Children, In Many Settings!

We finished up our time of talking to Muslims on Thursday evening with attending a night at the mosque where they have musical and worship events. My group basically walked around the mosque and observed what was going on. We tried to talk to a few women, but they seemed a bit preoccupied with the events going on around them, which made it difficult. As we were walking around the market surrounding the mosque, I began to feel extremely uncomfortable. Since arriving here, I have become accustomed with men staring openly at us, simply because we are white. But at this market, I felt it was a bit more extreme than that. Men were walking closer than necessary to us, and one girl in my group got grabbed by a man, which freaked her out. Needless to say, we did not stay long at the market, and went back to meet up with the rest of the group for dinner back at their house. I don't know why I felt more freaked out, but I took it as a sign from God, and was praying for our safety the entire time we were there and driving back home. Thankfully, nothing happened and the feeling went away quickly.

Yesterday was a fun day. We didn't have anything scheduled to do until 4:30, so Annemarie and I decided to go buy some snacks and take them to beggar children around this market place, Janpath. We bought little packs of crackers and cookies and headed out around 12:30 to the market. On the way, we were approached in our auto by a few children, and were able to give them the food. One little girl grabbed the cookies, gave us a smile, and ran back to the sidewalk to share with her friends. A little boy, on the other hand, grabbed the cookies and ran off to hide, pushing the other boys who ran up to him out of the way. I thought it was an accurate portrayal of boys and girls! At the market, we decided to go to a restaurant that I had gone to earlier that week and really enjoyed. Apparently it is an extremely popular restaurant, and there was a long line outside. We put our name on the list, and began trying to talk to women around us. One younger woman was especially friendly, and we started a conversation naturally. A few minutes later, the waiter called our name, and the girl and her mother bid us farewell, with recommendations on what to order. As soon as we walked away, I felt like I should have asked them to sit with us. I told this to Annemarie, and then we decided it was too late now. Not 5 minutes later, we saw the girl and her mom walking around, appearing to be looking for an open table. I felt this was a sign from God to ask them, like He was giving us a second chance. So Annemarie hopped up and asked them if they would join us, and they accepted. We had a great lunch with them. We talked to them about their family, schooling, growing up, food (of course), and slightly about religion. They were both Hindu, and we shared that we were followers of Christ. Unfortunately, we were not able to get much deeper into a conversation, but it was still a great time. After lunch, we headed to the guest house to meet up with the ECBC team.

Once we got there, we all piled into a lady's car(literally piled- I think there were 14 of us in a explorer-like car). We then drove about 30 minutes to a park near a slum community, where we were greeted immediately by about 20 running children. Most of them barely had enough clothing to cover them, and were extremely dirty, but we greeted them with open arms, which they jumped in to! We played games, sang songs, and loved on them for the next 2 hours, and it was tiring, but amazing. By the end, we were all literally dripping from sweat, but I was so touched by the children and their need for love. They were sad to see us leave, and we were sad as well. Thankfully, the people we went with work with the children regularly, as well as their families, and often provide food, water and medications they may need. It was so fun, and we all wished we could do similar things everyday!

Today was a more relaxed day, but greatly convicting and heartwrenching. We all watched a movie this morning telling about children in prostitution in India. The movie was fictional, but it still left a distinct picture in my mind. Allison gave us some facts afterwards that were astounding. There are an estimated 1.3 million children currently involved in prostitution, and probably double the amount of women. Hearing that made me feel greatful for my life, but also like my heart was being torn out for those children. After that, we took a drive in a cab to the red light dictrict here in Delhi, and although we had to stay in the car, we could see many of the women peering out at the street through their barred windows. All we could do was pray for them, and for now that is enough. I pray that God will bring people into their lives to remove them from their situations, and if He desires for me to help with this type of ministry someday, I pray I will be willing and strong enough too. I am thankful that He opened my eyes to it today.