Impressions of India
CHAPTER 7
Over the past half a year that I have been here in India one of the constant sights that I have seen and will remember when I return home is the children. Children playing, laughing, crying, and begging. When I walk down the street my heart breaks when I see a child without an arm or leg or maimed in other ways begging and know that sometimes this was done on purpose because it is the only way their family could survive. In contrast to these distressing sights of poverty will be my memories of the Children at HMI’s school project in the Sultan Shai district of Hyderabad’s old city who I have the pleasure of teaching English to every Friday morning. These children our the first ones to feel the effects and be hurt by communal violence when it breaks out in the city.
However from their smiles and the love that they show you for coming tohelp them you would never guess the type of poverty and tense situation they live in unless you have seen it with your own eyes. On my second Friday at the school I felt this love when a group of students crowded around me to ask me to help them with their English assignments and then came back after that for help with their basic arithmetic. This love was shown to me by the children on only the second day that I had been with them. I was moved by the love and trust of these students in and for me and gained new insight to what Christ meant when he said in Matt 19:14 et the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."(NIV)
When I am working with these children they make me realize that I am doing the Lord’s work and really elping to build a little piece of God’s kingdom here on earth. I also see by the love the children show me in return for my help and for just being there that I am through my actions planting the seed of the Gospel of Christ that the Lord will harvest later.
My prayer for these children of Sultan Shai is that they will grow up in an atmosphere of non-violence and become the peacemakers who are called blessed by Christ in his sermon on the mount.
In Christ’s Service,
Rich Hahn