India : Mumbai

I’ve been back from India for about three weeks now, and have FINALLY gone through all of the pictures and had some time to process the experience and wanted to post a few blogs about it. I figured I would break it down by each city we visited and show some pictures and tell some stories from each. I hope you enjoy these next few posts!

As I’ve been home the last few weeks, I’ve had a lot of family and friends ask about my time in India…what it was like, did I like it or not, what was like working at the orphanage and with the kids, what did I learn, how did I grow? So many questions and sometimes, I’ve had a hard time answering it. Overall, I LOVED the experience I had in India, but there were things I did not love about it. There were days that I wanted to just hop on a plane and come home because I felt so out of place and uncomfortable. But I’m really glad I didn’t. And now that I am home and have had time to reflect and look over the pictures, I miss things about India. I miss the colors and liveliness of the country. I miss how new and different everything was compared to what I’m use to at home. I miss the food and the chai (mmmm, the chai!!). But mostly, I miss the people.

Our time in Mumbai was mostly spent at St. Catherine’s School/Orphanage. The main purpose of our trip was to spend time with the kids and staff at the school and to do some practical tasks for Sunshine Kids International (a ministry organization based in California that supports St. Catherine’s). Jan and I were blown away by the hospitality of the staff and children. We went over to serve them, and the whole time they were going above and beyond to make sure we were taken care of and had what we needed. This was the first example of the people of India, and it showed that they are such a warm, kind, genuine, serving people. I was humbled. You wouldn’t know unless you were told that the kids were orphans. They had such joy and were so full of life, that it gave me a renewed appreciation for everything I have (and usually take for granted) at home. The staff and teachers at St. Catherine’s were SO giving, constantly putting the kids first. As we had conversations with the staff during the week, all we heard about was how they worked on ways to help the kids have a better life. A lot of their work has to do with teaching the kids that they are valuable and encourage them to dream about a future. Brother Joseph (the man who runs St. Catherine’s) told us when the kids first come to the orphanage, if you ask them what they want to be when they grow up, they don’t even answer you because they’ve never thought about BEING something when they grow up. They only know life on the streets or in the slums and they do what they need to do to survive TODAY, without giving much thought about tomorrow. But as the staff works with them, they help the kids realize that they have a future, and they can be apart of shaping their future. As we talked to the kids during the week, we saw hope and excitement in their eyes as they told us they wanted to be a teacher or a flight attendant or a doctor or a dancer when they grow up. Before I went to India, I thought I would be sad or heart broken over what I would see and experience at St. Catherine’s, but I actually felt the opposite: I felt hopeful and excited about the future of these kids. It was so inspiring and encouraging! After spending a week at St. Catherine’s, I feel that they are doing something really special, and I was honored to help these kids in the small way that we did.

I’ve already posted quite a few pictures of the kids in the last blog, but I thought I’d share a few more of my favorites, so here they are:




LOVE the drawn on mustache!



The kids LOVE to dance and they were all involved in a dance program called Happy Feet. Jan and I tried to sit in on as many of the classes as we could. The kids have AHHH-mazing dance skills! Here are a few photos from the dance classes.




The kids love Michael Jackson and his music. Here is an MJ impersonation!

There are more pictures on my Flickr page and you can view them here. AND if you want to be involved with Sunshine Kids International and sign up to support what they are doing or even sponsor one of these precious kids, please go here.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010 at 10:11 am and is filed under Travel and tagged with india, Sunshine Kids International, travel photography. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.