Empowering poor women...

through sewing. That's what the Lydia Project at OM in Hyderabad is doing. The women take old saris and turn them into jackets, dresses, purses, small bags, pillow covers, and more. They learn a skill, sell what they make, learn how to budget their income, and use some of their proceeds to make micro-loans to other women. The cycle of poverty is broken in small ways to the hum of a sewing machine.

Grace and I took a couple of hours one afternoon and walked up the stairs to the sunlit room full of women, sewing machines, and fabric scraps.

Meena showed us around and pulled out lots of items for us to choose from.

I love purchasing right from the creators of such beauty, knowing that they will directly benefit. It's a joyful kind of shopping.

I love...

a good summer meal like last night's....(continued here)

Pipe Village

Back in India....

We visited Pipe Village, so called because the people there live in the pipes. They are, like the quarry workers, indentured servants living in bondage to the company that employs them, and they live in the pipes that are made at the nearby factory.

Notice the baby in the picture below....

He's there...sleeping in a hanging sling. See.

The children sang for us


and we prayed.


We did more art....

Annuma cared for children, cleaning wounds, dispensing vitamins, feeding eggs and milk.

and Grace made friends with Neha


In the midst of poverty, there is beauty.

A small garden

with the fragrance of jasmine flowers...

vibrant colors...



and sari clad women caring for their family.

In pointing to this beauty, I do not mean to gloss over the hardship, the injustice, the pain of poverty. It is real. Pipe village is a place of abject poverty, of alcoholism and child abuse, of sickness and malnutrition, of oppressive work practices and too early marriages for young girls.

But it is also a place where loving people like Annuma bring the hope of Christ and minister, in His name, in very practical, one-child-at-a-time ways: a dose of vitamins, encouragement to stay in school, a tailoring class, even surgery for the defective heart of a little girl. God's glory is manifest in a flash of brilliant cloth on the line, a flower in bloom, a child playing with sunglasses, praying hands.

Oh, to stay keen to the pain and the hope, the degredation and the glory. To live remembering His children who suffer and never be numb.

Counting...

301. Thunder rumbling

302. Time with boys

303. A warm afternoon, a breeze, a willow beside the lake, a seat atop a slide, and the sun sparkling on water - all Sunday

304. An organized closet, a clean room, a neat workspace

305. Friends to plan a year with

306. Easy summer clothes

307. Perfectly ripe cantalope, tiny potatoes, the biggest watermelon of the season, and a neighbor at the farmer's market

308. A demanding girl in need of mothering seeking it out and following up.

309. A grace-filled high school girl, aptly named, coming over to swim, shop, and drink tea tomorrow

310. Books spread on the table, a daunting task begun...



Thanks, Ann, for the faithful reminders to give thanks in all things.

What boys do...

Meanwhile...at home

While I revisit India on the blog, life goes on at home in full summertime swing.

The garden is full of cucumbers,

which means cold cucumber soup.

Joel finished a grueling week of soccer camp last week. One day he said he was sore everywhere below his waist but he also it was a lot of fun. A good week for him. Camp, club practice, high school practice. Soccer boy is in his element and it picks up even more come August.


Matthew, smack dab in the middle of brothers, cousin, and friends, is getting lots of hours at work this summer, saving money for a new camera, and playing the piano. He's a regular for preludes at church now.


Andrew is home again after two weeks as a counselor at Furman Summer Scholars; Thomas, fully recovered from Swine flu which he caught at camp while I was in China, was home for the weekend. Ironic that while I was filling out numerous health forms and submitting to temperature checks before being allowed into China and India, my son at home was sick with the dreaded flu!


A Saturday evening fire is a lovely close to the week. S'mores, a late night dip in the pool,


and fireside conversation. Sweet.


And then a Sunday afternoon of lake fun at camp.


We accompanied Thomas back to Caraway this afternoon and spent the afternoon swimming, sliding and "blobbing". Joel stayed at camp, too, for a week in the woods.

I am one blessed woman to get to share life with these guys!

A bit of shopping

I arrived in India at 4 AM, I think. That same morning we went to the quarry villages. After lunch and a little rest, some of our group was ready to head into the bazaar area of Secunderbad for a bit of shopping. I debated. Stay back and rest (I had been awake for many hours, had a crazy trip, and could use the sleep) or head into town. The town trip won. I'm so glad. It's a fun memory that stands out.

To get into town, the more experienced ones of us (not me) haggled with a couple of drivers and hired two auto-rickshaws for the five of us. Crazy, invigorating ride(as long as you hold a scarf over your nose to filter the diesel fumes), just the thing to ensure that I was wide awake!

The best way I can describe the auto-rickshaw ride is that I felt like I was inside one of those race car driving video games. Mind you, I've never played one of those but I've watched others play. You know the type. You are the driver and have to dart in and out around other cars, avoiding obstacles, going at breakneck speed while cars come straight toward you or you run up right on top of the ones in front of you. Well, riding in an "auto" is like that with one exception. The "auto" has a horn. And every other vehicle on the road has a horn. And they are ALL honking. At the same time.

It was so much fun and a great way to get a feel of India. The roads are absolutely crazy. Cars, trucks, tractors, buses, bicycles, auto rickshaws, bicycle rickshaws, ox-drawn carts, pedestrians, cows. Oh, yes, there are cows in the road. And they don't much bother about the horn honking vehicles.

It is wild and crazy, diesel-fume smelly and blaringly loud, and you feel that you are taking your life in your hands, but you get to your destination because as the Caedman's Call song, Sarala, says, "they know dead men can't pay."

Well, yes, we did get to our destination - the Gandhi statue near the bazaar - and then we set out on foot to explore fabric shops, clothing shops, bangles shops, silver shops; to look at streetside food vendors and old, old architecture; to marvel at insane electrical wires.

After a couple of hours, we refreshed ourselves at Coffee Day, the Starbucks of India. Can you imagine how good an iced coffee or tea with ice made from filtered water that won't make you sick tastes when you are hot and tired and dirty and reeling just a little from all the noise and sights and feeling a wee bit jet lagged. Oh, it was good!

My favorite part of the shopping adventure was, of course, the fabrics. Oh. my. goodness! Such colors, handwoven cottons and silks, ornamentation and intricate design, a feast for the eyes, a fire-hydrant drink of fabric.

I did not do justice to the fabrics with my camera. I was too busy taking them all in. So you will just have to trust me when I tell you they were wonderful and wait to see what I do with what I brought home. They will show up here someday, I assure you!

For now, enjoy a few outing photos....

from the inside of our "auto"

the traffic jockeying for position at a stop light

Maata ji (Kathy - Kandyce's mom) shopping for bangles

Grace looking at silver spoons

Oh, the colors

and those insane electrical wires. No wonder there are so many power outages, said kk.

lovely old architectural elements on the walk to Coffee Day

Thanks Kathy, Jessica, Grace, and the ever-patient Kevin for a very fun outing. You're the best shopping gang ever! And we made it back, all five of us in one vehicle, with the best auto-rickshaw driver ever!

Quarry villages

A fifteen minute drive from the OM India compound where we stayed, there are several villages where people live in virtual slavery. The first villages we visited were next to a large quarry where men cut stones for building. The families that live here are indentured servants, living in extreme poverty, with few opportunities for schooling, jobs, or improvement. They are Dalits.

OM is working in the quarry villages in a variety of ways....

Housing....

Sewing and tailoring classes for the girls so they can start their own small businesses....

and more, like building latrines and helping with health care needs.

We went to meet the children. Our host, Annuma, the gracious, untiring, dear, dear woman with a huge heart for these children, led us around the villages that she knows so well.

Past the snake temple...

the new construction...


the trees full of weaver-bird nests (memories of Kenya for me!)...

And then we sat down to do art with the children. We spread foam mats on the dirt and pulled out paper, scissors, and markers.

Many of the children had never used scissors or held a marker. Such little things that we take totally for granted. Could we communicate? Not so much with words, but I hope, with love. With little gestures like helping one hold a marker or showing another where to cut. With smiles and one Telegu word - baagundi - it is very good.

On to India

After that visit to the orphanage, I finished packing my bags and headed to the airport for what was for me, a rather daunting day and a half of travel.

Xiamen to Hong Kong - No problems. DragonAir was nice, flight attendants were attentive, food was good. Flight on time.

The Hong Kong airport is very, very nice and extremely easy to get around in. I changed a little money, sent a couple of emails from free internet accessed computers in the terminal, got a nice snack, and sat down at my gate with my book and my knitting to wait.

Hong Kong to Mumbai - Jet Airways, also fine. No delays, a little sleep on the plane but then...

The Mumbai airport...well, let's just say it is not like Hong Kong. We had to board and wait for awhile on buses to take us to the terminal. Once inside the terminal it was a chaotic mass of people with airline and health officials supposedly directing us around a barrier and through a series of twisty-turny lines to get to the desks of very overworked clerks who took our Swine flu forms, looked at us, stamped them and then said, "Next!"

Once I got through that mess, I had to find the Air India ticket counters. You would not think it would be that difficult. But I was misdirected to the waiting area for the bus to the domestic terminal. My insistence that I didn't think I was supposed to change terminals and my plea to the man at the desk to call Air India got me out of there and on my way back with rather sketchy directions through immigration again where I told the frowning official that I'd already given them my arrival papers. And then I just kept walking. After asking two or three more people who pointed and told me to find a lift, I finally did. I got upstairs to the departure deck but was now outside the terminal. I had to make my way to Door B, where someone had told me I should enter for the Air India ticket counters. Found it at last. Only the doorway was swarming with people and armed guards were telling them all to, "GO TO ANOTHER DOOR. THERE IS A PROBLEM HERE."

It was raining. Throngs of people were crowding all the doors. Guards with guns were everywhere. And I was tired. But I kept weaving my way through til I finally got inside only to find that the hold-up was a bomb scare. Another mass of people was crowding the terminal area in front of the Air India ticket counters but no one was getting through. Police with dogs were searching bags and the crowd just kept growing.

At this point, I started wondering if I was ever going to get out of the Mumbai airport. Prayed some. Took deep breaths. Waited. God, if your plan is for me to spend the night in Mumbai then I'll do that but I sure would like to get out of here!!!!

At last, the crowd began to move and I finally made it to my destination - one of the many Air India ticket counters with little wooden signs swinging on hooks above the counters, supposedly telling you what city you could get a boarding pass for at each counter. Ha! I now know something they don't tell you. No matter what the sign says or how sure you are that you are in the correct line, you are not. You are never in the right line the first time. I think this must be an Air India rule. It was always true for me!

I made it to the front of one line only to be told I needed to go several ticket counters down for the flight to Hyderabad. OK, roll my bag past the massive line of men heading for Riyadh and get in another line that I hope is the right one. A kindly couple with a little girl who was enjoying riding atop the pile of suitcases on their luggage cart informed me that they, too, were going to Hyderabad, so I was hopeful I was in the right line. I was. Whew!

Got my boarding pass and only one more hurdle. Security. Another VERY long line. Ladies and gents separated for searching. The security checker scolded me that my carry-on didn't have an Air India tag and he picked one up off the floor and affixed it to my purse. OK, that works for me. Just let me through. He did.

Made my way to the gate and waited in another mass of people. All I could hear for awhile was "Chennai, Chennai, Chennai." Then finally the gate attendant made an announcement for Hyderabad and the surge to the front of the line began. We somehow all made it through, got on the buses and eventually all got on the plane and into our seats. I was so relieved I can hardly put it in words. The flight attendant was rather gruff with me, complaining that my bag was heavy as she helped me hoist it into the overhead bin. But it fit and the door closed securely and I was on my way. On the last flight of the day - now night.

I will say that Air India flight attendants wear the most lovely uniforms of any airline I've yet seen. Black and red saris, very classy. And the food on Air India is delicious. OK, I said something nice about them. Oh, yeah, and my plane was not too late. Only an hour or so.

When we landed in Hyderabad, we once again had to go through health screening. Only this time it was much more orderly. I filled out my form, got in line for the mandatory temperature taking with an ear thermometer, had no fever and was waved on through.

One last hurdle. Finding Jonathan and Kandyce. If you are a regular reader of this blog, you may recall that this was the moment when I really almost lost it. When you walk out the door of the Hyderabad airport you are greeted by a mass of people crowding next to a metal railing. The area you are walking in is about20 yards wide and maybe 50 yards long. Only arriving passengers are walking in this area. You feel like everyone is looking at you (if you're white, they are!). J has described what you see as a sea of brown faces. Yep. That's what it was. And all I wanted to see at that point was one, no two, very special white faces. I walked 10-20 yards, scanning the crowd, nearing panic. I got near the end of the marked off area and then, blessed relief, I saw their smiling faces and waving arms.

Hugs all around. I think I felt like melting at that point. But what I did was to burst into tears - of exhaustion and joy. I made it. And I was with Jonathan and Kandyce. In India. Incredible!

Next post...pictures!

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I know this post is a little bit of a repeat, but I'm sort of re-living the time as I write and process. Thanks for your patience.

An open door

On the last day I spent in Xiamen a door was opened. Because of that dreaded H1N1, no foreign visitors were allowed into the orphanage where Matt works. But, Matt persisted in seeking permission and the day before I left, it was granted. I was allowed to enter the orphanage and visit the special needs classroom.

I wish I could show you pictures, but posting them is not allowed.

Still I can tell you how close I was to tears when I saw a 16 year old boy with cerebral palsy walking with his canes across the breezeway - a boy who before he came to the classroom, was unable to walk.

And I can recall the lump in my throat when I heard about the little boy whose leg was shattered in a motorcycle accident and whose parents abandoned him at the orphanage. Matt's organization has made it possible for him to have surgery and repair his leg.

I see the little boy with cerebral palsy who used to leave puddles of drool wherever he sat. I watched him doing math with an attentive and kind teacher and no longer drooling because of the wisdom and patience of a dedicated physical therapist.

And I still smile thinking about the very animated autistic girl with the biggest smile in the place.

I see hard working Chinese teachers and their American counterparts loving, feeding, teaching, caring for some very special children in a place that is full of hope for the future of these children.

Those are the pictures. I am incredibly thankful for the gift of that visit to the orphanage. Grateful that the doors were opened and I was allowed in for a glimpse. I'll never forget it!

Reading with Vera

Vera indulged me. I got to pick the books to read while in Xiamen. I love Frances so we read Frances books. Lots!