The Shift
Leaving the home in Chennai was a lot harder on the children then I ever expected it to be. I thought the move to a nice new place would be a huge dream-come-true. I mean they have more room to play than they know what to do with. Although the children are happy with the new home a small wave of depression has hit the kids. It seems that even though the Chennai home was very small and unable to provide for the children’s needs correctly, it was a pillar of stability for them. Since the move, a lot of the kids have moved forward where as some have moved backward in their emotional growth. I was surprised to see how insecure the children were about whether or not I was going to be moving with them. No matter how many times I reassured them they would say “ Enna Achilarparakkarm coming? America going? I just kept telling them America no baby, here only. Upon hearing that they would just smile and hug me. After we moved it was really neat to see different kids start to be a little bit more outside their shell. It was like I kept a huge promise to them just by moving with them. I think the kids are starting to understand that I’m totally here to love and meet their needs.

Achilarparakkarm

Over the last week I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to watch 34 children learn to play in ways they never have before. In Chennai they were so restricted from the basic things children shouldn’t be; things like running, playing in sand, climbing trees, catching critters, etc. We have a large mound of sand in front of the home and it’s amazing just how much time they spend creating things out of it. I’m so happy that we don’t have a neighbor on every side screaming ever time the kids get to loud. Here the children can be what God intended them to be without outside people exasperating them.

The Arms of An Angel

I wanted really bad to write this story; that is why I am up this late hour, it’s just about 2:30 am and I promise you this, the kids will be waking me up as soon as the clock strikes 5:45.  It’s about an incredible woman named Nellany, she and her husband were the ones to start the aids home here in Chennai. I got the chance to speak with her yesterday which ended up really encouraging me. In light of that I have been having this nagging fear of someday having to let these children go. To be honest with you I’ve never felt really bound to anything to the point where I felt like I couldn’t give it up, For instance a job, a career, possessions, friends, even family. It’s funny I have always commended myself for being able to detach and move on from people, places and things in a minutes’ notice. Recently I’ve become terrified of never being able to move on from the children, I don’t mean I feel obligated to stay, I mean I can’t imagine living without them. I love them to a point where I think it would be impossible finding meaning in any other lifestyle. God has really made them my children in my heart, I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing but I’m really working hard to love them like Jesus loved people. He washed away the pain of people’s past lives by showing them the pure unadulterated love of the father. Anyway I’m off on a tangent so I’ll bring myself back from left field. In light of all my fears I asked Nellany probably one of the hardest questions you can ask somebody. Nellany how did you prepare yourself for the children dying? Instantly tears came to her eyes as she began to share, her words are as follows. “Honestly there is no way to prepare you for having a child die. I remember when we had are first death in the home. We took Sandya to the hospital because she had a fever. Within a day she seemed to be doing better.  So the next day we went to the hospital to check and see if we could take her home.  Upon arriving they informed us she had died in the night. We didn’t know what to do or say because we were so new and had no experience with this. After a few days the children started asking lots of questions that we had no idea how to answer. Where is Sandya? When is she coming home? We sat down and told the children plainly Sandya went to be with God. She is so happy now. Four months had passed and we were faced with two children dying in the same month. This made all the children very insecure. They became terrified that if they went to the hospital they were going to die. We had to work hard to comfort the children because talk had aroused among them as to who would be next. In such a short time we had five children die. One day one of the little girls I was so close to fell sick and we took her to the hospital. After coming home she seemed to be doing well. We all went to church the next morning and left her at home to get better. When we returned we found her dead. This was so hard for the children to deal with. We took her to the crematory because we thought they would give her a proper burial. The following day we went to check on the process and found they had refused to cremate the child because she had Aids. They had taken the child I loved and tied her up in a bed sheet with other dead Aids patients. They intended to just dump the kids in the trash. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing; I scolded them for their lack of compassion toward a child.  I told them, “give me the child; I’ll see that she gets the respect and dignity that she deserves.”

By this time I was completely in tears, Even now as I write I’m crying, but I had to ask; Nellany what happened to the girl? “I took her; I wrapped her up drove out and buried her by myself. I couldn’t allow someone to disregard something as beautiful as this child.”

I don’t know, maybe I’m crying because of how cruel people are to each other. Maybe I’m crying at the fear of some day needing to be this strong. As I prayed about it tonight I imagined Kowsalya stuffed inside that bed sheet. I imagined the man who would have to be so unconcerned about the incredible life that he was dishonoring. I imagined the strength I would have to have and the reliance on God I would have to have to love them to the end. I think of Jesus when he prays in the book of Luke “Father I have loved them to the end”. Lastly I think of Nellany holding a shovel and that little girl in her arms. What an angel of God! May the lord bless her and always show her kindness.

I’ll give a paragraph break because the rest is just me talking to myself but I’ll probably forget to delete it because I don’t read over what I write anyways.
How could I ever go back to protecting myself from suffering? I’m so afraid to keep giving at the rate I am because I can’t bear the thought losing any of the children. I’m confident that I’ve never loved anyone to this extent, I care about them so much that I’m actually resenting the idea of marriage because it would divide the amount of time I’m able to serve these little ones.  I feel guilty for loving these kids so much, I feel like I’m in the wrong in some way, like I’m an idolater, like I shouldn’t love anything that much. I’m also afraid and tempted to put up walls and distance to protect myself from being hurt. I think of the lyrics of “Landslide” where Stevie Nick’s says “I have been afraid of change because I built my life around you”. I haven’t been afraid of anything since I became a Christian, like death, or having a sucky career or being broke and not being able to rub two nickels together. I confess I’m afraid for the first time in 8 years, I’m afraid of God taking the kids away from me because I love them so much. I know that must sound irrational and retarded, but for me it’s a mountain and a nagging fear that makes me wrestle with God’s mercy and gentleness. I spoke with a man named Dinesh about all my fears, he told me “bro you have to love them enough to let them go. It took me a long time to surrender my kids to God. About 13 years ago we were facing a lot of death threats and threats of kidnappings for preaching the word. I became surrendered by spending a lot of time on my knees”. It’s funny after that conversation I thought wow that’s really easy to do. Yeah right!  Who am I kidding, I don’t know crap about loving and letting go. God please show me more of your grace.  I’m really trying hard to please you. Holy crap I’m tired and the kids are going to wake me up as soon as the sun shows any signs of light. Good night.

Update on Vignesh

Over the last four months I’ve watched the spirit of this boy become more and more burdened as the days passed. Daily that thought of seeing his family has ate away at him. I actually had to distance myself from the situation in so many ways because I was becoming so upset with the lack of urgency to take the child home. After asking a lot of questions I became aware of the severity of the situation but still I felt a responsibility to bring this boys sorrow to an end. Could you imagine not seeing anyone in your family for four years? On top of that that last time you saw them was when they were informing you that your father was dead. It’s just too much for a 9 yr old to have on his heart. I’ll back up a bit just to give you some important details. So the reason this boy never went home was we never had any contact information from him, no address, not even phone number. About 4 weeks back I was on my way somewhere with a local preacher and Vignesh had decided to tag along. As we drove he took the opportunity to share how he was feeling with the preacher. The preacher became distressed and asked me why people are neglecting his request to go home. I informed him of us having no contact address; Immediately Vignesh gave some important details on how to get it. I assumed these were all details that the staff was aware of. I called Priya and informed her that someone in Vignesh’s previous hostel had the address we were looking for. Within a day we had that address in our hands, In my excitement I told him the good news and declared I’d take him within the next few days. He was so overjoyed by that news; he was like a totally different boy. After I had been given the go ahead I got different directions to not take him but to hold off for a few more weeks. At this I became extremely indignant because this would be one of the many times a promise was not kept with this boy. I tried very hard to convince people otherwise of the importance of taking him but to no avail. After receiving the information that he was not going home he broke down. It took everything I had not to be bitter at the situation. After this broken promise Vignesh pretty much lost all his respect for me, I couldn’t even get him to talk to me. Soon after he started saying “ningal yenna yeamontreevatigal” you deceived me, those words hurt me so much. I just felt discouraged because I felt like I was being faulted for something out of my control. Despite efforts to comfort him, he really kept his distance from me.  I didn’t let the issue rest, I kept nagging and nagging till someone answered this call. Finally people heard my plight for this boy and I was promised a day for him to be taken home. I was reluctant to tell Vignesh but I decided to anyways, his response “ninga poysolinga” stop telling lies. It came down to the night before and I tried to tell him that we would be taking home in the morning, despite all my efforts he would not listen or come to me he was just to hurt. 4:30 am I woke him up put him on the bike and left. As we sat on the bus I could see the fear in his eyes, he didn’t sleep or change positions for two hours. I asked him; Are you sad? “No” Tired? “No.” Bayamaa (Are you afraid)?” His head nodded yes. He laid his head in my lap and fell asleep. As we got off the bus we started asking different auto drivers if they could take us to the address we had. No joke every person we spoke to told us your address is wrong you can’t find it. Obviously I was fired up about this information. We prayed together that God would help us to find the place. Vignesh remembered one small name so we decided in faith to see if that place existed. Everyone but one auto driver said we were wasting our time. In faith we paid the guy to take us to the place. Keep in mind the last time Vignesh was home he was four years old. After driving 30 Kilometers we passed a bus stand and Vignesh told the driver to make a left, the driver tried to dissuade us from turning. At this point all we were going on was a little faith at the hunch of a nine year old. About 15 minutes down the road the driver asked Vignesh, “Do you remember any of this?”  His response was no I don’t remember. We soon came to a roundabout and Vignesh jumped out of the auto. He kept saying I know this school and that shop. He would run up to different people look in their face and see if he recognized them. One after another people would say no. One man came to us and said I might know the place you’re speaking of so we followed him down a winding road.  Suddenly Vignesh said there is my father’s brother.  He ran up, looked in his face and sure enough it was his uncle. The uncle showed zero excitement or warmth but told us the correct place and name. As we went, we came across his deaf grandfather; I was surprised to see him embrace Vignesh and be so overjoyed. I had a huge fear that his family would shun him, and that the rejection would destroy him. Soon we came to the place; it was beautiful watching his little sister run across the rice patties just to see him. The whole village gathered to see him, they just kept saying Sankaar’s boy. I was really surprised to watch the family embrace him. Everyone just wept together. I cried because I could not help but think about how much it meant to Vignesh to see his family after all this time. His family invited us in and they kept showing us photos of Vignesh’s mother and father who had passed away. As we left I praised God over and over for serving us in such an amazing way, I praised him for so much concern shown toward this small boy.

Learning More About The Kids

I feel like I’m really starting to learn more and more about the children and their individual needs, It’s neat how God is moving because I don’t speak very much of the language yet but through observation I seem to be picking up on a lot of great insights. For instance one girl named Kowsalya, is extremely needy and craves to be held, the interesting thing is she wants to be loved on her own terms. What I mean is if you try to give her a hug she will run away from you, in fact she hates if you come near her, she won’t even let you hold her hand. What is interesting is she will come to me throughout the day and take my arm and wrap it around the back of her neck. As long as I show zero interest in what she is doing she will stay there. If  I so much as look at her she will run away. I don’t really understand why she acts this way but the less attention I show her the closer we become? Got any thoughts on that one?

Then there is Swathi, Honestly I don’t think there is a kid in the home who has hurt my feelings more than Swathi has. She has been through so much in her short life which makes me want to encourage her so much but she is like a beat dog; if you get to close she will bite you. She seems to be so independent of everyone and everything in the home. I’ve spoke to other kids and staff about her to find out what they know and to my surprise nobody knows anything about her. She has completely retreated in her heart from people. She is like the song by Bruce Springsteen Secret Garden. He makes a comment that no matter how close you think you are to her heart that your still a million miles away. It’s hard because I’ve given a lot of love and encouragement to her but she is still so cold to me. She will come up to me a pinch me or hit me and then stand back and see how I respond. It’s really weird I don’t have a clue on how to reach her, In my hurt I’ve found myself avoiding her. I tend to give up when situations seem impossible to me. How do you reach someone who won’t let you anywhere near his or her heart? Actually I saw her encouraged when I gave her a photo I had taken of her and her brother. She had tears in her eyes and said thank you, which is so out of character for her.
It’s funny the deeper I go into the hearts and needs of the people here the more intense it becomes, I mean their emotional needs are so intense. I can sympathize with Jesus, the scripture says he was a man of many sorrows and I think I understand why. Imagine feeling and seeing everyone’s pain so clearly and having the answer and having so many run from you and your love. Not saying I have the answer, I’m just talking about the sorrow over people’s pain. You can pray that God will help me to see daily tangible growth in the kids and me. Also that he will help the new staff to be fully of love and compassion towards the kids. I see a lot of things the staff does and I cringe but I understand that they don’t know how to love. God can help them to become people of deep love.
If you’re interested in mailing anything to me my address is listed below please remember not to declare large amounts otherwise I have to pay large import fees.

THINGS THAT WOULD HELP ME SO MUCH

1)      Any really good books on working with orphans or counseling abused children.
2)      A couple of copies the Goldfish game.  The kids LOVE this game.

Please send to:

Robin Braat
Hope foundation
New No. 13, Old No.7 , Flat-D, Sharath’s Apts.,
Nehru Nagar 1st Street, 1st floor,
Adyar Chennai – 600 020.

Love rocky.