For my leadership school outreach, we traveled to India. It was my second time in the country and I was excited to return and see friends that I had met on my previous trip. Most of the outreach was spent in a small hippie town in the Himalayas. Our ministry times were heavily evangelistic to the hippie community. We would walk around going to different cafes, meet young people from around the world, and share Jesus with them.
One day we met these two young girls who performed on the street to make money. We would continually see them as we were out and began to build relationships with them. We invited them to have meals with us, bought them new clothes, bathed them, treated them for lice, and gave them space to just be kids.
God has given me a heart to work with children at risk and this was one of the first few opportunities I had to build relationships with girls like this in India. We all became fast friends with them. We shared many moments of laughter and fun, but also hard moments with tears and struggles. Some days they didn’t want to leave because of the harsh realities of living on the streets. I remember moments where we would sit and color together and they would end up falling asleep knowing that they had somewhere safe to lay their head for a few minutes.
God used the two girls to impact our team in a big way. We all came face to face with the reality that so many kids in India face. We learned to love and open our hearts in new ways. We knew that because of family circumstances we could not do much to help them physically but we could spend time with them, treat them as precious children who are deeply loved by God, and meet some basic needs.
Through meeting these two girls, God taught me about seeing the individual in front of me and recognizing the value that they have as His masterpiece. He also began to speak to me about working with children. Now I am a part of the children's ministry “Ignite”, here at YWAM Asheville. I am getting to begin working on a dream that Lord began in me so many years ago.