On Tuesday night I experienced the most humbling event of our trip. During this trip we are focusing on a particular Bible passage with the villagers… Psalms 24:3-5 - which is the passage about clean hands and a pure heart. Since a person’s home shows their heart we held a contest in the village where we visited 26 homes in the village and picked the 4 which were most clean. Having been here before I have been into a few of the homes but this was nearly all of them. It was very humbling to me, to see what little these people have yet how amazingly grateful they are. Most in the village only have 1 set of clothes to wear, some pans to cook in and few other worldly possessions. It made me think of all of the things that I have and take for granted. Could I survive on so little? Apparently so… but could I survive on so little yet show such joy? That’s a harder question to answer. Most homes are roughly 10 ft x 12 ft brick structures with concrete floors and the huts are slightly smaller with dirt floors. We saw a little girl (maybe 2 years old) sleeping on the concrete floor when we entered one of the homes. In one of the huts, a baby hung from a woman’s sari (a piece of dress material) in a make-shift baby swing… seeing these things cut to my core. During the tour a few of us heard quite a few stories that really broke our hearts. People who had lost loved ones and were grieving… that reminded me of my own grief when I have lost loved ones and brought everything back full circle. These people are just like me in some ways but so much stronger in many other ways. Once again… another life changing experience for me!
Jennifer Archer
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