Friday, January 24, 2020

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood...

Today started off with gathering as many of the 450 students, from the Marshall School, that would fit in the front of the building for a photo; it was absolutely amazing how efficient the process was!! Not only are the children incredibly cooperative, which of course makes things that much easier, but the teachers and helpers just seem to work together like a well oiled machine.


The 2020 travelers and the Valluri family
We spent the remainder of the morning trying to wrap up handing out cards and such to the students who we didn't get to yesterday.  It was fun because today's groups were the older classes so they remembered some of us from last time we were here.

The afternoon was set aside for touring the area and seeing where many of our students live.  Although most reside in Madhavapatnam, there is a fair amount that travel from neighboring villages just to attend our school. One area in specific was a community set apart because of the lower cast families who live there.  The last time we visited this place most of the people lived in palm frawn huts; I also remember it being one of the cleanest areas at that point because the folks living there didn't have the means to purchase items that came in packaging and simply lived off the land. Nine years later we found that the majority now lived in homes built with money the government had paid them when they bought out their farm fields to construct a new road. Now there was also more waste laying around too. I guess in a twisted way this means progress.  




This boy is a student at our school; he hasn't been able to attend because of a broken foot. He requested a blessing from us for healing, and was grateful for the prayer.

 Life is certainly not easy for the beautiful women of this area, and yet they proudly greeted us with smiles and kindness. The woman below is 60 years old; she is standing by our eldest travel companion Jan, who is 74.

We arrived back at the school just in time to see our new bus loaded up with students to take home; what an absolute blessing this recent gift was as they can now make one big loop dropping off students instead of coming back and forth to pick up another load.




At this point we had the opportunity to walk around the neighborhood where the school and hostel are located. We were greeted with great enthusiasm, in an almost bizarre way, as we walked up and down the streets. What started with just our group, quickly turned into a parade of children and adults alike; some wanting to shake our hands while others requested to have their pictures taken with us...all wanting to simply follow us.  It's definitely a hard concept to wrestle with as we consider why so much attention is given to us.
Joan is in good hands with Manjula's sister Santhi

Dung patty for starting fires










 



This nomad and his beast entertained us in front of the hostile. He actually had trained the cow to shake and bow down to offer a namaste' greeting. 


 

We ended out night by spending time getting to know the children in the hostel better; what a delightful group of Shine Brites!


Our group sure had fun interacting with the kids to the Barnyard Dance!
With a baa and a moo and a cock-a-doodle doo
everybody promenade two by two!


The next generation of Joyful Journeys leaders...

May God work in and through us to help us discern our call here 
both in the ministry itself  and the community it serves.

Namaste'
~Jenny