So left from Glasgow at 6am Monday morning, flew to Heathrow met up with rest of team then on to Dubai. Flew Emirates for the first time, really nice, although no single malt!! Odd, although 1200 different channels on the plane including about 300 movies, bonkers. I watched Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy and a Bollywood film about....well I don't know what it was about but there was a lot of smiling and dancing.
It was a quick change in Dubai and then on to Calcutta. We were met by some local Compassion staff and taken to the hotel. Total travel time from house to hotel 23 hours.
Quick shower and food then into Calcutta where we visited the Home of Mother Teresa and also her grave. This was a great thing to see where she lived, the room where she stayed for her 47 years of pouring her own life out to the poor in Calcutta.
Calcutta is amazing, so full of life and colour, bustling vibrant hive of activity. It is a real attack on the senses, so much noise ( mainly car horns, bike horns, pushbike bells ) utter chaos, driving is beyond mad, even more crazy than I expected. But so good, all of it, just so good. It made me realise again just how utterly bland our British culture is increasingly becoming with the endless drive away from the high street and into mega malls and one stop buy all wether you need a 4 man tent, a new tyre for a mini metro or a dozen custard filled doughnuts. I prefer the Indian way ; )
We visited a temple and a few other local attractions which was great.
Of course, high levels of poverty are visible at every turn and everything inside of you wants to just reach out to everyone who is asking. It is strange to be in a situation where literally everyone is looking at you like..."who the heck is this pasty white guy walking down the street".
We then went to visit the children at the Missionaries of Charity Mothers House which is an orphanage started by mother Teresa. This is hard to put into words and impossible for me to explain how it made me feel and how it affected me, well the whole team really. It was of course heartbreaking, distressing and difficult to even know what to do or what to say being in a room full of beautiful children, all of which were completely dependant upon the amazing volunteer staff at the centre.
It was an amazing thing to see everyone on the team instinctively just start loving the kids there, playing with them feeding them, cuddling them....
It was a sobering time and a lot of tears where shed, as you would expect. I spent my time there just really holding a wee boys hand, and talking, trying to make him smile....I think he probably thought I was a bit weird as I was pretty much balling my eyes out the whole time...lol.
It was hard to leave there and I was thankful to God for the staff who are giving their lives every day to care for these desperately ill and orphaned children. These are basically kids who have been abandoned and found in a street or maybe left in a hospital....you get the picture!
Anyway we wandered back through the streets to our bus and then back to the hotel for a meal and sleep as we had not slept for about 29 hours by this stage.
DAY 2
Day 2 started with breakfast ( just coffee for me ) and then off to the Compassion Headquarters to meet the team and have the chance to find out more about what they are really doing, day to day, with the projects all across West Bengal and further out into most of East India.
I have to say, I was hugely impressed with the Compassion team there. They have a massive workload but seemed super-organised and all of them clearly saw what they were doing as a calling from God and not a job. Their level of faith for what they are trying to achieve is also inspirational. I would like to spend a lot more time with these brilliant people.
In the afternoon we got to visit our first Compassion project. Just a brilliant brilliant place with amazing staff and the children....well what can I say, they were great to be with, so full of life and hope, despite their quite desperate situations and the deep levels of poverty that is their daily experience, they were full of joy and I know that this is mainly due to the fact that they have been so positively affected through the sponsorship programme. I also got to play cricket with some of the local youths......what can say.
The best part of the day for me came next. We where so thankful for the chance to take a walk to the home of one of the children we met at the project. We split into small groups and made several home visits. This was truly wonderful, to be welcomed into a Hindu home, me a Christian in India, sitting with a Hindu family, sharing stories, exchanging gifts and meeting many members of the local community, including the child's great great grandmother, who was 105!
This I love about Compassion - 80% of the children they are helping are Hindu, they love them, care for them, help them. Yes, Compassion is Christian and yes Compassion want the children they meet to find Jesus, but no, there are no religious barriers stopping us and the compassion team and every christian man or woman who ever sponsored a child from stopping them loving these kids, regardless of what they believe. That is just like jesus and I love that.
We heard an amazing story about a situation last year when some christians where suffering terrible persecution and churches where being burned to the ground. In the region where Compassion had a presence, the local hindu community gathered around the christian church where the compassion centre was based and formed a human wall, preventing the mob from torching the truly amazing.
A few pics attached also.
They said it would be life changing....it is.
