Goodbye India!

December 14, 2011
Last day in MGMH hospital here in Hyderabad. I ended up spending my last hour in the baby room cuddling a little boy who had been delivered with forceps. He kept trying to push his neck off my arm as though he wanted to walk away. It was a nice way to reflect on my time here and allow myself to relax. Though we’re not leaving for Dar es Salem until December 28, I’m mentally prepping for the move and am really excited! I’ve never been to Africa so it will be a new experience.
It feels good to be done the first school, knowing I have only 5 months in the Applied Birth Attendant School befoe I can finally meet baby Annabelle and the 4 other kids my friends are having while I’m away. I admit it. I’m homesick. But I know you all will just tell me that there’s nothing exciting happening at home so I’ll stuff it back down and try not to think about it.
Living in a team community has been hard work. Not everyone is at the same level; wether in maturity or thinking, emotions, spiritual beliefs/convictions, physically, or financially. Today I decided I want all of us to just say things how they are without trying so hard not to step toes and avoid conflict, but that idea was thrown out when I realized that we're girls who get hurt easy! anyhow...
we’re switching staff and leaders when we go to Tanzania. It will be nice to be with Sarah(the leader of the second school) but it’s sad to say goodbye to Bekah(the first school leader) and Marchien (who’s from Holland and tells me the Fries don’t actually rule the Netherlands).
The Old Folks home has expanded! We revisited and they had used the money our team gave for mattresses and to take in 3 more elderly men. They are also renting the top floor of the building now too. The small church that helps Radhika(the woman running the home) is hoping to build their own church as the old people are complaining that the noise it too much every Sunday and “we don’t even believe in the Jesus you are worshiping”(as most of them are Hindu’s). If any of you still want to help these people out let me know as I will be visiting one more time to bring them a Christmas gift from a Canadian family I love before we leave the country.
Okay, and one more story. We went on a treasure hunt last Friday. Four of us girls prayed and God gave us a few bus numbers, a picture of a “cool” looking man, and a few other things to look for. So we tried to get on a bus with those numbers and ended up at the local train station. When we got there we looked for the other clues but were having a hard time so we began walking. As we walked I saw two lepers begging, a man and a woman. We stopped and asked if we could pray for them. The man knew English very well and quickly agreed and we learned that the man’s name was Samuel, the woman’s Miriam and that he was a Christian. He was very grateful for our prayers and when we asked him if we could buy them a meal he said no. I pressed him and asked if we could at least buy him a drink as it was very hot and they were sitting in the middle of the road. They requested orange juice. The crowd was wondering what was going on and we were able to share that they were our friends, we were Christians and that God loves Samuel and Miriam a lot. When I snuck in a bit of money Samuel didn’t take it at first saying, “You misunderstand. I don’t want money mam. I am very happy you prayed and talked to us. I only want all Indians to treat lepers better.“
Meeting Samuel really rocked me as I realized that when we talk about the body of Christ every Sunday in church, we are really talking about this man Samuel, a leper begging on the streets in India.(We later did find the “cool” man. He actually said, “No, I don’t need prayer, I’m cool.”
Merry Christmas soon!
Stef