Kiwis can Fly: Rehoboth

Before we left India, we were able to spend a couple of weeks at Rehoboth, in Thrissur, Kerala. In India, due to cultural and social pressures, girls are often seen as a burden for the family. Unwanted, young girls will often be disowned. Rehoboth means "God has made a place for us." How cool is that?! A home was started for girls who are not being looked after by their families. It is a place where they have a home and they are wanted. Like all good organisations, it has good leadership- the matriarch- a kiwi woman who has been living in India so long that she's now only kiwi on the outside. She is the closest thing to Mother Teresa that we ever got. The Rehoboth campus has a variety of areas that it works in, including a Bible College, an International School and the Girls' Orphanage, home to roughly 135 girls and a few young boys.

Rehoboth was looking forward to having an engineer and landscape architect on site for the week. We thought about taking up the challenge but in the end the pros- Peter and Elizabeth- were put to work landscaping in preparation for an upcoming conference. People power is considered more cost effective than machinery in India, so anyone who could dig was part of the team. Some of the teachers even showed the students how it is done- and that's no small feat in a country where hierarchy is an excuse not to get your hands dirty.
One week and a few cuts and bruises later the college looked like a tornado of love had swept through! Mission accomplished between downpours. In other words we only worked mornings due to the 2:07pm monsoon that was never late!

Between football, cricket, volleyball and digging, Jeremy managed to squeeze in a bit of ESL teaching. It was good to see some of the students from 2 years back as well as get to have fun in the classroom.

Doctor Karina lived up to her name. She did some first aid training with the teachers from the International School. If she wasn't bandaging up a sore foot or teaching someone else how to do it, she was enjoying taking special portrait photos for each child at the Orphanage. Each photo was printed and the children were given a copy to have for themselves as a gift, with the reminder that even if they don't have a biological father, they have the King as father, making them princesses :)

Our time was brief, but it was so good! The generous welcome and love shown by the Rehoboth family always has so much of an impact, and though we arrived with the idea of bringing help and care to the Rehoboth family, in reality it was the other way around.