While I was away...

While I was gone my wonderful friends/coworkers continued to feed the kids on the weekends. The first was a bit chaotic but the second week went very smoothly. They also held a street girls day for Christmas which Susie orchestrated! In addition to the weekly meals, the kids at the street girls day got some very special treatment. They played tons of games, received baths, a meal and then each received a gift. I was sad to miss out on a few weeks of meals and the street girls day but appreciate all the love and commitment from the people here!!

.Agape.

As Louise, Michael and I fed the children this past Sunday I found myself in the midst of a huge, bear hug from one of the girls. It was that type where she just leapt up into my arms and wrapped her thin arms and legs around me then giggled. She hugged me tight, and I could easily feel her joy there in my arms. We nuzzled into each other, I squeezed my eyes closed and softly I thought "This must be what Agape love feels like." I honestly hadn't even heard or used the term 'agape love' for at least ten years but I think I, for the first time, am experiencing it. This week the children did not panic with the fear that they would not receive food when they saw us. Instead we received smiles, hugs and (fairly) organized lines. This is the fourth or fifth week in a row that I have fed the kids in this particular slum, I love these children in a way that I have never felt before. I wonder, I hope, I pray that they feel it too. 

We changed things a little bit this time around. There were only three of us and I was worried because usually we have around five. We made the fifty meals in record time, and when I return to India after my visit to the states I will finally be able to purchase the huge pots and a gas counter-top stove. That means that I will be able to increase the meals I make each time. When we walked away this week, I told Louise that it seems I could start making 75 meals or so. So I have to. In addition, I brought along a sharpie marker so that I could mark each child's hand as they receive their meal. This significantly reduced the chaos, plus it was really cute to see the children in the line catch on and come to me with their hands out, palms facing down as opposed to up. Their hands are so dirty, so it also seems that perhaps since things are calming down that I could take the time to wash them before getting their meal. 

As we left to walk home, some of my favorite girls grabbed our hands and walked with us. I stopped and asked them each their names, they gazed at my Mahendi and we shared some more hugs. It took everything within me to not just march them down to my home and allow them to bathe and maybe even feed them again. Maybe someday. 

In four days I fly to the states. I have to admit, that though I miss my family and friends dearly I am going to miss this the next two weeks. Luckily, I have amazing friends and coworkers here who will continue to feed the kiddos in my absence. Then, I will arrive back just in time to have an extra special Christmas with a street girls day and a Christmas meal for the slums made with that crazy, unique Agape love. 

Sam Means, Christmas All Over Again, Tom Petty and Asha Guwahati

Wait, what?

Last time I wrote, I mentioned that my friend Danielle blogged about what is happening here in Guwahati. She is an amazing woman and a well-loved blogger. She decided she wanted to do something with her readership and spreading the word about Asha Guwahati was on her list. In just over a weeks time her post has garnered crazy amounts of support for the kids here. To top it all off, she approached me a few days ago about the following:

Sam Means is a musician based out of Arizona, his wife is friends with Danielle. Sam is formally of the band The Format, and I have to be real for a second, I may have squealed when I read Danielle's e-mail because I am a big fan of The Format and have been for many years. I squealed again as I continued to read and found out that he and his wife heard about Asha Guwahati and wanted to help. They had already made a donation after reading Danielle's post but they are not stopping there. Sam covered Tom Petty's "Christmas All Over Again" this year and like Tom Petty, Sam wanted to give the proceeds to charity. From Sam's site:

Originally written and performed by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Featured on the second "A Very Special Christmas" CD to benefit Special Olympics, Petty generously donated the royalties to the song to the organization. Since its release in 1992, the song has raised more than $200,000 to benefit athletes with intellectual disabilities. 

All donations from this version will be donated to 

Animal Welfare League (aawl.org) & Asha Guwahati (he.llomer.ch/asha)

credits

released 01 December 2011 

SPECIAL THANKS TO 

Don Raymond, Jr., Bass Guitar 

Patrick Carrie, Electric Guitar

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You can listen to the song below and purchase it (for only 99cents!) right then or head over to iTunes and purchase it there! I am so happy and still in disbelief at everyone's support. Please let me and Sam and Danielle know if you purchase the song! Every purchase will go so far.

On giving thanks

I can guarantee you that I did not know the thankfulness one year ago that I know now. How do you truly give thanks? You go down to train tracks; you go right to the slums. You hand out food to tiny outreached hands. To children without clothing. To babies with bellies rounded from a mixture of starvation and parasites. You hold girls from the slums on your lap, you grasp their hand and hug them with big hugs. You donate one dollar, ten dollars, one hundred dollars. And with that touch, that smile, that donation, that meal, you are telling them how much they are loved. You, from places all over the world, are showing them how much you care. So when the man from the shop across the way tells me that what I am doing has no point, that the whole of India is poor and starving I can hear you with me in response "We have to start somewhere, and right here in this slum, with with these kids is that place." I think of how much support I have received, especially in the last two weeks and I am broken with gratefulness. To those of you who helped me pass out food last Thursday, those on the mission team and those of you who have donated over the last week in response to Danielle, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. The relationship you are enabling me to build with these children and this community is real. The potential for this project is immense. Honestly, at times I feel intimidated or inadequate but your support pushes me forward. For some reason you have chosen to believe in this, to love these children as they deserve to be loved. There is nothing that I could be more thankful for than that. 

Down to the tracks

I have been really wanting to share with you what happened last weekend when I went out to feed the children! This week has been insane and awesome. Monday was the best day as my niece was born back in the states AND the mission team heard about my feeding project (which I have been calling Asha Guwahati) and they decided to donate for the meals. There is so much to write about but I will save this week for later and talk about last Saturday. 

As you know, two weekends ago I couldn't find the kids whom I had been feeding regularly. So last weekend I got some people started with the cooking and then I went on a scouting trip to the corner. Much to my dismay, the kids were still missing. I decided to walk further in hopes of finding them and quickly found myself making a beeline for the train tracks. I walked and walked, and ended right at the rails. I walked parallel to them through the slums. I peered into the shanty homes and saw many faces smiling back at me. This was where I needed to go. No one approached me as I wandered through, so out of place. There were kids without clothes, dirty and wounded. Children bending over the the tracks, picking up trash that has been tossed out of passing trains and homes that looked as if the would collapse on themselves in the slightest of breezes. I walked and soon ended where I began all those weeks ago on my very first feeding adventure and I just knew. If I couldn't find the children on the corner I had to come here. So I walked back home and was a nervous wreck. The tracks are hard, the people of the slums they need so much help and I knew it would be yet another push forward to continue growing this project. 

We packed up the food, I hopped on the back of a coworkers bike, Louise and Kelly got in a tuk-tuk and we headed off to the tracks. The next 10 minutes were a blur. We just set up on a corner, right at the rail just at the entrance of the slum village. The people came in swarms! Thankfully my friend Kelly has way more of a backbone than me and she managed to make it an organized chaos. We were yelling out "Queue!!" "Children" and "babies" in Assamese and for the most part, the crowd got it. We placed the warm boxes of food in tiny dirty hands and even though it was madness, many managed to connect their eyes with mine in a thank you. As usual, it felt like it was over before it began and it was time to walk away. For me, walking away is the hardest part because I know what lies behind me. I know how much more I can do, I know how much more I want to do. The support I have been receiving in this adventure keeps me up at night in excitement. I can not wait to share with the week I have had, the weeks that will come as this project grows. Thank you all for your support thus far <3

"Where are all the kids?!?!"

Sunday. Oh Sunday. Passing out food this weekend was a complete 180 from the previous three weekends. I am finally perfecting exactly how much of each food item to purchase/make for 50 servings and the cooking went extra smooth with the help of two co-workers. We had it all ready to go just in time for two others to come and help pass it out, so we headed to the street corner maybe around 1230. The usual time! We got in two tuk tuks and as we reached the corner, there was not a soul in sight! (Okay not a soul that was in need of the food) So I had the driver continue down the road to the second spot and much to my dismay, they were not there either. My heart sank!! Where had they gone? We (eventually) turned around to the train station because there are ALWAYS children there, but after searching for another hour we still were left in disappointment. At one point I walked with one friend back to the usual corner and we attracted attention from the police (who were patrolling the area) we were surrounded by six or seven of them all with their rifles and batons! This may have happened because I yelled "Where's the children?!?!?" up and down the street! They said they didn't know where the kids had gone, but I am sure it had something to do with the police presence.

Finally we decided to go to another part of the city by the river where many adults and some children live. As we piled in, a few street kids surfaced and ran up to us. They were not the ones I usually feed but of course we were ecstatic to feed them nonetheless! We passed out some meals then headed to the river.

Once there we walked up to a family and guess what?! The little boy and girl were two of the 17 kids who had attended the slum girls day a few weeks prior!! The sister came to me first, her face beaming. I immediately remembered her and she gave me the biggest hug then couldn't stop holding my hand. Both she and her brother just looked at me, smiling seeming to say "I can't believe it's you AGAIN!" It was so awesome! Their mom and dad live with them on the streets and so I saw their piece of cement which is their home. After we passed out all the food we got on the bus to go eat lunch ourselves. As I was sitting their my coworker looked at me and asked if I was thinking of the group of kids we normally feed. The answer, of course, was yes. I worried. Where were they? Where do 50 kids without homes go when the police tell them to move? Were they hungry? Will they eat today? I had to hold back the tears. I genuinely hope that they re-surface and that I find them again really soon. (Side note: The people we fed live near a temple that provides food, which is why I hadn't gone there previously.)

Then the thoughts moved on to the brother and sister and their family. They were there on the broken sidewalk, smiling and seemingly whole with nothing but the clothes strung over a banister, the meals we had just provided and each other. I keep looking at the picture of them sitting on the sidewalk, a candid photo, in which you can see them all smiling. So I ask you this today, what makes a home, a home?