Construction Day 2!!!

Yesterday Dr.Susan came up to me during playtime with the kids. She told me "be careful for what you wish for" and boy was she right. She later went on to say she has a real project for me. This project was to help with the second story construction on the "Green House" (the green house is where I am living now because the sessions are too large for me and Dane to live where all the other volunteers are living). We started at 0900 and ended at 1600 which is a couple hours longer than we normally work for. Our job was to move the 5 towers of bricks up to the second floor. We did not just do a ton of work today we did a couple tons of work today. How I am able to write this now in a miracle, i really should be asleep; I am that exhausted! I am so happy to have a real project but man standing outside in the sun for 6 hours throwing bricks is a lot of work. I just hope that I can keep up the hard work for the rest of the summer!!!

First Day of Construction

Oh man today was crazy! The title of my blog says it all "TII". Today was just one of those days where you feel that you are going to lose it. It started with me running around at 8:45am trying to gather all the supplies needed for the projects that were planned for the day. I was told that the supplies would be ready the day before but of course that did not happen and I spent about 45 minutes preparing for the projects. Then we started doing the projects, which were cleaning out some storage rooms and organizing them (i was not too thrilled about the projects).

At first I thought the projects we were doing were just busy work and not very important (and I feel that is what the volunteers thought too), but then I had a meeting with Dr. Susan (she is the director here on campus and is pretty much in charge of everything). She was telling me that the work we are doing is needed and not just busy work. This is taking some weight off of her and the 2 yard workers here on campus. 

Before today I was a little upset that we were not doing a true construction project at one of the colonies for this session. But then I realized the only reason I was upset is because I had "expectations" from last year that we would being building bathrooms or some other project. What we are doing on campus does make a difference for the staff at rising star but also creates a cleaner environment for the kids here at rising star.

THE KIDS ARE BACK!!!

The past week and a half have been a ton of fun; the kids have come back and I have been playing soccer and just hanging out with them everyday. It is so great to have the kids back, I have missed them so much. It was awesome to have some of the kids remember my name. I loved seeing the 3 boys that I sponsor: Karthik, Balakumar, and Sanjay. I will post pictures of all of them once I get a battery charger for my camera.
We watch movies with the kids every Saturday night and it is a lot of fun. The past two Saturdays we have watched tamil movies and it is awesome to hear the kids laugh at curtain points of the movie and get romba excited when the "hero" is about to beat up the bad guys (those scenes are pretty funny). Its great to just sit back and just chill with the kids. I can not explain how awesome these kids are, they are just the best!
This past weekend I went to Puducherry with all the volunteers. It was nice to get off campus and rest a little. A couple of the long term volunteers and I got some Italian food at a restaurant on top of a roof and it had an amazing view, I wish I had a picture. The cook/owner of the restaurant was this older Italian man that has been living in India for 30 years and he was super funny and played us a bunch of "american music" for us (Ali I think you would have liked this guy lol).

One Week in India

I went out with the Medical team 2 days ago to a tribal village that was suppose to be only 3 hours away but it ended up being 5 lol. It was a long drive but it was really cool to see the tribal village. The village was pretty remote, after the long drive we had to walk about 30 minutes to get to it. This village was beautiful, it was in the jungle and had small mountains on both sides. The people here live very simple lives and it was awesome to learn about these people and there way of life.

I did not do any of the medical stuff because they already had enough people, so I was free to walk around the village and just talk to people and see how everyone was doing. All the villagers were super nice and were giving us a bunch of food. I was given a mango that I would call not ripe yet, so it was a little tart. They also cut open a ton of coconuts (which was funny because some of the volunteers did not like coconut water).

The pictures above do not show how beautiful this place was. It was just so awesome to see a place like this.

Yesterday a couple of us long term volunteers went of campus at Rising Star and walked down the road to the neighboring village. This is the first time that I have done this and these people are super. One of the older boys that goes to Rising Star for school told us that Kala was staying down the road (Kala is a house mom at the hostel for the kids). I was so great to see her again, we talked for a little and I asked her about her two sons that are both on missions and she said they are doing great. I am getting super excited for the kids to come tomorrow! I cannot wait to play soccer and just hangout with them! They are all so super. 

Church in India

Yesterday I went to Church in Chennai and it was super cool. They just got a new building within the last couple months. The old building I went to last summer was underground (kinda weird), but the new building is super nice and has 3 floors. It is a very pretty building.
They talked a lot about going to the temple and I just love hearing these people talking about go to the temple. They have to sacrifice so much here in India to go to the temple. The closest ones are in Hong Kong and the Philippines. Many of them have not gone but there are 3 families that are making the trip to the Hong Kong temple this week. I love the enthusiasm these people have about church (I feel this is how church is suppose to be).
Some other exciting news is that India is getting its first Stake soon! It will be located in Hyderabad, India (Its in the state north of Tamil Nadu in Andhra Pradesh. Approximately 400 miles northwest of Chennai) .  This is a major step for the church in India and very exciting for the members here.

Today the medical session starts so that is very exciting! And the kids come back to school at the end of this week! I am roomba ("very" in tamil) excited for this!

One More Day in The US!!!

I will be jumping on a plane tomorrow that arrives in Chennai, India and will be there for 3 MONTHS! A couple weeks ago I thought I would be nervous about going back, but I was completely wrong, I am more excited than ever. I had the best time of my life last year at Rising Star, in those 3 short weeks, and I know this summer will be even better.

Last year I only stayed for 3 weeks and those 3 weeks went by fast! I did not want to leave at the end of my session. I knew, as we were driving down the road away from the elephant house, I would be coming back. And now tomorrow I will finally be going back!

There was something at Rising Star that changed me. All of my family and all of my friends have seen it. Some of my friends may not know what exactly what it was, but I guarantee that my family knows. While at Rising Star I finally gained a testimony of Christ and because of this, Rising Star will always be a special place to me. I was told while at Rising Star "I would be given more than I can give"(or something along those lines) and that was so true, I worked hard everyday and gave it my all but still could not give more than I was given. Rising Star is an amazing place and this summer will be my best and most exhausting summer yet!

First Blog Post EVER!

I want to talk about the organization that I am volunteering for this summer. Their name is Rising Star Outreach and they are a non-profit organization that’s mission is to “…help the Leprosy colonies become thriving, self-sufficient communities”. They are doing this by: Economic rehabilitation through micro-lending, Providing medical care through mobile medical clinics, Educating children; providing opportunities to become productive citizens and Creating life-long humanitarians by providing service opportunities for volunteers.

Many people have asked me what I did last summer while volunteering in India. I cleaned leprosy patients’ sores and helped provide them medical treatment, I worked on a construction project (installing septic tanks at a colony), I tutored kids (that come from the colonies), and I played and had a great time with those kids. My best experiences at Rising Star last summer were with those kids, both at playtime and family time at night.

Those 3 weeks that I spent in India last summer were the best 3 weeks of my life and probably the 3 most exhausting weeks of my life. I cannot think of a better way to spend this upcoming summer then at Rising Star!

Let the 1-month countdown until I leave for India begin!