‘Love can heal a wounded soul. We all have scars from our past. Scars on wrists and throats can be healed with time but there are some scars which are much deeper than those on the body. They are the scars on our hearts, minds and on our souls which take a long time to heal. Embrace people who love you because love has an amazing power to heal and bring back the radiance in our life.’ – Aarti Khurana

The children here have tough feet and tough skin. They aren’t fazed by playing soccer on the concrete barefoot and they don’t bleed when they fall. I haven’t developed this tough shell yet -my feet get blistered on the hot ground and I managed to trip and skin my knees. For the last couple of weeks my knee has been healing itself. In this environment I have no choice but to keep it covered up but this meant that it couldn’t dry up. The scab got pulled off several times and the pain seemed worse than ever. I felt like I was in a helpless cycle but in reality it was slowly fixing itself.

“It gets worse before better – try not to panic.”

Most of the kids here have extremely painful pasts. There are two brothers here who were buried alive by their mother. The older brother saved their lives by screaming for help. The younger who is now 5 years old almost died – he had holes in his lungs. These stories are beyond shocking.

When you know where they have come from it explains how dysfunctional they can be now. Sometimes when they disobey you and insult you and scream at the top of their lungs you just want to give up. It feels like they will never grow up and understand how to better themselves. But then going back and reading their stories, the emotional trauma they have experienced I remember how much they need to be shown love. Caring for vulnerable children has shown me I can love more passionately, hurt more deeply and celebrate even the smallest improvements more joyously than I ever imagined. ‘As we are willing to walk down this path for their sake, our embracing of their brokenness paints a vivid picture of how Jesus embraces ours.’

I am finding it so important to believe in these kids – they might be behind in education and struggle to communicate their feelings but they have potential and don’t need to settle for prospects of poverty. ‘Scars show us where we have been, they don’t dictate where we are going.’ We got to take twenty of the older kids to their first ever swimming lesson and you can’t imagine the joy we saw in them. I am so glad that we can be part of teaching them such a basic life skill which they will use for the rest of their lives.

I feel like I now understand a little more about what being a parent involves. All the energy and love you have to make available 24/7. It makes me appreciate mine even more and I realise how lucky I am to have a family. It’s something I have always taken for granted but these kids don’t have something I consider so essential. I am lucky to have been able to spend Mother’s Day with these 41 incredible kids who didn’t have any Mum’s of their own to celebrate with – we are one big family really.

‘Family isn’t always blood. It’s the people in your life who want you in theirs; the ones who accept you for who you are. The ones who would do anything to see you smile and who love you no matter what.’

We have had the opportunity to go into the rural, underprivileged and immensely poor community in Sweet waters, bringing hope, medicine, food and the gospel to sick and dying people;

“We distributed food to over 100 kids from child headed households in burning 40 degree heat. I found it emotional seeing such young children trekking back home for miles with the food balanced on their heads and knowing that it is so normal for them – they have been brought up to accept that way of life” (Phebe)

“Emotionally heartbreaking, spiritually challenging and intellectually demanding.” (Molly)

“It was very emotional when we had to leave one of the patients who was severely ill. She was crying so much and begging us to stay because she was so lonely.” (Abi)

“Hearing some of the patients stories was hopelessly heartbreaking, seeing the conditions the people live in was very eye opening, and giving out food packages to child headed households brought me as much joy as it did helplessness in not being able to reach all that are in need.” (Laura)

We have enjoyed so many things together as a team recently. We make the most of every opportunity we get to celebrate or have fun together. We bought lots of little treats from the farmers market and rated each food to see our favourite, we made pies for pi day, sunbathed on our few hours off and tried out the frozen yoghurt place (Abi put every single flavour and topping possible on hers). We even caught live cockroaches and had a cockroach spitting competition… well being imaginative is the most fun!

God can restore what is broken and change it into something amazing. All you need is faith. – Joel 2:25

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