Our team arrived in Ongole after the 6 hour drive from Nalgonda. We were very blessed because there was no carsickness, breakdowns, or problems (unless you count a light being out at the end) and we arrived at the nicest hotel in India. What a treat to stay here with hot water, AC that works, clean rooms, and friendly staff. Definitely has been a step up than any of our other hotels EVER.
We arrived in Ongole a little bit after 9PM and Kevin had some yummy American style pizzas from a restaurant called Carmel, waiting for us on the balcony. Our team was debriefed on what the next days would look like and we were off to bed to prepare for the days ahead.
Tuesday our team woke up ready to go! Our team headed to a tour of Indian Christian Ministries and got an over view of what they do here in India. There were plenty of employees there to explain what they did for ICM. After our tour of ICM we got to go upstairs where one of the Children's homes was located. This home is for babies that ICM takes in that have severe special needs or medical problems. Many of these children were found abandoned and left to die because they are considered worthless and ICM partnering with Sarah's Covenant Homes, nurses them back to health. Many of these children will have medical problems their entire lives but some of them have gotten the right medical care and are well on their way to living normal lives. They are all sweet, sweet babies and some of them are even being adopted which is the happiest news!!!
After we got a tour of the Babies Home we headed downstairs to the church at ICM where each of the district pastors had set up a presentation of their districts to show the team. There were pictures of their work in each one of the villages and they gave a short presentation of what they were doing for all of the districts. They spoke of their needs and what they hoped to accomplish and what we could do to help. We were able to pray over the pastors and ask them questions about their districts. This is also and area where our other interns, Stuart and Tressa, will be working a lot with and around. Both of them will be working very closely with village development.
Tuesday we were also able to spend some time shopping! Shopping in Ongole was a lot different than shopping in Hyderabad. There are not that many shops and there is not really a "shopping district" so our team did a lot of walking. We found some great finds though and some exciting things to send back home!!
Tuesday night our team headed to a Child Development Center in one of the villages. These centers are made possible through child sponsorship programs. ICM takes children that are at high risk of being sent into the work force or sold into human trafficking and through sponsors in America sends them to school and provides them with a free meal and tutoring after school. Many of these children come from families where there is only one parent, often a widow, who is more likely to sell them into human trafficking so that they are able to buy food for their other children. This was one of my favorite experiences so far! We were able to visit some of these Child Development Centers before, during my last trip to Ongole, and I love spending time with the children and their families there. There were three sweet girls in particular who were so cute and sweet that we got to spend time with. Of course the power went out before we could get our picture taken with them, but they were so much fun! One of them, who was maybe 3 years old, sat with me the whole time and helped me put tattoos on the other children. She was so sweet and so helpful! Later I got to spend time with her mother who was my age and already had 3 children! This little girl was too young to be sponsored because the children have to be school aged but her sister was actually already being sponsored, I am hoping to stay connected with her through these six months and sponsor her when she is ready to go to school after I get home to the states!! The team got to feed the kids their meal that is provided by the center, which the kids loved! The kids think it is so funny to see us serve them food and are always all giggles when they are in line to eat. Before we left we got to hand out care bags to everyone and we were all sad to leave!!! It was such a great night for our team!
Tuesday night our team headed to Carmel, which is an American style bakery, to celebrate one of our team member's, Becca's, birthday! We had pizzas and sandwiches followed by cake and ice cream to celebrate with!
Wednesday morning was our team's last full day here. Kevin showed the team a video that Sarah's Covenant Homes had made about one of the bigger homes called Victory House. Victory House is a large orphanage for about 50 special needs children who Sarah rescued from the state orphanages. Victory Home provides special care that these children would normally not receive living in a state run orphanage. At Victory Home we met Tisra and Eric who moved their family from the states to India after adopting their daughter from India and recognizing the needs. Tisra and Eric are in charge of running Victory Home with their family. I just admire both of them so much for being able to work with such a special set of children. I have to say that I was the most uncomfortable at Victory Home than anywhere else on the trip. I am so impressed with people that have a heart for severe special needs kids and was so impressed with some of our team members that fell in love with Victory Home. I, selfishly, can not get past the smell, the screaming, and the slobber that fills Victory Home from top to bottom.
That night our team visited a girls home for special needs girls. Most of these girls were blind or had another physical handicap. My team in January was able to visit these girls in January, and they are a such a happy group of girls. They are crazy and so happy to see us. The apartment above theirs is where Tressa and Kourtney will be living for 6 months so I am sure we will be seeing a lot of these sweet girls. Our team also spotted our first Ongole rat living below their stairs. YIKES! Our team also had our first lice sighting here as well, which freaked all the girls out a little.
I got a big surprise Wednesday night as our team traveled to a girls home a little outside of Ongole, which is one of the homes I will be staying at for a month! It was also exciting because this is another one of the homes we were able to visit this past January so we already knew the girls and coincidentally are the girls who are in the picture in the background of this blog!!! So excited to finally see somewhere that I will be staying and so excited to get to know them! It was nice to have the team meet them so that they could see what I will be doing for 6 months. Most excitingly, it was one of the cleanest and organized places we went too which is happy and comforting news for me!!
Thursday morning was bittersweet as it was our last day with the team, but exciting because our team thought we were going to have a very exciting Indian train ride experience. As it turned out the train had an hour delay so our team had to drive to our destination, but I know my bus had a great ride anyways! Our team headed to a small village near the coast that the team in January had visited. Since then they had built a school and a development center for the at risk children in the village. We were only able to spend a short time there but it was fun to see the progress the village had made since we had been there last.
Thursday afternoon was a sad, tearful, send off to our team! Hard to say goodbyes even for the people that will see them in a few weeks. I was sad to send off friends, but looking forward to sharing what God is going to do in the next 6 months. Sad to see some of our students off as well knowing that we are missing their exciting college move in days!!! I will miss them dearly for sure. Our team spent the rest of Thursday relaxing (and missing our friends).
Our team has had some much needed rest in preparation of Team 2 flying in this Monday! The rest is nice, but I know that I will be happy to have another team here. We are headed to the beach this afternoon! Excited to see how Indian beaches compare to American ones. Something tells me I won't be seeing a lot of bikinis, surfers, or beach umbrellas ;)
With Love from India,
Grace
"The Lord will hand over to you the people who live there, and you must deal with them as I have commanded you. So be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not panic before them. For the Lord your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you." Deuteronomy 31:6
We arrived in Ongole a little bit after 9PM and Kevin had some yummy American style pizzas from a restaurant called Carmel, waiting for us on the balcony. Our team was debriefed on what the next days would look like and we were off to bed to prepare for the days ahead.
Tuesday our team woke up ready to go! Our team headed to a tour of Indian Christian Ministries and got an over view of what they do here in India. There were plenty of employees there to explain what they did for ICM. After our tour of ICM we got to go upstairs where one of the Children's homes was located. This home is for babies that ICM takes in that have severe special needs or medical problems. Many of these children were found abandoned and left to die because they are considered worthless and ICM partnering with Sarah's Covenant Homes, nurses them back to health. Many of these children will have medical problems their entire lives but some of them have gotten the right medical care and are well on their way to living normal lives. They are all sweet, sweet babies and some of them are even being adopted which is the happiest news!!!
After we got a tour of the Babies Home we headed downstairs to the church at ICM where each of the district pastors had set up a presentation of their districts to show the team. There were pictures of their work in each one of the villages and they gave a short presentation of what they were doing for all of the districts. They spoke of their needs and what they hoped to accomplish and what we could do to help. We were able to pray over the pastors and ask them questions about their districts. This is also and area where our other interns, Stuart and Tressa, will be working a lot with and around. Both of them will be working very closely with village development.
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| Aloe and Macy |
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| Max and Megan |
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| Evan and Kourtney |
Tuesday we were also able to spend some time shopping! Shopping in Ongole was a lot different than shopping in Hyderabad. There are not that many shops and there is not really a "shopping district" so our team did a lot of walking. We found some great finds though and some exciting things to send back home!!
Tuesday night our team headed to a Child Development Center in one of the villages. These centers are made possible through child sponsorship programs. ICM takes children that are at high risk of being sent into the work force or sold into human trafficking and through sponsors in America sends them to school and provides them with a free meal and tutoring after school. Many of these children come from families where there is only one parent, often a widow, who is more likely to sell them into human trafficking so that they are able to buy food for their other children. This was one of my favorite experiences so far! We were able to visit some of these Child Development Centers before, during my last trip to Ongole, and I love spending time with the children and their families there. There were three sweet girls in particular who were so cute and sweet that we got to spend time with. Of course the power went out before we could get our picture taken with them, but they were so much fun! One of them, who was maybe 3 years old, sat with me the whole time and helped me put tattoos on the other children. She was so sweet and so helpful! Later I got to spend time with her mother who was my age and already had 3 children! This little girl was too young to be sponsored because the children have to be school aged but her sister was actually already being sponsored, I am hoping to stay connected with her through these six months and sponsor her when she is ready to go to school after I get home to the states!! The team got to feed the kids their meal that is provided by the center, which the kids loved! The kids think it is so funny to see us serve them food and are always all giggles when they are in line to eat. Before we left we got to hand out care bags to everyone and we were all sad to leave!!! It was such a great night for our team!
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| Sharing the gospel with the kids |
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| They preformed some songs and dances that their Sunday school teacher had taught them |
Tuesday night our team headed to Carmel, which is an American style bakery, to celebrate one of our team member's, Becca's, birthday! We had pizzas and sandwiches followed by cake and ice cream to celebrate with!
Wednesday morning was our team's last full day here. Kevin showed the team a video that Sarah's Covenant Homes had made about one of the bigger homes called Victory House. Victory House is a large orphanage for about 50 special needs children who Sarah rescued from the state orphanages. Victory Home provides special care that these children would normally not receive living in a state run orphanage. At Victory Home we met Tisra and Eric who moved their family from the states to India after adopting their daughter from India and recognizing the needs. Tisra and Eric are in charge of running Victory Home with their family. I just admire both of them so much for being able to work with such a special set of children. I have to say that I was the most uncomfortable at Victory Home than anywhere else on the trip. I am so impressed with people that have a heart for severe special needs kids and was so impressed with some of our team members that fell in love with Victory Home. I, selfishly, can not get past the smell, the screaming, and the slobber that fills Victory Home from top to bottom.
That night our team visited a girls home for special needs girls. Most of these girls were blind or had another physical handicap. My team in January was able to visit these girls in January, and they are a such a happy group of girls. They are crazy and so happy to see us. The apartment above theirs is where Tressa and Kourtney will be living for 6 months so I am sure we will be seeing a lot of these sweet girls. Our team also spotted our first Ongole rat living below their stairs. YIKES! Our team also had our first lice sighting here as well, which freaked all the girls out a little.
I got a big surprise Wednesday night as our team traveled to a girls home a little outside of Ongole, which is one of the homes I will be staying at for a month! It was also exciting because this is another one of the homes we were able to visit this past January so we already knew the girls and coincidentally are the girls who are in the picture in the background of this blog!!! So excited to finally see somewhere that I will be staying and so excited to get to know them! It was nice to have the team meet them so that they could see what I will be doing for 6 months. Most excitingly, it was one of the cleanest and organized places we went too which is happy and comforting news for me!!
Thursday morning was bittersweet as it was our last day with the team, but exciting because our team thought we were going to have a very exciting Indian train ride experience. As it turned out the train had an hour delay so our team had to drive to our destination, but I know my bus had a great ride anyways! Our team headed to a small village near the coast that the team in January had visited. Since then they had built a school and a development center for the at risk children in the village. We were only able to spend a short time there but it was fun to see the progress the village had made since we had been there last.
Thursday afternoon was a sad, tearful, send off to our team! Hard to say goodbyes even for the people that will see them in a few weeks. I was sad to send off friends, but looking forward to sharing what God is going to do in the next 6 months. Sad to see some of our students off as well knowing that we are missing their exciting college move in days!!! I will miss them dearly for sure. Our team spent the rest of Thursday relaxing (and missing our friends).
Our team has had some much needed rest in preparation of Team 2 flying in this Monday! The rest is nice, but I know that I will be happy to have another team here. We are headed to the beach this afternoon! Excited to see how Indian beaches compare to American ones. Something tells me I won't be seeing a lot of bikinis, surfers, or beach umbrellas ;)
With Love from India,
Grace
"The Lord will hand over to you the people who live there, and you must deal with them as I have commanded you. So be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not panic before them. For the Lord your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you." Deuteronomy 31:6
Thank you so much for sharing the trip and experiences! Great pictures!
ReplyDeletePraying for the work God is doing there =) Very inspiring.
Suzanne
Excited that your girls are ones you've already met. And they're super organized and clean! yay! Also, I want to see pictures of your awesome hotel...I'm jealous! haha :)
ReplyDeleteCannot wait to hear all about you being a "momma" to these girls! You need to introduce them to Mexican food...just make it spicy and I'm sure they'll like it! :)
Wish we were there! Much love to you girl!