The Best and Worst of India.

At 6:30am Saturday morning, part of the team and I set out on a tourism adventure in a different part of Chennai. We met an Indian woman who was our “story-teller,” not our tour guide. She told stories about the different places we visited—a Hindu temple, a fort, and St. Thomas church.

The architecture in the buildings we visited was amazing and her stories really brought to light a lot of historic and religious beliefs present in India. I especially enjoyed the St. Thomas church because it is there that a bone believed to be of the apostle Thomas’ hand—the hand that touched Christ—is kept there. It was near Chennai that he was killed.

The rest of the day we went to a beach to work with the Invisible Girl project. Basically we did crafts and games with girls from a different orphanage all day. I personally helped at the friendship bracelet table the whole day. I sang with and talked to some really sweet girls.

After the girls left in their bus, we walked down a pathway to the actual beach. This excursion led to an exciting fact: I have now touched the water of 3 out of the 4 oceans. Arctic Ocean—here I come!

Our bus ride home was quite long. However, it passed quickly, due to all of the stories told during the ride. Trust me when I say the ride was very entertaining!

On a thoughtful note, I really love the girls I have been surrounded with this week, both at Home of Love and at the beach today. When I see them, I see creativity, uniqueness, hope, and an intense desire to be loved. It just doesn’t seem like enough for me to only love on them for two weeks.

This trip has been interesting in a sense because I feel like we are seeing the best and worst of India. We’ve seen the worst of India on the bad roads to the home. We’ve seen the worst in the conditions of the home. But we’ve also seen the best of India in the architecture from our tour. We’ve seen the best of India on the good roads in a different part of town. We’ve seen the best of India in hearing many people worship God at church this morning. We’ve seen the best of India in the beautiful girls at the orphanage.

Interesting and Insightful Quote from a child from the slums: “If you’re light you can fly. If you’re heavy you can’t.”

Are we truly free with everything we have that ties us down in our materialistic lives? Is it better to have so much stuff that we forget what makes life worth it?