India Day 3

Day three. Today has been very tiring, but very good. We went to Home of Love earlier, today so we could start painting. While the other part of our team was painting, the documentary team went into the village around Home of Love to capture the environment and people that live in the surrounding area. We met many interesting people, and towards then end had people coming up to us wanting their picture taken. I even crawled into a truck with a couple of them because they wanted their picture with me! I had a blast in the village and then we headed back to the Home. We got back and did some interviews and B-Roll with the team that was painting. After lunch we met up with another organization that is at Home of Love, Invisible Girl Project. They are an awesome organization! They support 4 organizations (Home of Love is one of them) by raising awareness and support for them in the US. Every girl that lives at the Home is supported by a sponsor through Invisible Girl. They had all of the sponsors write letters to the girls and today we got to capture them handing them out to the girls. They loved them! We captured a ton today and so from 4-6 we just hung out with the girls and played with them. Donna found me right away and so did Pria. They wanted pictures so we took one together so I can get it printed and give to them. After that we came back and went out to eat. Today was very eye opening in the way that these girls are looking for people to show them love. They are so eager for someone to love them that they want to get to know anyone that will show them love. Please pray that our team stays rested. We are all starting to get tired and we still have a long way to go. Thanks for all of your encouraging comments! Here are some pictures from today:

India Day 2

Whoa, I’m tired. Today was packed full of Home of Love. I was so tired last night that I fell asleep around 8! I woke up, opened my laptop to see what time it was and it was 4AM. I thought to myself, “I could get up and blog right now” but instead I forced myself to sleep until 7. We had breakfast and then headed to Home of Love to start filming. We decided that today would be a B-Roll day so that we could get footage that we would need as well as have more time to hang out with the girls so they would be more comfortable around us. During one of their breaks, Pria, the girl that calls me Ben10, came up to me and gave me a Ben10 Pen. I got to know her more as well as a few other girls, whose nicknames are Gellin and Donna. They call all of us brother or sister and love to play games. We played tag, played on the slides, and then went and played in the chapel. We didn’t leave until 6PM and then had a 1 and a half hour drive back. I fell asleep and was super tired when we returned, and even debated going to dinner. But we went to a hotel to eat and it was fantastic. Bri shared her Lassi with me, which looked like something I would never want to consume (it looks kind of like tapioca pudding, which I hate), but it was delicious.  I’m off to bed now, enjoy some of the pictures from today. -Ben

Huntington J-term Group Has Arrived!

We made it! Flying was not bad at all and we had no problems making it here. The Chennai airport was a little overwhelming. I was not expecting it to be as crowded right outside as it was. But we loaded up on to a bus and arrived to our home: the YWCA. It is beautiful. I feel like I’m on an episode of House Hunters International! There are these stars that hang from a tree at the entrance that look really awesome. We arrived around 5 AM, but I wasn’t tired so I went exploring and took some pictures:

For the day, we went to get our money exchanged and then went to Home of Love. We got to just walk the streets while some of our other team got our money exchanged. I loved doing this and seeing all the different people. We also got ice cream, which was really good. One of my favorite things I saw was this auto shop. The guys were not really working and when they saw a group of white Americans walk by they started to laugh at us. We stopped to talk about the surroundings but I knew I wanted to get a picture of them so I went over and asked them if I could take their picture. They all lined up and let me get my favorite picture of the day:












Then we went to Home of Love. It is about an hour outside of the city. The roads are crazy (well they always are, but these are filled with holes, cows, and dogs). But once we arrived it made all of the stress of planning, packing, and traveling, worth it. The girls are amazing! They love visitors and love talking to you. The campus is beautiful and nothing at all what any of us expected. After taking 230 pictures for the day, I decided it was time to put the camera down completely and just go hang out with the girls. So I introduced myself to a group of them that had fun taking pictures earlier and they gave me the nickname “Ben 10”. I asked them why they gave me that nickname and they said that he is a hero in a movie/show and that they would bring me a picture tomorrow.










































I absolutely love it here. I really didn’t expect to like it this much but Chennai is great. I was super tired last night so after dinner I fell asleep until this morning. Please continue to pray for us. Today, we will start filming at Home of Love. Pray that everything goes smoothly and that we can make something that will bring more love to these girls.

Beyond Words: INDIA MISSION TRIP 2011

Wow. I don't even really know where to begin except by saying that it has taken almost a week for everything to sink in. Even then, it still blows my mind to reminisce on my time spent in India and seeing God's love at work on the other side of the world. I have spent the last 5 days trying to collect my thoughts so I could tell people, when they asked, all about the girls at the Home of Love, but I still find it frustrating for me because I don't feel like words are enough. Seeing, meeting, and loving these girls was the kind of experience that words hardly do justice to. I can accurately describe all that we did, but the experience, itself, was personal.

I met many wonderful people while on this trip, and grew closer to many that I have known for awhile. The girls at the HOL, however, impacted me the greatest. Seeing their faces, holding their hands, and knowing their stories brought tears to my eyes on several different occasions. These girls are probably the strongest of any I have ever known. While many have been faced with the resentment of society and familial loss, they still have such a passionate love for God and all He does.

I tried my hardest to learn and remember all the different girls' names that i met, but it was no easy task to say the least. There were a few girls in particular that I became extremely close with, but this little girl in the picture, Kaberi, i considered her to be "my girl." From day one of playing with her and her sister on the swingset, she was the first one to grab my hand or jump on me when we would arrive at the HOL. Being only 6 years old, and arriving at the Home from Orissa in May of this year, Kaberi speaks about 2 words of English. It was fun getting to know her without using words, and just playing for the sake of playing. Kaberi could be quiet and reserved, but she could also be just as crazy as some of the other girls. I learned that her and her sister's father remarried at one point and did not want anything to do with the girls. And so when the girls' mother died of TB, the Home of Love was to become their refuge. When the day of goodbyes rolled around, leaving her was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. And not just her, but all the girls I became close with. Sangeetha, Asha, Modina, Presanna, and all the others-- it broke my heart to see them cry the day we left. These girls will always be in my heart, and I will never forget them.

If anyone wants to know more in depth of everything we did, just message me and I would be more than happy to talk about the trip to the best of my abilities.

Jordan