We flew out to Nagpur- the center of India and also one of the hottest places! We are here to lead a 5 day rescue arts camp with the Home of Hope here. We were greeted at the airport by Pastor Easou and his two children Sheryl and Cyril. They are Malu!!!! It was really cool to be around people who speak Malayalam even though I am horrible at speaking it but I CAN UNDERSTAND!!!! The room we were placed was the top room in the Home of Hope on the 4th floor right next to the terrace!
Michelle and I went down to meet the girls. There are 30 girls who live in this home of hope and the other home of hope in Nagpur holds about 70 girls and 30 boys.
Michelle played the guitar for the girls and taught them an English worship song. Rebecca and Stephanie met us not too long after and we were reunited again =)
Rebecca and Steph led a workshop at SEBC college in Banglore. It was about writing music- the lyrics and music – in your own language and the way it would sound in your country. It was how because a lot of people westernize their worship. They would come to know Christ and then learn the way Americans worship or how they sing, etc and when they would go back to their home town or village, their people won’t really connect because it is all different. Steph taught them how to sing and worship God through their own cultural music.
All the students made up their own songs and their own music- it was so awesome to hear about that. Then the students wrote poems and stories about something in their life they were told to express. Beautiful stories for this ministry.
We had our first session here at the Home and we started off with a time of prayer and worship. The girls were then split by age and the older girls went to work with Steph and Rebecca and the younger girls came with Michelle and I.
I taught the girls a dance to the song Aal iz Well. After the session, the girls got jasmine flowers and braided all our hairs and put the flowers in our hair!!! It was so much fun!! They know how to do hair so well and the aroma from the flowers just led me to float away =) It was therapeutic to have girls play with my hair! We were all on the floor laughing and having fun with these girls … After dinner we went up to our room and practiced the song we are singing in church tomorrow and passed out!
