Day 6: Children's Day

Day 6 consisted of the following:

• Arrival of Raju
• Children's day at school
• Night time prayer

Saturday 14 November 2015

Arrival of Raju:

The weather was a cool 19 degrees all day.  Raju, the owner of the orphanage and school arrived back at around 10pm last night from visiting another city in India.  Three French Christians were with him as they were visiting India to see the work of the Lord.  We had a good talk with them all in the morning, Raju is a very nice man to talk with. 

Every Wednesday and Saturday the children wear a different type of uniform to school.  Today it was orange top with white shorts/skirt.  I am amazed at how everything works at the orphanage, every child has their own cleaning job to do, they help each other with everything and they are always happy.  The children left for school at around 8:30am and we went at around 10am. 

Children's Day at School

When we arrived at the school all the children were sitting down inside of a hall, they sat in lines of age groups, boys on one side and girls on the other.  The school has 331 children that attend.

Since most of the grounds in India are dirt every house/building you enter everyone takes off their shoes to stop dirt coming in.  Myself, Keith, Raju, and the three French Christians sat at the front of the hall on chairs, while all the children were looking with amaze.  Since it was national Children's day they had special performances including dances, singing, funny acts, and prize giving.  The Prime Mister of India wanted his birthday to be celebrated with children so he called for a national holiday, it is the 150th Children's day.  It was really special being able to see all of the different performances and how proud the children looked while doing them, it gives them a real sense of achievement.  Prizes were handed out for all sorts of different things, such as the fastest boy/girl, best grades, etc.  They got Keith and the French people to hand out the prizes so the children were very nervous when coming forward.

All of the children in the school hall

I'm starting to get the hang of knowing the children's names and faces.  They are all very friendly and keen to teach me the Kannada language.  I'm really enjoying being able to make new friends, and learn lots, but I know that next week will be very challenging with starting to teach.  However I think once I get into a scheduled routine it would become a lot easier. 

Picture of two girls wearing their outfit for the performance

Night Time Prayer

I spent most of the afternoon with the children at the orphanage, they had lots and lots of questions about me and New Zealand.  At 7:30pm all the children gathered together in a small room, they all sat on the ground and I sat with them.  For the next hour they would sing songs of praise and pray.  I was so amazed and really humbled by the whole experience. It's hard to put into words but if you can imagine 70 children, mostly aged between 5-14 years old, sitting on the ground of a small room, boys on one side, girls on the other, and very child singing loudly and praying.  I couldn't believe that they would do this every single morning and night, it was really incredible. They sang from a hymn book of about 400 different songs and all of the children knew them off by heart. They sang one of them in English, a line from the hymn read "When the spirit of the Lord is in my heart, I will sing as David sang", it was a very special experience. Later during the evening a boy  gave me a spare copy of his memory verse sheet, a new verse every day, these children has such a desire to know God. 

The internet is very limited at the orphanage and I think my day may become quite busy next week so I'm not sure how often I will be able to send updates to this blog, but I will try my best.  Tomorrow morning at 5am a few of the older boys will take me out on a jog around the town, and then at 8:30am we will have the Sunday meeting.