My Day:
8am – wake up, spend time with my man Jesus
9:50 – walk to the boys home
10:00 – breakfast
free time
12:30 – lunch
1:30 – boys arrive home from school
After greeting them at the door with smiles, hugs, and tickles
they eat lunch and then it’s time to study. Tutoring is actually the biggest
portion of our ministry. Many of our boys are behind in class. They are being
asked to know and understand English phrases when they can barely read and
don’t understand that letters make certain sounds. They have exams next week.
After tutoring we play out on the “field�, a bricked in square of trash
littered grass with a tree and some other obstacles for our barefooted boys to
hurt their feet on. India doesn’t have trash pick up, people throw garbage on
the most convenient location, the ground. This is the main part I want to tell
you about today, but I will come back to it.
Our ministry is pretty low-key. We have a lot of free time when
the boys are not around. We try to utilize this time well by taking prayer
walks or catching up with each other on what we are struggling with or
rejoicing in. There have been times when other teammates and myself realized
that when we thought of India, we thought we would be doing more. However, the
Lord has placed us here, at this time, doing these things, at this ministry, in
this setup, with these people, for a purpose! Who am I to question God?
“As the heavens are higher
than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher
than your thoughts . . . declares the Lord� Isaiah 55:9
Anyway, back to the throw throw field, called throw throw field
because we always play a game, much like dodgeball, called throw throw, Indian
dodgeball. One of our boys, I’ll call him Jimmy even though his Indian name is
so stinking cute, and I had a conversation about him wanting to move to
America. When I asked why he wanted to move to America he told me in his broken
English, “Grass�, he spelled it out on paper because it was that important to
him that I understand, “They have clean grass�.
My heart broke. I sat there in the boys room, with Jimmy, who I
love so much, trying not to cry. Grass. He wants to come to America because
there is clean grass. I am in America constantly and not once have I thought to
be thankful for clean grass. What a humbling and eye opening conversation. Even
typing it now my heart still feels for him and for how blind I have been.
Now that I have opened your eyes too. My challenge to you:
Everyday this week, until the next blog post comes up, tell God everything you
are thankful for, even the little things, like clean grass.
In Love,
Raelyn
