Ordinarily on the last full day of a CRED
trip we try to have a relaxing, slightly more ‘touristy’ day for the team who
have been working so hard all week. When sorting the programme for the India
trip, that was certainly the plan.
But then the week got going, and our
various evening activities and visits couldn’t happen due to transport issues,
and so we got to the end of the week and the team still hadn’t visited the
leper community, or the stone-breaker community.
These are two other programmes that contribute
to the overall portfolio of projects that Faith In Action Ministries (FIAM)
carries out. FIAM is a partner of CRED, and is founded by the lovely and
incredibly inspirational Janaki Menni. She has an amazing testimony of how she
came to Christ, from a Hindu background, through miraculous healing of a very
serious illness, and as a gift of thanks to God she has devoted her life (now
early 30’s I’d say) to serving the poor in the community (both materially and
spiritually) in various ways.
Thus there is St Joseph’s school where the
team have been working all week, which is fee-paying for those who can afford
it, but offers subsidized, or even free, schooling for those who can’t. There
is also the leper community project, the elderly support project, the
orphanage, the rural villages project, and she has planted about 55 churches
and trained up a similar number of church leaders to run them, with 5 senior
pastors to oversee the new members of church leadership.
Some would say that such a disparate group
of programmes means that FIAM is a jack of all trades and master of none, and
that specializing might be a better way. That is certainly a point of
discussion for me to have with Janaki whilst out here these next couple of
days. But for now Janaki and her team are reaching out to the community and its
most marginalized groups, through a number of means, and everyone that I’ve
come across who knows Janaki and the work that she heads up, speaks of her with
great admiration.
Anyway, back to yesterday – so the team
still hadn’t been to the leper community or the stone-breaker community, and
when given the option to go yesterday, rather than having a more leisurely day,
the vote was unanimous for visiting. Given the week that was, I’d say all
credit to the young people for taking this decision, as they knew that it would
be emotionally hard, and not the easy option.
And indeed it was hard – visiting a
community where the main source of income is from breaking up rocks with a
hammer, to be used for road-fill etc, and where they earn at best £2.50 a day
if very fit and healthy. Most of the workers were women and children, and some
of our young people had a go at breaking the rocks themselves to discover just
how hard it is. We then walked around
the community where they live to see the poor level of housing – this was a
chance for our team to see close up the sort of lifestyles that some of the
children they’ve been teaching all week come from, and to help give background
to the week’s experience
After the stone-breakers we went for a bit
of chill out time at a nearby Catholic church set in lovely grounds, and at the
bottom of a hill. The church was very big, with no chairs, lovely polished
stone floor, and a place of cooling sanctuary from the heat of the day.
Scattered around the interior were families, couples, friends, just sitting in
small groups and quietly chatting, or praying, or just being still.
Most of this team are not church-goers, and
there were several comments about how they don’t go inside churches normally,
but this one felt really peaceful and calming. We stayed for a while and then
went back outside to go up the hill and have lunch at the top. Unfortunately,
the top was a series of pilgrimage-type ‘booths’ and statues etc, and so there
were lots of visitors all wanting to get photos of everything that moved,
especially us! There were also a lot of mosquitos, and so after a quick lunch
the general consensus was to return to our island of sanctuary in the church. I
found it very touching that this team of young people, who have no relationship
with God, wanted to spend their day off either with the poor and marginalized,
or in church.
The day ended with a visit to the leper
community that FIAM supports. There are 46 leprosy sufferers who leave in the
community, in small homes built by the government. They get a monthly allowance
of 200 rupees (£2), and as they are lepers they can’t get work, so the only
other form of income available to them is begging. There is a waiting list, as
the only other place lepers can live around here is on the streets as an
outcast.
When we arrived the team were somewhat
anxious about what they would see, but after a quick briefing from me
reassuring them they can’t catch leprosy, and that despite some disfigurements
all of us have the same colour blood running through, and a heart that beats in
the same way, and the capacity to love and be loved, the team got on and
greeted, hugged and ‘chatted with’ (despite language barriers) the members of
the community.
They sang for us, we sang for them, the
pastor gave some words, I gave some words, we served them the bananas we had
bought with us, and it was a very moving time. It certainly put any aches and
pains that our team had into perspective when shaking hands with a fingerless
stump, or seeing someone hobble on toe-less feet.
The team flew home today, having completed
an incredible week. Many of them have changed – in their attitudes, their
behavior, their perspectives – and on the way back to the hotel last night the
general consensus was that the visits of the day were definitely the right
choice and the way to round off an incredible week.
May the changes continue to develop as they
return home and carry on processing the week, telling the stories, and picking
up life, but not as the same person that they were 10 days ago. Do pray for
them – re-entry isn’t easy!
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