Christmas in India

One year at Hartland camp, the theme was Christmas in July. It never really felt like Christmas because it was quite warm. I am experiencing a similar phenomenon here. There are no green garlands or sprigs of mistletoe. I don’t think they even have mistletoe here. The spirit of Christmas isn’t completely absent, it just feels different. On Wednesday evening the orphanage hosted a Christmas show for the children from the orphanage, the local church and children from the community. The kids prepared different dances and songs as well as a Christmas pageant where they acted out the story of Jesus’ birth complete with song finale and little kids acting like sheep. The team shared our rendition of “Go Tell it on the Mountain”. We got a few weird looks; I don’t the whole Gospel style has gained a whole lot of popularity in India yet. We also prepared a skit based on the book Just as You Are by Max Lucado. I got cast as the dancer again… of course. The most interesting part of the evening was our costumes. Kiran’s wife Lakshmi insisted we all wear sari’s. She produced a gorgeous teal and gold sari borrowed from her sister for me to wear. The thing with saris is that they don’t really provide a whole lot of coverage in the midriff area, which I usually avoid showing with vehemence. But we all sucked it up (or in) and wore them with pride. It was quite a hit. I have to say, I was extremely glad of my Jr. Miss experience at the time. I was able to stand on a stage and smile and perform while extremely uncomfortable.
The crowning moment of the night was dinner. We fed over 400 people, about 150 of them were from the surrounding area, most Hindu children. Best of all, the team was allowed to serve them! I got to walk around with a giant bowl of rice and serve everyone who asked. There were a few groups of girls who would call me over and volunteer each other for more rice even though none of them actually wanted more. They just wanted me to walk over to them, because I am just that cool for some reason. We were all exhausted by the end, but it was worth everything it took.
Nothing like this had ever been at the orphanage. We advertized by loud speaker to the community, the staff prepared a large meal. 100 more kids than Kiran planned showed up! Don’t worry, there was still plenty of chicken curry. After all of it was over, we sat down for dinner and we were all smiling and laughing. It was one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life. We just shared a real Gospel Message with over 100 kids who had never heard it before! We just blessed an entire community in a real tangible way! Kiran was smiling and excited. He hopes to do this again next year but on an even larger scale. Renting out a building and inviting people from the surrounding community with over 1000 children attending!
Yesterday we put the Christmas gifts we brought from the States into the bags the kids decorated earlier this week, and we plan on handing the gifts out today. We have a system where every child will write a thank you note to the person who gave them the gift. Let’s pray that it works.
Our system is going to be the foundation for the child sponsorship we hope to start up for this orphanage. CTL isn’t getting enough money to completely support the children here, so Pastor Kiran is forced to go into debt to support the kids with things like medical care and school supplies. If we can create a system to get the word out to people and let them know what their money would be going for, we could really help this orphanage thrive so Kiran could take in more kids and build another story so he could keep the older girls at the orphanage. Pray that would be able to come up with a system that is fair and completely safe for the kids. Also, pray that the orphanage would receive the money it needs to multiply its influence.
PS this post is from Friday morning.