Calcutta, India 2008

Aug. 9, 2008

Peace and joy in Christ our Savior, King and Father. I pray this update reaches you well and you are filled with the Lords graces and unconditional love.

Wow where do I begin…my time in India has quickly come to an end and I am not ready for it to be over. It has been sheer joy to be able to serve our precious Jesus through the poor in India and in a special way through the men and women in Bariupur (a small town outside of Calcutta where we worked).

Upon arriving in India I had already been told about the different houses and chosen the one I thought I would like to work in the most, but as usual the Lord had very different plans in mind for me that would bless me more than I could have ever imagined. Along with 16 other people from my group, I was given an incredible opportunity to work outside the craziness of the city of Calcutta and in a small town an hour outside of the city.

Our daily schedule looked a little like this… wake up, mass (in mother house with the sisters and all the other volunteers), breakfast, run to catch the bus (literally because of the “running rule” which means they are not suppose to stop for you to get on), then a train, and then a rigshaw (which is a small open car with only 3 wheels). We would usually arrive at the house at around 9:30 and would work for a few hours, then the travel began again, only in reverse; rigshaw, train, (this is usually where it would begin to rain due to it being monsoon season), bus, then a 10 minute walk, once in the city, to find lunch. Then we had a time of rest, followed by adoration, dinner, community prayer and the opportunity to share about what we had experienced in our day of labor and love for JESUS in HIS poor. Needless to say our days were full and we worked every day except on Thursday, which was our day off.

We choose to work in Bariupur, or rather God chose it for us, because all of the houses in Calcutta were full and didn’t need any more volunteers, except the houses in this small town, which had not had volunteers since February. There are two houses: one with children and one with adults, which was the house I worked in. The majority of the patients’ suffer from tuberculosis while the rest from other sicknesses, or just old age. Surprisingly most of the patients’ with tuberculosis were young, the youngest being 13, while the rest were around my age and older. The nuns were so excited to see us and had plenty of work for us to do. I did everything from cleaning the walls, floors, beds, to painting, cooking, doing laundry, organizing medical files. I cleaned and bandaged wounds, and also painted their nails, played dominos and just sat at their sides, spending time with them, loving them, and trying to listen and talk to them - while not really speaking their language. There is a lot of pointing involved, heads bobbing and smiling when you just don’t understand. What a beautiful and incredible experience!

Sundays were my favorite days, we would have mass at our center and the entire day was spent getting ready for mass and spending time with the people. These are the days that will forever be ingrained in my mind as some of the most beautiful days I have ever experienced. All the women would dress up in their best saris and the men in their pants and long shirts, and we would all gather upstairs in the chapel where everything is opened to the beauty of the landscape of India, and where you could hear the sound of the birds singing through the rain. The mass was said mostly in English with all the songs and some of the prayers in Bengali. What could be more beautiful than people of different backgrounds and different cultures, sharing in the most beautiful gift we have, the Eucharist. After mass everyone would gather downstairs in the open doorway where there was the constant sound of talking and laughter.

I spent almost every day at this house working alongside my Indian sisters and friends. I will never forget the faces of the women in that center or the talks we had about our “friend,” JESUS. We would sit in the open window watching the rain shower upon the garden where there was a beautiful statue of the Virgin Mary, and on my last day these lovely women, my sisters in the LORD, gave me flowers to bring and lay at the feet of our lady as an offering. Saying goodbye was a day of sadness but I will always be connected to them through the one thing we share all in common, JESUS. Upon leaving all earnestly asked me to keep them in my prayers, and giving my heartfelt yes, I asked these little saints to remember me also in theirs’.

It was a hard mission filled with daily struggles and difficulties, but Jesus is so faithful, and was constantly blessing and showering upon me His ever-flowing mercy. In India Jesus taught me how to be a more humble servant, walking blindly in faith, and learning how to love Him in a deeper way. I was reminded of just how weak I am and how much I rely upon the Lord. He is my everything – The air I breath, and in a very real way, my daily bread.

“ ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ I will all the more gladly boast of my weakness, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities; for when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Cor. 12:9-10)