My Heart is Broken

We have been in India for a little over a week and a half now and are in our second location. Quick update on the acid reflux: have not taken my medicine at all since the last post, had chick-fil-a at the airport (acid reflux was ok, but my stomach kinda flipped out), and I have been eating greasy, spicy, and fried foods everyday....and its been amazing! No pain! I am healed!!
Now about the trip...We started out getting accustomed to the culture. We now have our Indian attire that we wear everyday. It's difficult to fully express ourselves when we have to watch our language and when we talk to our daddy we can not close our eyes as we can in America. The atmosphere is much like Slum Dog Millionaire: children younger than one year old begging, rick-saw rides, buses with flashing lights, crazy music, and huge crowds, beggars of all ages everywhere, poverty every where you look, public squaties (their "toilets") cost money, trash filled streets, at least ten different nauseating smells each block, cows, goats, pigs, and water buffalo's roam the streets. The list goes on, but the worst part about it is the heartbreak that you feel every second for these people.

Last week we went to a train station to board for our 17 hour trip, each carrying about 75 pounds of luggage up two flights of stairs, across the train tracks, and then back down. The whole time men standing all over the place just watching you struggle this fight as sweat runs down your face like a water fall. On the train, I looked out the window just thinking and we passed by slums and towns and people out in the fields plowing with animals. As we passed a few people gathered around a fire on the side of the train tracks that night, I wondered....do they have a place to sleep, a home, or a shack? Why are they there? What are they doing? Do they know someone loves them? All I saw and felt was heartbreak, someone needs to tell them about this hope that I have, this awesome daddy that I know!

When we got to RR on our second day of working, I was put in a classroom of nine, three year olds from the slums and then the teacher left the room. They hardly know English and all I know in Hindi is hello and thank you. I watched them as they colored and could only look at them and think, these innocent girls will someday be sex workers and these sweet boys will someday be just like the men at the train station, heartless and cold, taking advantage of these girls.

Everywhere I go, every street I walk down, every person I see, I feel my heartbreak. I asked my daddy to make my heart break for what breaks his, but I didn't know my heart could break this much. There is so much hopelessness hear, so much pain. India is in desperate need of both hope, restoration, redemption, and love. And there is only one that can provide this for them. I ask him to use me and my team to bring a little bit of that light into this country of darkness. My daddy granted my first request and I trust he will grant my second as well.