A Day in the Life

Since arriving at New Life over a month ago, no two days have been the same. To give you a tentative idea of what a day in the life of an intern looks like, I've outlined below some points of what our days contain:

5 a.m. - Drums begin their percussive rhythm. I roll out of bed and zombie-walk up to the prayer service. There are 71 kids living at New Life. They all meet together at this time to begin their day in Worship.

5:30 a.m. - Worship ends. Prepare for an early morning hike with the boys. Sometimes instead I go for a run to the bridge, do yoga or have an early quiet time.

7 a.m. - When I first imagined hiking the mountain, I imagined the scenic dirt paths of Umstead Park with an incline. The reality was far different. At some points we were grabbing onto boulders at 90 degrees to hoist ourselves up, and on the way down if we weren’t repelling backwards by holding onto long grasses growing out of the rocky slope, we were jumping down from boulder to boulder with a melody of rattlesnakes and king cobras hissing behind us.

9 a.m. - Home safe to enjoy breakfast.  Munna and Sushmita are our extremely talented cooks (who fell in love while working together. They have made it into the 5% of Indians who do not have an arranged marriage - their wedding day is set for August 9). Samosas, dosas, and Indian pancakes are some of my favorite breakfast items from their kitchen. This is typically accompanied by ripe pomegranates and freshly made orange juice.

10 a.m. - Time for school! Teaching 7th grade English is first. They love to play a vocab game entitled “celebrate” where we go around in a circle and each child takes one letter of the word to spell. 

10:40 a.m. - 6th grade English. This class was one of the most difficult when we first started teaching, but they’ve improved greatly. We’re studying an adaptation of “Alice In Wonderland” which the kids will do a dramatic performance of next week.

11:40 a.m. - 8th grade English. I love all of my students, but I must admit that this is my favorite class. All of the kids are so unique and excited about learning, including precious Manish who sits on the front row. They just completed an assignment in which they created an original story - this was their first time ever being asked to write something independently. I was blown away by the inventive, well-developed stories they produced. Very, very talented kids. 

12:20 p.m. - 8th grade history. Teaching Indian history is challenging because I’m learning right beside the kids, but very interesting.

1 p.m. - Lunch time. We have rice and dal every day for lunch and dinner. Additionally, Munna makes amazing chile prawns and periodically takes our tastebuds back to America with an Indian spin on pizza.

2 p.m. - Time to "take rest" to recoup from the morning and recharge for the rest of the day.

3 p.m. - Work on child sponsorship profiles for the ministry, plan for Bible study, etc.

4 p.m. - Free time with the kids. We often play football (soccer) and volleyball with the boys, paint nails with the girls, play games with the little kids, or go on adventure walks in the village.

6 p.m. - Evening prayer service. We gather on spread blankets outside to pray and worship under the setting sun. Tonight the sunset was particularly brilliant.

7 p.m. - This is one of my favorite times of the day. I either help the kids with their homework which allows for precious one on one time, give piano lessons, make dinner with Munna and Sushmita, or co-lead Bible study. Twnty-two of the older hostel girls and wardens gather in our room to study the Word in community twice per week. Women in Indian culture, relative to the US, live an oppressed life (see below for more*). In light of this, our focus is empowering them as women of Christ and leading them in developing a personal, intimate relationship with their Heavenly Father. 

8:30 p.m. - Dinner time! Rice and dal with guest appearances by gypsy noodles, paneer, chicken curry, and intermittent American dishes is a common menu. Our nightly discussion of “highs and lows/happys and crappys” reveal the best and hardest points of each persons day. This typically turn into powwow girl time which ushers in welcomed laughter to the end of the day.

10 p.m. - Reading time and preparation for another full day tomorrow. Praise the Lord, for He is good, His faithful love endures forever!

*Ultrasounds are illegal in India. The reason is because so many families immediately abort their unborn child if they learn it is a girl. One girl said of the beatings and burns she received from her father, “I’m thankful to him.” When asked why, she said “Because at least he let me live.” Stories like this are not uncommon, as is an increasingly subservient mentality. If girls make it through adolescence without being sold by their families to be raped every day by 10-25 men or abandoned completely, they are forced to marry men they’ve never seen before in arranged marriages. This is the sole aspiration of most women’s lives. The hope that he won’t beat them is lost by most. If he cheats on them with another woman, the other woman must be legally taken as his wife and come to live with them. And incase you thought “she should just leave”, divorce is illegal, so she can’t. More to come on this subject later.

He Sets the Captive Free

Manish sits in the front row of the classroom. His eagerness for life and insatiable appetite for knowledge are accompanied by an undeniable joy and positivity. He is incredibly smart, but what makes him an outstanding student is his eagerness for life. The lens of joy with which he sees the world colors each question that tumbles from his lips, and the glint of hope behind his eyes fuels each response. I decided to ride the bus home with him one afternoon. As we boarded the bus, and I contemplated the plausibility of him physically jumping out of his skin with excitement. As our bodies jolted along with the cracking, disheveled concrete underneath the old wheels of the bus, Manish's glittering eyes opened even wider to show me the glory of his hometown. I didn't have the heart to tell him I had ventured through the town many a time before -- the thrill overcoming his voice as he announced "Look madame, we're passing a clothing store!" made it entirely worth the narrated journey. Once we passed through the sensory overload of downtown Kesinga, I had to find out more about where this precious boy had come from.

"Manish, when did you start coming to New Life Academy?"

"Oh sister, that's a long story…it begins with my sister Manisa. She is several years older than me. For years she suffered…she would constantly demand my father get her goats."

"Why did she want goats?"

"So she could drink their blood. Any animal she would try and drink -- the spirits controlled her. She was very cruel and violent. My family was Hindu so they took her to the temple but she only got worse."

"Wait, you mean she was possessed by demons?"

"Yes, sister. For many years my family searched for help. We spent all our money, but nothing worked. We had no hope. Then someone told my father about New Life, so we came."

I spoke with Pastor Siani (founder of New Life) about this later to make sure the story was right, and he vividly recollected the day Manish's family came to him for help and prayer. When Siani began to pray for Manisa, she lunged at him and wrung his neck in an attempt to kill him. After she was restrained, Siani and the believers at New Life claimed deliverance for this girl in Jesus' name. Just as in the numerous accounts of deliverance from evil spirits in the New Testament, (Mat. 8:28-34, Mat. 17:14-19, Mark 5:1-13, Mark 9:1-29, Luke 8:28-39) the demons were driven from Manisa's body. 

"So what happened to her once he began to pray?"

"She started bending violently -- it was scary. But they kept praying to Jesus and finally she screamed and then collapsed on the ground. It was like she was sleeping for about 10 minutes, then she finally woke up."

"Then what did she do?"

"She asked us for water and sat peacefully for a while. Then she said,

'For years I have felt a heavy weight on my chest. Now my body feels light, the weight is gone. 

I am finally free.'

"After my sister was delivered, my whole family became Christian. I doesn't matter that we are the only ones in my village. Jesus Christ set my sister free and I love Him."

As has been observed so many times in the precious people here, an undeniable Light resides in the heart who knows Christ Jesus as Lord. Manish is brightly shining in school here at New Life as a result of that Light. After years of affliction and captivity, his sister Manisa is thriving and free in Jesus' name. She is currently pursuing a theological degree at a Bible Institute in India. 

In his 17th chapter, Matthew describes when Jesus cast a demon out of a young boy. Afterward his disciples came to him and asked (vs. 19) '"Why could we not cast it out?" He said to them,

"Because of your little faith. For truly I say to you, if you have faith like the grain of a mustard seed…nothing will be impossible for you."

Believer, claim this promise in the name of Jesus. The wealth, prosperity, and self-sufficiency in the States has a tendency to blind us to the potency of the Gospel. The healing, saving, redeeming, freeing power of Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever.

Educational Observations

Part of my internship at New Life includes teaching. On our first day, we attended a meeting at the school to learn they had just lost four teachers. Not surprisingly (because that's just the way the Lord works), the four of us interns filled their need for additional teachers exactly. School in India is very different; the following anecdotes may outline a bit of what I mean:

The Classroom

Physics

India is a developing country, and methods of organization are reflective of this. On my first day, I walked into a classroom full of students with no teacher and asked them what they needed to be taught. They responded with "Physics", handed me a book, and class began. I flipped open the tattered pages to the first chapter: centripetal acceleration. I studied Physics for two years in high school, and we did not cover centripetal acceleration (a fundamental of circular motion) until after months of gaining a conceptual understanding of basics like speed, velocity and acceleration. After several minutes of probing questions, I realized there was an incredible gap between the book and their knowledge base. These kids did not understand what "speed" was. I set up a simple experiment using a stopwatch, ruler, and a volunteer to walk/run across the room so the students could physically observe how speed is calculated. At first they looked confused, then nervous and finally excited. The kids voluntarily jumped up out of their seat and cheered for their classmate walking across the room, my timekeeper meticulously watched seconds tick by as if he were timing an Olympic race, and the academic kids stood at attention for numbers to be called out for the next calculation. They all seemed so enchanted, and I later deduced it was because they had never been taught outside of a textbook. Looking at the world around them and gaining knowledge was an unprecedented concept. 

Shalom

On another day, I passed an empty class swarming with energetic 8-9 year olds. I began an English lesson, and quickly realized these precious ones had the attention span of rabbits. Searching for something to remedy this, my mind returned to a call-and-response I heard daily from the New Life Orphanage kids at 5am worship and the evening prayer service: "Hallelujah", "Praise the Lord". New Life Academy is full of mostly Hindu children, so my classroom call-and-response is "Shalom", "Peace be with you" because it is not blatantly religious, but when the children ask what it means it opens the door to conversation. 

Discipline 

- Justine is the bubbly 9-year-old daughter of Pastor Siani. She is in fourth grade, and one day started to day dream in class. The teacher came over to her desk, picked up her book, and smacked her in the face with it. This is not uncommon; teachers here are very liberal with physical discipline. 

- I raised my hand to high-five a student after he responded correctly to a question; he winced and shriveled back to protect himself. The first time I opened my arms to hug one of my girls after class, she was petrified. But it only took one time for her to learn I wasn't going to hurt her, now she goes for a bear hug after each class. 

- I interviewed a group of boys to learn their feelings on being beaten by teachers, this is a synopsis of their response:

•  "If I like a teacher and they hit me, it makes me feel very bad, so I start to work harder for them." 
• "When we fear him we can get knowledge." 
• "I feel angry". 

When I told them it was against the law to hit a student in the U.S., their jaws literally dropped to the ground we were sitting on. They asked me what happens when a student misbehaves, and I told them sometimes students will be suspended from school. They were confounded by this and said, 

"But that is terrible, then you are taking away their chance for knowledge." 

While I do not agree with physical discipline to the degree in which it is implemented in schools here, U.S. kids should take some notes on the standard of respect given to teachers here…

Respect for Authority

• When a teacher enters the room, all students rise and say "Good morning ma'am."
• I have never been addressed by anything but "madame" or "ma'am". 
• When called on to answer a question, students rise and remain standing until told to sit again.
• Students stand silently at the door with a hand raised shoulder length until acknowledged and given permission to enter the room.

Methods of Learning

My observation is that these children are terrified to think on their own. They are amazingly smart and memorize endless passages from their books, but when asked to share their opinion on something they shut down. The educational differences between India and the US result in an entirely different way of learning, thinking, and ultimately create a different student.

HIStory Class

A class of 7th graders had been left without a teacher because their instructor elected not to come to school. I walked in and was informed they needed to be taught History. A wave of stress washed over me as I began praying for some way to become an expert on Indian history in a matter of seconds and formulate a cohesive lesson plan on a subject I didn't know. The stress I was feeling gave way to immediate excitement as I opened the book and read the title of the first chapter: Christianity. A huge smiling overtaking my face, I slapped the book closed and said,

"In History, we get to learn cool stories about people from the past. Today I'm going to tell you my personal favorite. It's about a man named Jesus." 

The kids sat attentively taking notes on the story of Jesus and the gift He came to give us, some absorbing the truth of the Good News for the first time. New Life is a Christian ministry, but because the area is so deeply Hindu they can not speak freely about Jesus in the academy. That said, I was able to preach the Gospel to that class of 7th grade Hindu students.

In follow up conversation with students, I am reminded of Jesus' words in Matthew 13 when he describes a farmer casting seeds into a field. Some seeds fell into thorns, some onto shallow soil, and some on fertile soil. For example, Krishna (named after a prominent Hindu god) has been kind but uninterested in the Gospel message. A precious girl named Babita came to me and said: "Sister, I believe in Jesus but all my other gods too!" This is a common response among the Hindu community. Lastly, a sweet girl named Rasna was intrigued by the Gospel message but didn't seem to consider it seriously. Last week, I saw Rasna at an evening prayer service. She was weeping. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, Rasna gave her life to the Lord that night.


The Gospel is alive and at work here in India, please keep the precious souls of these students in your prayers. No one is impossible for our God to save! 

All Before Breakfast

Each morning at 5am, I am woken by the percussive sound of beating drums. This signifies the gathering of all the children in the orphanage for morning worship. After worship, the children have a couple hours to go and study before school begins. Two of the boys, Khusi (Oriya for "happy") and Sanjay, and one girl, Sunita, love to go and run/walk in the village during this time. Each morning after worship, we go out for a run to the bridge. This particular morning, we decide to go for a walk instead. As we walk out of the compound, Sunita sweetly points out that we are passing a massive snake hole. Last night a baby king cobra was found in the boys room. Beyond this, the village awaits. Topographically, there are jagged and distinct mountains in the distance with exotic plants sprouting from the deep orange soil that comprises them. The village is picturesque. Bright colors and tribal patterns are abundant around the small huts, people bustle about selling mangos and live chickens, all the while the shrill sound of car horns (they sound like a combination of an ice-cream truck song and a trumpet) is constant on the road. Walking along the road is a game in and of itself, one I like to call "dodge the cars".

My eyes fall on a large tree with a something attached to it on the side of the road. Sunita informs me that this is a Hindu shrine. As we walk up beside it, an old man hobbles out of his hut clutching a coconut, probably one of his only possessions. He breaks it at the altar and then begins to chant. We watch with intrigue, then one of the boys, Khusi (which means "happy" in Oriya), says in broken English,

"When we were little, we lived in a Hindu village. The villagers always brought offerings of things like coconuts and other fruits to appease the gods. One day, the villagers came out screaming, 'The fruit we left on the altar is no longer there! The gods have accepted our offering!!' ...what they didn't know is that it was Sanjay and me who ate the coconuts." 

Shortly after that, I notice tall fruit trees and am told they contain "tal". The boys determine they will retrieve it for me, so for the next 30 minutes they throw stones up about  60 feet to hit the fruit out of the tree. Eventually we meet with success and have 3 good tal. I expect this is the end of our venture, but it is only the beginning. Tal are much harder than coconuts, and are very difficult to crack open. Sanjay runs to a rusting electric tower to smash the tal open, but only small cracks are made. We run over to the bridge where bikes, cars, buses, and cows are crossing. Sunita instructs me, "You wait, sister, we get for you." They all get in position, and when the first bus passes they throw the tal under the wheels of the bus. Amazingly, the wheels and fruit make contact and the fruit smashes open. We all cheer excitedly as the contents of the mysterious fruit are finally unveiled. 

Gazing out over the bridge, I notice many Indian men down in the river. I ask if we can go down, so Khusi starts out down the steep sloping path to the river. I notice several white flags, but am distracted by the army of bats living under the bridge. Sunita invites me to go in the water, and soon Khusi and Sanjay follow. We wade in to our calves, then Sanjay yells, "Sister, look, the bones from the white flags!" Confused, I ask him to clarify… "Each white flag represents a person that has been burned here. The bones in the water are human bones." With that, it is time to exit the water.


On the way back, Khusi finds a beautiful butterfly and gives it to me to hold. We walk from there up to a hut just as a villager is beheading and skinning a goat. I barter with him about a price: 380 rupees per kilogram. Sanjay asks me to sing for him, which turns into a singalong to "Jesus Messiah" that carried us all the way through the village. We arrive back at New Life with our quota of adventure full for the morning, and prepare to have breakfast. 

I love spending time with these kids. Their minds are so active, their joy so vibrant and their love so genuine. They have lived in the darkness of millions of empty gods, but are now are flourishing in the one true Light. 

Sniha: Cutest Laugh Ever

When we first arrived at New Life, Sniha would not let us hold her, and she would not smile. Thank goodness that changed, because she and her laugh are absolutely precious! This is a video from yesterday, the first time she ever used a computer. She loves the silly faces.

 

“Thu Maranama Kurna?” “Miss Tomato Barbie Princess.”

Over a mouthwatering breakfast of mango and dosa, Kevin suggested that our first morning at New Life be spent "meeting the children". 

Aside from the grand introduction with flower bouquets and dozens of warm "hello seestar,"'s I encountered last night, I had no idea what to expect from them. We walked over to the school house, kicked off our shoes to walk up some stairs, then my eyes fell on a room full of children sitting on the floor studying. As soon as I crossed the threshold, the children stood up in unison and in precious Indian accents said, “good morning sister!”. Their words caused a wave of absolute joy and thankfulness for their love to overcome my heart. I went to sit with a circle of girls studying science. School is closed this week because it is too hot (we have snow days, they have sun days) so all the children living here at New Life (70 approx.) are studying independently. They are so smart, and eager to learn. I sat for hours in the upper room reading with them, having a beauty parlor hair session, learning Oriya, dancing, and singing praise songs. They taught me to say "thu maranama kurna?", Oriya for "what is your name?" and cheered and giggled with absolute glee each time I attempted in a distinct American accent. 

One of my favorite things in life is when you are so overcome by joy that the smile on your face is simply not adequate to contain all that you feel. Laughter spills out uncontrollably from sealed lips, not because of anything particularly humorous, but because you are so deeply happy to be alive. As I sat with the children, exchanging linguistics and inquiries about one another, the pure joy exuding from their hearts and precious “praise the Lord” comments elicited a wave of rare, genuine laughter. 

This expression was fairly persistent throughout the rest of the morning. My face has a habit of turning red when I laugh, to which Justine exclaimed, “Miss Tomato!” Consequently, the children nicknamed Brooke, Alexis, and Katie Miss Potato, Miss Onion and Miss Lettuce-Finger, respectively. Later we went out to play badminton and had a jump rope tournament, at which time my title expanded to “Miss Tomato Barbie Princess”. 

Spending time with these children is incredible, they have already taught me so much. The love I feel for them is overcoming, and serves a beautiful glimpse at the deep love their Heavenly Father has for them.