Day Twenty

Monday:
I am a little behind.. Sorry! Yesterday morning I went and helped at Beautiful Gates. It is a special needs school here in Mysore. I got there at about 9:30 and waited for the teachers and kids to arrive at 10. As I waited I got to talk to a lady named Hemma and she was very sweet and was sharing with me how she came to know Christ. I am uncertain as to how she really realized or came to know that she needed Christ as a savior and that she needed a relationship with Him, but she was very certain that she did have a relationship with Him so praise the Lord! She shared with me that she got married at the age of 16 and her husband was abusive (which is common) to her in more ways than one. She got pregnant shortly after and has two boys now. Three years after she was married her husband committed suicide. She now lives with just her and her boys. I cannot imagine living a life like that, but the encouraging part of the story is that through all of that she knew that she needed something so much more than anyone here or the "gods" that she has been brought up around can offer her. She found a peace that she had never been able to experience before in Christ and now has been trusting him for eleven years. Praise the Lord! Once the kids arrived I just sat in and observed a classroom for the day. I sat in on a German girls who is twenty, has just finished high school and has taken a year off to come teach in India before going to college. She taught the kids English/Language. There are four different sessions and each session she teaches the same thing, just to a different group of kids. Each teacher however has no more than two kids in each class. There was not a whole lot of room for me to be able to help, but I did enjoy getting to observe how things worked there at the school. Especially since I have not had any experience with special needs kids. (Special needs is one of my choice for the major I am pursuing in college and it was really good to be able to experience what it is like first hand. I now know that that is not a field I feel called to!) Since the school is prospering at the moment and does not need help as expected, I have decided to just spend my last week with the Woods. I am so excited about getting to spend more time than planned with them and being able to really just invest in this sweet family this last week. Last night we went and met some people out in one of the villages. Rebekah went to her friend, Joyel's house to play instead of coming with us so it was just Sarah, Tony, Stephany and me. Before going to the village we met a man who owns this restaurant a little ways out of town and got to pray with him. He is not a believer, but his wife and kids are and he has been showing an interest of coming to know Christ so it was nice to be able to pray for him in hopes of him one day coming to know Jesus personally. He sent someone from his restaurant to go get some fresh mangos and make us some juice from them. It was delicious! After leaving there we then went to a home in the village and they made us a meal called Biriyani. It was a rice and chicken meal. We sat on the floor in their living room and ate. First the wife came around and washed our hands and then she brought us plates with the meal on it. There were no silverware so I got to experience eating indian style with my fingers! They served us so much food, but I had to eat it all because I would have felt horrible if I didn't. Meat here is so expensive that they probably don't eat it, but once a month and they chose to serve it to us.. It was delicious, but my mouth and lips were ON FIRE!! Stephany was so gracious and when they left the room took some of my food from my plate and ate it for me... :) The family kept putting more and more on our plates. I felt like I would probably never eat again!! After dinner some neighbors came over and we prayed together and then Tony shared the gospel in Conada to them. After we finished at the house there we drove and went to another house where we prayed for another family and then we headed back to pick up Rebekah and home. It was a late night, but I am really glad that I got to experience and see a different aspect of India.