Service Visits

In both Vietnam and India, I participated in service visits. In Vietnam, I went through Semester at Sea, but in India, I went by myself. In both countries, I went to orphanages. These have been incredibly emotional experiences for me.

I recently read in my Bible that "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world." (James 1:27) This is pretty heavy stuff. As I have been traveling the world, it becomes incredibly difficult not to be stained by it. I feel, though, that i have not been stained, but that i have been changed. My eyes have been opened, my heart has, too. I have seen and experienced so many amazing, beautiful, sad, ugly, interesting, and different things. This has not stained me and made me jaded as it has to so many people. My heart has not been hardened, but has been opened to the marginalized peoples of the world. I do not know what i will do with this new realization, but I have no doubt that it is something that God is doing in my life to lead me. I do not know where it will take me, but I am excited to see.

In not even trying to, I have been practicing the pure religion that James talks about. More than the beautiful sights and landmarks (and the Taj Mahal was beautiful), I remember the children in these orphanages and my desire to love and help them. One girl in particular touched my heart. She is from India and her name is Roja. She was the most precious child that I have seen in quite some time. All i could do was look at her, hold her hands and hold her. She is very small and has very thin limbs. She is bed-ridden and cannot move much at all. Her leg was broken and it did not look like she ever got out of bed. Her muscles seemed very weak, all except for her hands. She used her small hands to grasp my fingers and hold on to my shirt as I held her. She could not open her eyes. I held her and whispered affirming words into her ear and rocked her. I know she could not understand me, but it didn't matter. I could tell that she really enjoyed this because I could see her smile and she held on to my shirt tightly. I was heartbroken when I had to put her down because she began to cry. She showed me so much without using any words.

This was so tough for me because many of the children at the orphanage had physical or mental disabilities. It broke my heart that God could allow people to be born this way and have children born to families that don't want them. I have never understood this and seeing it up close made me confront the issue even more. I still can't understand it, I don't understand a lot of things about God, but this one bugs me more than others. It is something that I am working through, even though I may never find an answer that satisfies me. I think this drives me to want to change it and help the situation even more. I have always wanted to help people and change the world (i know I am idealistic), I still don't know what contribution I will make to make the world a better place, but this is certainly an area that I have a lot of passion for.

An interesting thing about both orphanages is that the children there are incredibly happy. I thought it was so beautiful that these children were so happy despite the sad things that are in their lives. They do not have a basis of comparison, so they do not understand that they are missing out on anything. This made me happy to realize because they are not sad about their own situation. This gave me hope.