Monday, March 7, 2011
Monday, February 7, 2011
See Your Impact
See Your Impact profiles Pardada Girls and raises funds for the school
Click in the above text to read the wonderful profiles of the girls.
Click in the above text to read the wonderful profiles of the girls.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Creating dreams
Finishing up our India blog is going to be difficult, so I‘ve been procrastinating. It‘s hard to believe the time has come to return home. We have 2 more nights in this country, and though we are most excited to be going home, we are filled with so many memories and experiences of the past 4 months. We are most thankful that we have remained safe and healthy. Your prayers, and ours, have been answered.
We are at an island resort at the southernmost tip of India where the Indian Ocean, Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea meet. It is very peaceful and quiet here, and without any sunshine it seems even quieter. It feels like the perfect last stop. We are counting down the hours until we reach the train station in Wilmington. We cannot wait!
India is not for the fainthearted. These months have encompassed it all. It has been amazing, exciting, frustrating, overwhelming, and challenging, at times. We’ve dealt with dirt, stench and filth unlike anything we have in the US. We’ve also had so many great experiences we would never have in the US. We have maintained our sense of humor and have laughed a lot. It helps carry us when there is nothing else we can do. Mike describes India as being “otherworldly”, and it certainly is. In the end, though we are left with so many great memories, laughs, and well more than 2000 photos. Mike knows that I wished we had taken more, as we really did not capture it all(there is no way that we could have.) We have enough to remember what was most important, and that is the people we have met along the way. The Indian people are the most friendly, welcoming and hospitable of all.
We have finished our trip with an absolutely perfect week. We have been in Kerala, the southernmost state in the country- “God’s Own Country”. We have been on an overnight cruise on a riceboat, through the backwaters of Kerala, surrounded by small villages, rice patties, and lush tropical vegetation. It was so beautiful and peaceful as we traveled by quiet little villages of people in this remote area. The waterways are a busy place. It is here that people still wash their dishes, their clothes, themselves, and carry their water in jugs from the rivers, traveling in wood dugouts- the only way for them to get around. I suspect the National Geographic has captured the backwaters of Kerala.
It has been 3 weeks since we left the school. It is bitter cold there, so we often think about the girls and how hard this particular winter has been for them. There have been many deaths in the region due to the extreme cold. Many schools have closed because there is no heat. There is no heat in the homes either, except with cowdung fires. We miss the girls, the staff and reminisce about them. We have so many wonderful memories.
Mike and I spent 9 months working on our India experience, researching options, talking with lots of people, and learning as much as we could so we could have the experience we hoped to have. We wanted to do something about the human trafficking issue and learned that educating girls is the answer. We worked hard to put our lives at home on hold for four months, and were able to do that quite well. We had the love and support of our kids, family and friends and have been able to talk with some of you, thanks to Skype(computer phone). Since it is free to talk across the world, we don’t understand why everyone doesn’t use it. Technology makes this kind of travel so much easier than it would have been just a few years ago.
We’ve learned so much and have seen several different areas of the country- from the Himalayas in the north, to the desert in the west, the beaches of Goa in the south and Kerala. We’ve taken yoga and learned that it really is the same the world over. We’ve seen too many poor and starving people, begging for a rupee. We’ve loved 1000 children, in whose lives we hope we have made a difference. May the lives of these children who have the opportunity to attend school, be brighter and better than that of their parents.
Though they are amongst the world’s poorest, they are rich is spirit. May they learn that they can dream and have lives beyond what they can now imagine. And may God continue to hold them in the palm of His hand. Their lives are simple and they are happy, as they know nothing other than the life they live, just as their ancestors did centuries ago. The only difference between then and now, is through education they can begin to change their world. We hope they can begin to learn to dream, and that their dreams can become a reality.
Upon returning to the US, I hope to be able to share with you, as well as interested groups, our experience here in India. Mike and I are still two ordinary people, who dreamed about doing something extraordinary. We followed our dreams, instead of just thinking or talking about it, and it became our reality. We have a peace about having been here that surpasses understanding, and a joy in our hearts for having received the gift of touching the lives of people whose lives are different from ours in every way. We look forward to sharing it with you. We have grown to love a country in a way that you can only do by living in it.
I thank God for giving us the courage to follow our dreams...
We are at an island resort at the southernmost tip of India where the Indian Ocean, Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea meet. It is very peaceful and quiet here, and without any sunshine it seems even quieter. It feels like the perfect last stop. We are counting down the hours until we reach the train station in Wilmington. We cannot wait!
India is not for the fainthearted. These months have encompassed it all. It has been amazing, exciting, frustrating, overwhelming, and challenging, at times. We’ve dealt with dirt, stench and filth unlike anything we have in the US. We’ve also had so many great experiences we would never have in the US. We have maintained our sense of humor and have laughed a lot. It helps carry us when there is nothing else we can do. Mike describes India as being “otherworldly”, and it certainly is. In the end, though we are left with so many great memories, laughs, and well more than 2000 photos. Mike knows that I wished we had taken more, as we really did not capture it all(there is no way that we could have.) We have enough to remember what was most important, and that is the people we have met along the way. The Indian people are the most friendly, welcoming and hospitable of all.
We have finished our trip with an absolutely perfect week. We have been in Kerala, the southernmost state in the country- “God’s Own Country”. We have been on an overnight cruise on a riceboat, through the backwaters of Kerala, surrounded by small villages, rice patties, and lush tropical vegetation. It was so beautiful and peaceful as we traveled by quiet little villages of people in this remote area. The waterways are a busy place. It is here that people still wash their dishes, their clothes, themselves, and carry their water in jugs from the rivers, traveling in wood dugouts- the only way for them to get around. I suspect the National Geographic has captured the backwaters of Kerala.
We spent a night at Coconut Lagoon, a Conde Nast destination, and one of the “1000 places to visit before you die”. We have been fortunate to have gone to a few of the other places in this book while in India. Coconut Lagoon is an island, accessible only by boat, rich in vegetation and wildlife. It was absolutely beautiful. We spent 2 days in Varkala, on the Arabian Sea, with cliffs that drop to the sea, and a quaint, clean(a rarity!) village with lots of fun restaurants and shops. Tonight, we finish our dinners in India having at a floating restaurant, built on top of 3 very old fishing boats. We’ve had lots of great fish, prawn and lobster this week. We’ve been on more boats than cars this week, and that’s been a good thing.
It has been 3 weeks since we left the school. It is bitter cold there, so we often think about the girls and how hard this particular winter has been for them. There have been many deaths in the region due to the extreme cold. Many schools have closed because there is no heat. There is no heat in the homes either, except with cowdung fires. We miss the girls, the staff and reminisce about them. We have so many wonderful memories.
Mike and I spent 9 months working on our India experience, researching options, talking with lots of people, and learning as much as we could so we could have the experience we hoped to have. We wanted to do something about the human trafficking issue and learned that educating girls is the answer. We worked hard to put our lives at home on hold for four months, and were able to do that quite well. We had the love and support of our kids, family and friends and have been able to talk with some of you, thanks to Skype(computer phone). Since it is free to talk across the world, we don’t understand why everyone doesn’t use it. Technology makes this kind of travel so much easier than it would have been just a few years ago.
We’ve learned so much and have seen several different areas of the country- from the Himalayas in the north, to the desert in the west, the beaches of Goa in the south and Kerala. We’ve taken yoga and learned that it really is the same the world over. We’ve seen too many poor and starving people, begging for a rupee. We’ve loved 1000 children, in whose lives we hope we have made a difference. May the lives of these children who have the opportunity to attend school, be brighter and better than that of their parents.
Though they are amongst the world’s poorest, they are rich is spirit. May they learn that they can dream and have lives beyond what they can now imagine. And may God continue to hold them in the palm of His hand. Their lives are simple and they are happy, as they know nothing other than the life they live, just as their ancestors did centuries ago. The only difference between then and now, is through education they can begin to change their world. We hope they can begin to learn to dream, and that their dreams can become a reality.
Upon returning to the US, I hope to be able to share with you, as well as interested groups, our experience here in India. Mike and I are still two ordinary people, who dreamed about doing something extraordinary. We followed our dreams, instead of just thinking or talking about it, and it became our reality. We have a peace about having been here that surpasses understanding, and a joy in our hearts for having received the gift of touching the lives of people whose lives are different from ours in every way. We look forward to sharing it with you. We have grown to love a country in a way that you can only do by living in it.
I thank God for giving us the courage to follow our dreams...
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