Homes

A very special experience we had last week was a visit to some of the homes the Ashirvad children come from. As I mentioned earlier, during the Diwali holidays, the children return to their families. Several of the children’s families are living quite close by, so we had the great privilege of going to visit the children and their mothers in their own homes. 

We experienced the hospitality of India as these women, who have hardly anything, served us tea and snacks. It was such a small thing for us to visit and spend time with them, so it was a humbling thing to see how much it meant to these families and their joy at having us visit them.

The first house we visited was that of Chanchal – her mother’s home is one room, about maybe 2m x 3m. Staying next to her are Chanchal’s grandparents. There’s no running water and no electricity. The house has a tin roof – you can’t even imagine what it must be like during summer when the temperatures reach 50 degrees. 

I won’t say too much more – it truly was a great privilege for us to be welcomed into these homes. Despite their poverty, these women are beautiful inside and out, generous and what little they have is kept so cleanly and neatly. We greatly desire to respect their dignity and their homes. Hopefully in seeing these few photos, you can simply get a small insight into how people live here and how difficult it is for them. 

During this time, we also visited a hostel that is especially for HIV positive children – one of our Ashirvad children, Chanchal, has her brother living at this hostel. Part of the future vision of Ashirvad is to take in HIV positive children, but at this time they have not yet begun to do this.  Chanchal understands that her brother is sick and so it is difficult for her to be separated from him, as no one can say how long he will live. So it was a great joy for us to see them reunited, and Chanchal, her brother and her mother all came and stayed some days together at Ashirvad.

As we continue to share these experiences with you all, we thank you for reading and going on the journey with us. Our prayer is that these posts will be more than just nice stories of what Marty and Kaz did in India – we pray that you will be moved, even from a distance. And then not only that you will be moved, but that you will be moved towards some sort of action and response…..

Chanchal's home

Chanchal with her mother, Meena

Chanchal's grandparents

Sejal and Kaya's mother, Sheela

Kaya and Sejal with their parents

Pooja and her mother

Tashu and her mother, Geeta

Tea and snacks!

Chanchal with her brother