India 2024- Day 6

Rajahmundry sunrise May 11th 

A mash-up version of the Lord’s prayer below from the Message, from the Jesus Storybook Bible, and from my conversation with Amaravathi, Harshavardini, Samson, Naveen, Satish, and Ratnakar this morning:

This is your Father you are dealing with, and he knows better than you what you need. 

With a God like this loving you, you can pray very simply. Like this:

Our Father in heaven,

We want to know you and be close to you.

Set the world right- especially for those we love whose bodies and hearts are hurting.  

Do what’s best for us and for our families and bring the good road to us---

    as above, so below.

Please give us everything we need today.

Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others.

Rescue us! We need you.

We don’t want to keep running away and hiding from you and from others.

Instead, help us to run to you with everything today.

You’re in charge!

You can do anything you want!

You’re ablaze in beauty!

    Yes. Yes. Yes.

visit with Christina, her brother John, and her grandmother 

These kids have faced some unspeakable pain as their dad killed their mom when they were 1 and 3 and then covered it up. The injustice of it all along with the trauma this family has gone through is hard to fathom.  Two quotes come to mind as I try to wrap my head around this and other stories from this week that have been quite heavy. The first is from Bob Pierce, founder of World Vision and Samaritan's Purse, who wrote this famous prayer in his Bible after visiting children who were suffering in Korea in the 1970's: "Let my heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God."  The other is from Ted Loder's book Guerillas of Grace: "Soften my experiences into wisdom, my pride into acceptance, my longing into trust, and soften me into love and to others and to you." While it's a difficult prayer to ask for a broken but soft heart, it's the only one I know in situations like these to hold space for people whom God loves so dearly who have been so hurt in this broken world...  

with Wesley who has so much personality and delight already at age 5

 that I can't wait to see what he's like at 15 and 25! 

more beautiful children of the Kingdom- Nissy and Adharsh with their parents 

This morning over breakfast, Saroja's auntie made an amazing crispy bread to go with some ridiculously good sauces. (The closest thing that we have in the US is cornbread, but this was so much better!) As we were talking about other breads, I asked if they ever had made banana bread. They had not tried it before, so we made some this afternoon (in their microwave, no less!) and it was a big hit with the whole family.  Such fun!! 

Perhaps the most fun was laughing with Saroja and Harshavardini when we were making it together...

(and I'm in another borrowed dress from Saroja's closet.  So grateful she's like a sister to me and that  she does not mind me raiding her wardrobe for some lovely flowy dresses to wear in this hot weather). 

getting to visit Barghavi and her family (see the beautiful photos of her below from 2018) 

 

and a couple of other wonderful kids (who are not really kids anymore!) 

 who have grown up in the program since 2015 

and last but not least is a photo of Munesh (right of me) and his friend Gaurav who flew to Rajahmundry from Lucknow, India to be with us for the weekend. It's a wild story of how God is at work. Munesh and I got connected about 2 1/2 years ago through another friend (Fred Lupton in Seattle). Munesh has started a program working with children in Lucknow and has become a partner of Children of the Kingdom over the last couple of years. We were so thankful it worked out for him to come over for the weekend to spend some time (and especially to connect him with Ratnakar for support and encouragement.)