I can't believe how quickly my time has been passing here! I'm already over half way through my time in Kolkata and after this week I'll only have another 2 weeks left - basically just a blink of the eye!
This has been one difficult thing about being here with this organization for part of the summer - just knowing that I'm not able to put down roots or grow many of the relationships I've created with the ladies as deeply as I desire. I'm grateful and thankful and blessed more than I'd hoped by the short time I've already spent here - but the remainder of these few weeks reminds me that I need to continue to absorb every moment and not let anything pass me by unexamined. The staff here had been read a couple of books before coming to help prepare my mindset for during the time I'm in Kolkata. I'm reminded a lot of a quote from one of them that state, "The unexamined life is not worth living." Whoa. A pretty radical statement - and I'm not quite sure if I fully accept it. However, I also gather a lot of meaning from it because it reminds me, motivates me, commands me to think about/process/analyze/question a lot of things I see and even more so the things I think, believe, and feel. For me, this last part is often the most difficult.
Tuesday two of the staff took me and 6 other of the volunteers and interns around the city of Kolkata on a sort of walking tour. One of the places we visited was the (huge!) train station on the other side of the river. The staff bought us tickets so we could get onto the train platforms and they asked us to walk all the way down the platform (each a different one) taking our time and really observing what we saw. Often, they explained, village people will buy tickets for their sick and dying family members so that they can send them into the city hoping someone will be able to take care of them. Often, however, the sick people end up lying on the platforms in pain and dying alone (unless a team comes from the Mother Teresa house to care for them).
Later on in the day we all took the ferry back across the river. There was a small girl (age 6 maybe?) and a boy a little older who played the drums, danced, and did tricks in order to beg for spare change on the ferry. Maybe it seems silly, but watching the little girl dance wearing tattered clothing and makeup I felt just.. repulsed honesty and I had to blink away tears. When we crossed onto the other side of the river, we saw another little girl there also who was wearing the same kind of makeup and was also begging. It seemed clear to me that these children were owned by an adult - family or not - who was enabling them to beg. I mean, at least they're probably being fed, right? But I can't help but wonder what's going to happen to those little girls when they grow too mature to inspire sympathy while begging. What options are those little girls going to be left? Interning alongside an organization that works to empower women and girls coming out of trafficking has made me a lot more aware of what few options young women and girls in poverty really have..
I'm continuing to learn a lot here either when I'm interacting with the women and staff or when I'm doing research for them on a laptop...
Did you know that there are 300 million slaves alive today?
I honestly wouldn't have guessed there were that many.. But that's more than at any other point in the history of the WORLD. The difficult thing though hasn't been coming here and seeing this fact. It's been realizing that this very thing exists where I grew up (all across the Midwest actually). This is a fact. It's in the U.S. - it's in the Midwest - the Heartland. This is something I've known, but being here has really confronted me with the reality of this. It's still really difficult to wrap my mind around though..
I know this is a huge prayer request, but could you pray against human sex trafficking and the commercial sex industry in general? This is a really big prayer, but I think it's one we need to find ourselves praying more often because our God is The Living God and He is much bigger than even this. Pray for new eyes for me, that I (and those I love) would be blessed with discernment and wisdom for where and how we can best serve God in both the future and, most importantly, the present.
Thanks, everyone - I'm truly grateful for you.
- Jenni
This has been one difficult thing about being here with this organization for part of the summer - just knowing that I'm not able to put down roots or grow many of the relationships I've created with the ladies as deeply as I desire. I'm grateful and thankful and blessed more than I'd hoped by the short time I've already spent here - but the remainder of these few weeks reminds me that I need to continue to absorb every moment and not let anything pass me by unexamined. The staff here had been read a couple of books before coming to help prepare my mindset for during the time I'm in Kolkata. I'm reminded a lot of a quote from one of them that state, "The unexamined life is not worth living." Whoa. A pretty radical statement - and I'm not quite sure if I fully accept it. However, I also gather a lot of meaning from it because it reminds me, motivates me, commands me to think about/process/analyze/question a lot of things I see and even more so the things I think, believe, and feel. For me, this last part is often the most difficult.
Tuesday two of the staff took me and 6 other of the volunteers and interns around the city of Kolkata on a sort of walking tour. One of the places we visited was the (huge!) train station on the other side of the river. The staff bought us tickets so we could get onto the train platforms and they asked us to walk all the way down the platform (each a different one) taking our time and really observing what we saw. Often, they explained, village people will buy tickets for their sick and dying family members so that they can send them into the city hoping someone will be able to take care of them. Often, however, the sick people end up lying on the platforms in pain and dying alone (unless a team comes from the Mother Teresa house to care for them).
Later on in the day we all took the ferry back across the river. There was a small girl (age 6 maybe?) and a boy a little older who played the drums, danced, and did tricks in order to beg for spare change on the ferry. Maybe it seems silly, but watching the little girl dance wearing tattered clothing and makeup I felt just.. repulsed honesty and I had to blink away tears. When we crossed onto the other side of the river, we saw another little girl there also who was wearing the same kind of makeup and was also begging. It seemed clear to me that these children were owned by an adult - family or not - who was enabling them to beg. I mean, at least they're probably being fed, right? But I can't help but wonder what's going to happen to those little girls when they grow too mature to inspire sympathy while begging. What options are those little girls going to be left? Interning alongside an organization that works to empower women and girls coming out of trafficking has made me a lot more aware of what few options young women and girls in poverty really have..
I'm continuing to learn a lot here either when I'm interacting with the women and staff or when I'm doing research for them on a laptop...
Did you know that there are 300 million slaves alive today?
I honestly wouldn't have guessed there were that many.. But that's more than at any other point in the history of the WORLD. The difficult thing though hasn't been coming here and seeing this fact. It's been realizing that this very thing exists where I grew up (all across the Midwest actually). This is a fact. It's in the U.S. - it's in the Midwest - the Heartland. This is something I've known, but being here has really confronted me with the reality of this. It's still really difficult to wrap my mind around though..
I know this is a huge prayer request, but could you pray against human sex trafficking and the commercial sex industry in general? This is a really big prayer, but I think it's one we need to find ourselves praying more often because our God is The Living God and He is much bigger than even this. Pray for new eyes for me, that I (and those I love) would be blessed with discernment and wisdom for where and how we can best serve God in both the future and, most importantly, the present.
Thanks, everyone - I'm truly grateful for you.
- Jenni
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