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She lifts her head and re-folds the rag that is her pillow and pulls her knees into her chest in an effort to create warmth. The blue tarp covering the pair does little to filter the sounds of honking horns in the distance that blend with her father’s snores as she shudders in the dark and tries to drift back to sleep, her face an eerie blue from the glow of the moon through the makeshift tent walls.
Suddenly, moments or hours later… a knife of light slices through the tent as the morning sun breaks on the horizon turning the insides of her eyelids pink and ending her troubled sleep. She lies there for a moment staring at the ragged hole filled with light, and tears fill her eyes and she sobs quietly at the beginning of a new day.
His eyes are open now too…and his heart is broken as he fights back his own tears…watching his young daughter’s body shaking with sobs. He must not cry though, for it will be his strength and reassurance that he will leave with her to see her through her lonely day…and it is all he will have to leave her on this day…that and more promises he knows he will never be able to keep…promises of a better tomorrow…a home and school for her. He knows deep down inside that nothing will change, but those lies are her hope…and so today, he will lie again and then ask God for forgiveness.
He leaves his young daughter, alone in the tent with a fresh dose of hope that soon things will be better. He hopes that will see her through today…along with keeping busy finding fruit and vegetables for food and washing their clothes in the nearby river where many others in similar situations will wash and bathe…after crossing over mountains of trash and human waste to reach the polluted waters.
He scrambles up the bank to the road where others have lined up to relieve themselves and stands there for a moment, weak, tired and out of breath and prays to God that his daughter will be safe and that today’s work in the cotton field will be one step closer to getting back into a rented home and off the banks of the filthy river…but he knows many men and women who have lived this way for years…and many who died with that simple dream unfulfilled, leaving their children behind to fend for themselves in a place where children end up as slaves…prostitutes or even dead.
Perhaps it was a man just like this that was standing on the edge of the road as Orphan Aid Director Jeff Timmons and his wife Carla passed by on their way from Vijyawada to Tuni to make the third of several surprise visits to children’s homes that Orphan’s Lifeline supports and manages. Perhaps it was a man just like this among thousands that line the roads on their way to labor in fields for a day’s wages that is so little that it leaves hundreds of millions languishing in poverty that is far beyond the American definition of the word…
As they pass by, it is he and others, some just lying or sitting there waiting to die that brings understanding of the source of the millions of orphans in this country in which the Bronze Age meets the 21st century.
It is a long journey from the busy streets of Vijyawada to Tuni…a trip filled with just a little too much driving excitement…with high speeds, cars, rickshaws, buses, trucks and animals five wide on a two lane road. The further they go from the city, the worse the poverty is evident and the lack of infrastructure and services becomes more and more apparent. All they see is poverty…young boys and men laboring in fields in the stifling heat…more tents and shacks and garbage lining the banks of the river…the aged and the ill with no place to go and no place to be.
Orphan’s Lifeline’s Children’s Home in Tuni, like the others they have already visited, is a virtual haven away from what they have seen. There they find healthy, happy, clean and smiling children preparing for the school day. They watch as they pray, sing, eat and get cleaned up and ready for the day. The boys comb oil through shiny black hair and brush their teeth while the girls all help one another brush and style their long black locks. The pantries are filled with food, the children’s dorms are clean and tidy and there are smiles on healthy faces everywhere they look.
It is hard to imagine and difficult to even stomach…the thought that any of these children might become a part of the tragic cycle of poverty and suffering they have witnessed in India. But they know that without these Children’s Home’s and the loving and caring people that watch over these innocent children…it would be an inescapable reality for each and every one of them.
It is the love and care…security, health and education…spiritual and otherwise that will make the difference. It is the opportunity to do something more and become something more than a laborer paid too little to provide for a family, that will make that difference…breaking the cycle that creates these orphans in the first place.
It is caring individuals thousands of miles away that sponsor these children and homes, that have lifted them up out of the poverty and suffering that hundreds of millions still suffer in this country…giving them the opportunity to become the adult they dream of becoming…instead of telling lies of hope to their own children…and then asking God to forgive them…
Suddenly, moments or hours later… a knife of light slices through the tent as the morning sun breaks on the horizon turning the insides of her eyelids pink and ending her troubled sleep. She lies there for a moment staring at the ragged hole filled with light, and tears fill her eyes and she sobs quietly at the beginning of a new day.
His eyes are open now too…and his heart is broken as he fights back his own tears…watching his young daughter’s body shaking with sobs. He must not cry though, for it will be his strength and reassurance that he will leave with her to see her through her lonely day…and it is all he will have to leave her on this day…that and more promises he knows he will never be able to keep…promises of a better tomorrow…a home and school for her. He knows deep down inside that nothing will change, but those lies are her hope…and so today, he will lie again and then ask God for forgiveness.
He leaves his young daughter, alone in the tent with a fresh dose of hope that soon things will be better. He hopes that will see her through today…along with keeping busy finding fruit and vegetables for food and washing their clothes in the nearby river where many others in similar situations will wash and bathe…after crossing over mountains of trash and human waste to reach the polluted waters.
He scrambles up the bank to the road where others have lined up to relieve themselves and stands there for a moment, weak, tired and out of breath and prays to God that his daughter will be safe and that today’s work in the cotton field will be one step closer to getting back into a rented home and off the banks of the filthy river…but he knows many men and women who have lived this way for years…and many who died with that simple dream unfulfilled, leaving their children behind to fend for themselves in a place where children end up as slaves…prostitutes or even dead.
Perhaps it was a man just like this that was standing on the edge of the road as Orphan Aid Director Jeff Timmons and his wife Carla passed by on their way from Vijyawada to Tuni to make the third of several surprise visits to children’s homes that Orphan’s Lifeline supports and manages. Perhaps it was a man just like this among thousands that line the roads on their way to labor in fields for a day’s wages that is so little that it leaves hundreds of millions languishing in poverty that is far beyond the American definition of the word…
As they pass by, it is he and others, some just lying or sitting there waiting to die that brings understanding of the source of the millions of orphans in this country in which the Bronze Age meets the 21st century.
It is a long journey from the busy streets of Vijyawada to Tuni…a trip filled with just a little too much driving excitement…with high speeds, cars, rickshaws, buses, trucks and animals five wide on a two lane road. The further they go from the city, the worse the poverty is evident and the lack of infrastructure and services becomes more and more apparent. All they see is poverty…young boys and men laboring in fields in the stifling heat…more tents and shacks and garbage lining the banks of the river…the aged and the ill with no place to go and no place to be.
Orphan’s Lifeline’s Children’s Home in Tuni, like the others they have already visited, is a virtual haven away from what they have seen. There they find healthy, happy, clean and smiling children preparing for the school day. They watch as they pray, sing, eat and get cleaned up and ready for the day. The boys comb oil through shiny black hair and brush their teeth while the girls all help one another brush and style their long black locks. The pantries are filled with food, the children’s dorms are clean and tidy and there are smiles on healthy faces everywhere they look.
It is hard to imagine and difficult to even stomach…the thought that any of these children might become a part of the tragic cycle of poverty and suffering they have witnessed in India. But they know that without these Children’s Home’s and the loving and caring people that watch over these innocent children…it would be an inescapable reality for each and every one of them.
It is the love and care…security, health and education…spiritual and otherwise that will make the difference. It is the opportunity to do something more and become something more than a laborer paid too little to provide for a family, that will make that difference…breaking the cycle that creates these orphans in the first place.
It is caring individuals thousands of miles away that sponsor these children and homes, that have lifted them up out of the poverty and suffering that hundreds of millions still suffer in this country…giving them the opportunity to become the adult they dream of becoming…instead of telling lies of hope to their own children…and then asking God to forgive them…
She wakes to the sound of her father's snores and wonders what time it is...her neck is stiff and even in the warm climate of India, the damp ground beneath her has left her chilled.
Lies and Hope
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