What a great day of hope

Just to give a quick update of our last 24 hours in the village.

(Tuesday night) Several of the ladies got henna done on their hands, and so when you see their hands all orange. . . you don’t have to ask them what is that!? It was a great bonding experience for the women on our team and the village girls who made the designs.

Some of you might have wondered. . . are there snakes? I thought I would answer that one for you –

On Wednesday we set out to finish all of our projects, and the medical and construction teams worked together for most of the time – it was great working side by side. We had discovered when we first came to the village that there was a man whose grass hut had been destroyed in the recent rain, and so we had said that if we could pull it off, we wanted to build him a new temporary home so that he would not be homeless. Watching this hut go up was amazing, and the man was sooooo incredibly grateful. When we dedicated his house later that night, he mentioned that he was an orphan as a child, and then was married but his wife had left him, and then his house caved in. . . he had nothing left, but now he has hope again for the first time in a long time. He was singing inside his new house most of the evening ;D

We had a series of dedications in the evening – from washbasins to gardens to the homes themselves. The home that we had completed went to a woman named Maliga (in the orange shiny), who is a widow with 6 children and had been homeless for nearly 3 months. She worked tirelessly all week on her home – through the pain of a herniated disk. This morning she could barely walk, but she said to us with tears flowing down her face that she had been thinking about something all night long, she said. . . . through everything, not even my parents have cared about me, but I know you/GCC cares about me . . . . for all of you who have been over here to India to help in the past 5 years, rest assured, they know we love them!

We had a great party around the fire, and we fed the whole village and intermixed with them and ate with them. Though we could barely understand each other, much was communicated – they are so appreciative. I think you know what these are . . . . . . in case you are wondering what they taste like. . . well, you’ll just have to figure that out for yourself when you come here :D !!

--posted by Ted Bryant