A Child's Prayer

Prayer should be the key of the day and the lock of the night

Life has been crazy these past few weeks! There's never a dull moment. The other day Revathi, one of our first standard students, had a seizure. It was like nothing I had experienced before. She was standing by the water bucket and one of the house mother's was yelling her name. I approached her with Annie, an EMT, and we laid her on the ground. She was staring off into space and not responding to our questions. We asked her to squeeze Annie's hand if she could hear us and there was still no movement. The doctor was called immediately. Unfortunately he lives far away so we coped as best we could while we awaited his arrival. Annie knew exactly what to do as she laid Revathi down on her side and continually checked her vitals. Revathi threw-up a couple of times, and after about fifteen minutes of being completely unaware of her surroundings, she fell asleep. Her body was exhausted. Annie and I sat with her for the next couple of hours. Seriously, the entire experience was so surreal. My initial reaction was to freak out. I couldn't believe that this young tender child was enduring such a trial and yet she was completely unaware of what she was facing. After my freak out, which I only felt internally, externally I knew the best thing I could do was comfort her. Annie and I said a prayer and already felt reassured that everything was going to be okay. As scary as it was, all along I felt a special Spirit present, that she was being watched out for and everything was going to be alright. She's fine now. In fact she's more then fine, later that day she was in our bedroom drawing pictures and modeling henna on her hand! The night before our eventful morning I was talking to Sathiya, one of our fifth standard students, about her Mother. She told me that she had missed her Mother so much that earlier that night she was crying. The first person she turned to was her Heavenly Father. She told me that she prayed to him for comfort and that she would not be sad anymore. She said the strange part was, when she was finished with her prayer she had forgotten why she was sad and her tears were gone. Sathiya then told me that every time she coughs it's because someone is thinking about her. The rest of the night she couldn't stop coughing. She knew it was because of her prayer and although she is far away from her Mother, she is never forgotten. I've had a lot of fun lately with the girl's side of the hostel. I typically say good night to the girls and then go sit and sing with the boys, but recently I've been devoting more time to the girl's side. They always have me tell them a good night story. I've discovered my knack for creatively combining all the Disney movies into an Indian version of awesomeness. For example, I told the story of Snow White. The difference was some of the names of the seven dwarfs. One of their names was curry, I can't take credit for that one though, that all goes to the girls. Also, Snow White wears a sari to her wedding, figured that was a must! It's really fun because the girls get all technical and ask me the parent's names and who all attended the wedding. I just hope they don't ask me to repeat the same stories because I'm sure I'll forget all the made-up details! Last night we had family night on the boy's side. The objective was to draw a self-portrait that we could give to their sponsors. I drew an example self-portrait, which looked nothing like me, and then the fun began. As I walked around the three rooms to see how the boys were doing, it came to my attention that about ten of the boys were drawing pictures of me. So rather then drawing themselves, they drew pictures of a silly pale girl with messy blond hair! I really hope that their sponsors look remotely like me so that they'll think the picture is of them! It was pretty funny. The boys were so proud of their masterpieces. So my visa expired October 22, I feel like a fugitive! I drove to Chennai today with Radhika and we mailed it out to my Dad. I hope he gets it or else I'm staying in India the rest of my life! This Saturday is parent's day and sport's day. The children have been preparing for this for the past three weeks and they are totally stoked! The dilemna is the weather. It's been raining non-stop today and if it keeps on raining we're going to have to cancel the festivities. I really hope that's not the case because the children will be totally crushed. For the next and last five weeks that I'm here I will be devoting the majority of my efforts on the tutoring program. We've changed it completely from how it was during the summer and I'm so excited to see progress amongst the students.