Where it all began...

Why Kolkata?

Every year my college goes on a missions trip to a foreign country. So far I have been quite a few missions trips:
Ukraine--El Salvador--Jamaica--India--Belgium(soon to be)

I love going on missions trips. We get the chance to be apart of something greater than ourselves and join someone else's lifetime vision and calling. I always learn different things on each trip that I will remember for the rest of my life. Kolkata, India was the last trip I have been on. While we were there we helped run a local church service, helped a feeding program (in the picture above), volunteered with mother Teresa's house of the dying and destitute, visited a blind school and did crafts with them, and did a program with a orphanage school. There was so much poverty and things my eyes had never seen. People bathing on the streets in the early morning, tons of deformed child beggars (some of the deformity caused by their parents to help them raise more money for the family), women without faces because their husband wanted a divorce so they threw acid on their face, children parenting younger siblings, men using the bathroom in the middle of the sidewalk, a human trafficking village, etc.

While I was there, I was almost in shock. I didn't feel anything. I sang to a woman named Dhekah, dying while holding her hand and I felt nothing after I left her in the dim lights on the small makeshift hospital bed. My classmates cried on various parts of the trip, however, I could only observe.

When I returned to the United States, for the next few weeks all I could think, see, dream about was India. I hated being apart of such a lush and cushioned culture when I had seen such a grotesque way of living life. After many sleepless nights I decided to talk with one of the missionaries that took us to India, which also attended my church. She said maybe I should go back and intern. I refused. I wanted to do music, not missions. After a few more weeks, the idea seemed to settle in my spirit after my morning prayer. Ever since then, I've been making my way to get back to India.

I plan to use blip to share my journey going back and when I eventually get there. Join me on my journey!

नमस्कार