and though He may allow us to take a few steps in the wrong direction, but will never let us stumble so far that we are out of His grace.

I think my first step towards kicking worry to the curb is sharing all of my project trip experiences and the incredible things that Sarah's Covenant Homes is doing in Andhra Pradesh - so here goes...
Stay tuned - soon I promise!!

our project team, prowling our 11-acre site in rain and mud