Home Sweet Home

After being away in Hyderabad for 4 days this past week, it’s good to be home in Ongole! As I took the night bus back to Ongole, I felt the saying “home sweet home” repeating itself in my head. After being here for 6 weeks, this place truly does feel like home to me. In Hyderabad, I was homesick for the small town life that Ongole brings and all the kids at SCH. So, needless to say, it’s good to be back!

Last Tuesday, at the last minute, I was informed that I was going to be taking Genevieve to Hyderabad to see the doctor. Her eye was becoming infected once again, after having her second surgery on her cornea. Genevieve was born with a cyst on her eye and in return, has impaired her sight in the eye. She has had a successful surgery to remove the cyst, but now doctors are working on putting a new cornea in to give her sight. Both surgeries she has had to repair the cornea have failed and her eye has become infected and swollen. When I took her to the doctor in Hyderabad, he decided that she would go in for yet another surgery to try and repair the graft in her eye-this would be her third surgery. So for 4 days, I was shuffling little Genevieve around an Indian hospital, seeing the doctor and taking her into surgery with one of our SCH nurses, who speaks very little English. It was overwhelming trying to navigate myself around a very large Indian hospital, communicate with doctors clearly, and take care of Genevieve post surgery. Once again, I felt the amount of responsibility that was placed on my shoulders sink in. Genevieve is now back in Ongole with us staying at our apartment and her eye seems to be doing well. Being the one responsible to take care of Genevieve full time has made me feel like her mother in a way. It’s a full time job! It makes me appreciate all you mothers out there because you never really get a break. I’m realizing that motherhood may be a long way off for me!

Things at the home have been going great! This Monday was Independence Day in India and so we got to celebrate with the SCH kids. They put on a festive event at the home, the kids dressed in their best outfits, and proudly waved their Indian flags. It was fun to be apart of a very big day in India. We also have had a couple recently come to volunteer for 1 month. They were here last year for 3 months and they have returned this year with a non profit organization up and running to raise money for SCH. Kody, is a professional photographer, so their main objective this time is to film the kids and make videos to promote their organization. He is an amazing photographer and has captured some really special moments at SCH so far. Their organization, called “share 11” is really unique too, it asks people to donate 11 dollars to SCH and then get 11 other people to donate 11 dollars too. With Sarah’s Covenant Home’s being so young (only 3 years old) they are still striving to make ends meet with basic things the kids need. Things like diapers and pediasure are two of the most expensive things on SCH’s monthly budget, yet they are absolutely the most important things on their monthly budget. Share 11 raises money to help meet those basic needs of the kids here. I hate to be one of those people that try to convince you to donate your money to a good cause, but it’s different when I am able to see so many deserving kids with needs that can easily be met by people like you and me. Seeing the many different needs and knowing that 11 dollars could meet one of those needs is exciting to think about. So consider going to share11.org and finding out about how you can make a big difference with very little money.

Update on Cedar- he is doing so good! For the past 2 weeks, I have been able to walk into his room and see him awake in his crib. This is a miracle in itself as the first three weeks I was here, he was asleep all day, everyday. Oh the joy when I greet him everyday and I get to see that big smile of his light up the room. Since he has been awake and alert for most of the day, he is doing so much better sitting up on his own. I have had him sitting up in his chair for an hour at a time now and he is smiles the whole time! From the little boy that slept all day and cried whenever you sat him up to an awake, happy boy who sits up for an hour each day with a smile is a miracle in itself. He is definitely making progress and should be able to start practicing standing up soon. It just goes to show a little practice each day makes a big difference! I’m so proud of him.

Seven weeks living in India and working at a children’s home for special needs orphans has done nothing but challenge and amaze me on a daily basis. I often contemplate what I will say when I return home and people ask me about my experience. It’s been the hardest seven weeks of my life that I would not take it away for anything in the world. I have fallen in love with 82 truly special and precious children. But the Lord is relentless in continuing to stretch me and ask me if I really trust Him on a daily basis. Never have I been put out of my comfort zone more, had to be more flexible and willing to do whatever needs to be done, and give up what I know to be familiar. I’ve been stripped of anything easy or comfortable. That’s something I’m still getting used to everyday. If anything, I realize everyday, more and more how attached I was to everything I have back home. I realize how comfortable I was, how I was able to think of myself before others more often, and how I truly took for granted the life of privilege I lived. I needed to be taken away from my life of comfort. I needed to let God grow me and stretch me. I needed to surrender the things I was attached to that deep down, really didn’t matter. And God has given me such a gift in this great challenge. And that is the joy of knowing Him and being given the chance to love people that have been called “the least of these”. It’s the joy of walking through the gates of SCH and knowing 100% that God has called me to this time and place to be his hands and feet. It’s the joy in finding comfort through rocking and singing to a child at the end of the day. It’s watching the smile on their face when you say “I love you”. It’s the contentment in knowing that beyond everything there is in life, I will always have Jesus. That’s why the challenge is so beautiful.

Prayer Requests:

-         Genevieve’s eye recovery. Pray for complete and full healing in her eye and that this surgery will be successful. Pray that she would have restored eye sight.

-         Pray for finances and provisions to come in for SCH

-         Pray that Cedar would grow strong in his body and his legs would have strength to stand and walk. Pray for continual joy in his spirit.

-         Pray for strength for me to run this race with endurance and finish my time here strong.