Delhi - Day One

It’s a feeling you never get used to. The feeling in your gut that hurts for the people you see living in extreme conditions.

Today we spent the day just south of Delhi in Faridabad. Rev. Ivan Powar has an amazing work here. From an initial gathering of a half dozen people, he has grown to over 2,000 people that attend their church in 10 different locations. At the main church, he has a day care, orphanage and Bible College. He has a creative staff that is reaching out to the community and has an energetic outreach to young people.

The city has a lot of factories, and has been ringed by a number of slums. We visited one of those slums and saw the school that has been built. It has the only toilet facilities in the whole slum. As we drove into the area, we were struck immediately by the smell. Some of the women collect the dung from cows, dry it out, and use it as fuel. Amidst the trash and filth, children play in worn out clothes and without shoes. The school was built despite opposition for dump yard gangs and Hindu fundamentalists. They’ve stayed the course even after those groups have damaged the school property. On top of that, they have a small church gathering that is pastured by a woman trained in the Bible school. This is almost unheard of in India. Inside the school, a couple hundred students awaited us, standing in greeting, then sitting quietly as we walked through the facilities.

One of the highlights of my day was meeting six-year-old Shabnam Ali. My daughter Emily has a yoga studio in Laramie, WY. Through her business, she sponsors Shabnam. I discovered the Emily’s sponsored child was in this project just a couple weeks before I came. It was a delight to meet Shabnam, as well as her mother and grandmother. They live in a leprosy area, and the residents are isolated by the community. The fact that Shabnam is able to attend school is a blessing to her family.

Driving in India is always a challenge. But the roads of Delhi are jammed with traffic. I sat in the front seat today, and most of the time, wished I hadn’t! There is just a mass of humanity here. You go by areas with clean, middle to upper class apartment buildings. On the next block, buildings are in shambles. The smog penetrates your eyes and you lungs. It is hard to understand how people live with this every day.

Mission of Mercy sponsored projects in Faridabad reach over 600 children. While that creates a tremendous impact on those families, there is much more that we can do here. We need more sponsors to step up to the plate and help. In the meantime, we continue to reach out to those that we can, because One Child Matters.