Making a change..

Walajab!! There is something about this colony that I love. Maybe because of the old man who I get to carry from station to station because his one leg ends just bellow the knee. At first he was kind of cautious about me carrying him because he likes to be very independent. But as time has gone on and I keep coming back and he has recognized my face and will let me help him more and more. Since his leg is cut of right below the knew he has a wooden leg that he attaches to himself to help him walk around and be able to still function. This wooden knew has several straps that he has to secure around his leg and one goes right over his knee where he has a big ulcer. This ulcer has not been able to heal because of this strap and it has just been rubbing his leg raw. When I first got here we started giving him more padding to put over his ulcer so he could still use his wooden leg but also so his ulcer would heal. Today when I showed up and he took of his wooden leg so I would carry him to the different stations I couldn't believe what I saw. The ulcer had started to heal, a hard layer had started to form over the top and the sides were starting to produce skin to go over the ulcers. I started freaking out and just pointing to his leg, he got the biggest smile on his face and kept shaking his head and laughing at me. In about a month and a half I could see a major different in the man and his ulcer. It was incredible to see this change. It hit me that we really are making a difference, that because of our help these people's lives are getting better. Out here you can't see a change in just a day or two or even a week but we really are doing something. It makes me more happy then I can ever express because I feel like they are just blessing my life and i'm not doing anything for them. I am so glad that I can help them even if it is just a little bit, I know what I do for them will never be anything compared to what they do for me. I would encourage anyone who wants to come and and volunteer to do it. You will receive more blessings then you possibly have room to receive. Its such a humbling experience. So thank you to the volunteers who have sacrificed to come out here. You have done wonders. I know you have touched so many lives including mine. You have made the change and because of you these people can have their lives back, so thank you for your work and your love..

Sharing is Caring

Anadan is a living testimony of this statement. He is one of our medical drivers for Rising Star and honestly he is one of the most amazing and caring men I know. I get to spend every day with him and I feel so blessed to do so. A few weeks ago we were talking and he asked me what my favorite fruit was, I was trying to decide and I think I would have said peaches or raspberries but i'm not entirely sure he knows what those are so I decided that I should stick with something in India, pomegranates. Today we were driving back from medical Anadan saw a man on the side of the road selling pomegranates. He pulled over and said, few minutes I will be back. I asked him if I could come with and he said no no I will be backs soon. I asked him if I could give him money and he said, No no I know a guy. A few minutes later he was back in the car with a bag of pomegranates for me. I know it probably didn't cost him very much, but in India it was a sacrifice to make. I am with Anadan from nine in the morning till about three or sometimes later and he never brings food or a lunch to eat because he wants to save that money for his daughter. Yet when he sees some pomegranates he has to stop and buy them for me. I know I will say this over and over again but these people are the most giving people I know. They have nothing but they give everything. When I first got here I didn't understand this at all, how could someone who doesn't have anything turn around and give everything. I am slowly starting to understand why, its because they love everyone. It doesn't matter if they know you or not but they love you and want to help you out in anyway they can. These people truly are examples of our Savior. They give until it hurts because sharing is caring..

Feet and Maggots

I never want to take anything for granted anymore, because nothing is guaranteed. You have no “rights” or “claims” to anything. Who am I to say that it is my right to have a healthy body? Or who am I to say that I have a right to have a home or a family who loves me? Why should I believe I have that right but others don’t? Everything we have is a blessing, we are not entitled to anything for we are all sinners and we are all in debt to our Heavenly Father. I feel like this week I understood Elder Holland’s last conference talk to a whole new level. We are all working for the same thing, in the end we want to same destination, just because I was blessed to get work at the beginning of the day, who am I to say another person can’t have the same reward who only worked half a day? Let me try and explain why I feel this way..

It all started with this beautiful woman named Chinnaponnu, she is from the Bharathapuram colony. Oh what a sweet heart she is, she is one of the patients that goes to the hospital with us every other weekend. I feel like I know this lady very well by now because I see her so much, even though we can never talk because of the language difference she never hesitates to hold my hand or just sit next to me and just talk (what about I have no idea), well today I took it upon myself to walk around with her from station to station, let me back up real fast, the reason she goes to the hospital with us every other week is because her eyes are so damaged. When you get leprosy it attacks your eyes and makes your eyes sag so even when you close your eye lids your eye is still exposed because of the damage, well this has happened to this sweet lady, so infection has gotten in her eyes and she needs surgery so bad but with lack or money and lack of people helping her because she has leprosy she can’t get it right now, so she suffers every day because of her eyes, not to mention the ulcers that are on her hands and feet.

Back to the story I was helping this dear lady around, when we were going from station to station she kept trying to give up her chair to me and have me sit while she stood, I wouldn’t let that happen but every station we went to she tried to get me to sit, we had gone through all the stations besides the last one where they cut out the ulcers, we were waiting in line and there was a tree with flowers in it. I just walked over and picked off some flowers and came back and started putting the flowers in Chinnaponnu’s hair, I finished and I started telling her how beautiful she looked and how she was all pretty to see the doctor now. I looked up and I saw the doctor, Navamani just staring at me, she smiled nodded her head at me and went back to work, when it was time for Chinnaponnu I helped her into the chair and then took a seat next to her, to comfort her if it got bad, which sometimes it does. Navamani started cutting and then stopped and motioned me over to see. I walked around and what I saw will never leave my mind, in her foot instead of having skin, muscles, blood and bones was nothing but pack full of maggots. There inside this woman’s foot that she had been walking around on for two weeks since we had been here before were maggots, all alive and eating away her foot. I couldn’t stand to look at it anymore and struggled to get back to my seat to comfort this lady as Navamani attempted to cut all of the maggots out. This turned out to be kind of a long and very painful experience. All I could do for this sweet lady was hold her hand and tell her how much she is loved by me and by her Father in Heaven. I will spare you the details but when we were finished Navamani stuck her tools in the bottom of her foot and they came out the front of her foot, it was hollow. We bandaged her up and I helped her back to her bed, when we got to her bed of course she had me sit down with her and then she just put her hand in mine and started talking, again what she was talking about I have no idea but I do know it caused her to break down and begin crying, she just kept looking and me and talking and all I could do was wipe her eyes and tell her how much she is loved and when this is all over she will have her eyes and her feet, I told her that she will be able to run to her savior and when she gets to him she will be able to see his face. I then had to go and help others but I couldn’t think of anything else for the rest of the day besides Chinnaponnu and her feet.

How could a lady who was in so much pain, who had maggots living in her foot be so giving? She was willing to give up her chair for me at every station because she wanted to make sure I was okay. How could she do that? How could she be so concerned with my wellbeing when she was in so much pain herself? And then on the other hand how could I, a 20 year old girl who is healthy and completely fine be so concerned for myself? How many times a day do I pass up an opportunity to serve another because I am so wrapped up in my own well being? How could I do that? This lady knew the true meaning of service and love and even though in my head I thought I was here to serve and help her, I was the one receiving the service and she was the one giving. This lady will never know the impact that she made on me but because of her I will never be the same. I hope from now on I could put my wants and needs last and truly serve, serve with no intention of receiving anything back, no intention of benefiting myself, and no intention of seeking for attention of others. To truly serve like Chinnaponnu taught me to; truly serve as the Savior did.

I am so blessed, never have I thought to thank my Father in Heaven for my feet but never again will I take my feet for granted, In the morning I have never worried to check my feet to make sure that they are still there or check to see if one of my toes have fallen off, no my worries are which pair of shoes am I going to wear today or does my shoes match my outfit, if not oh no I guess I will have to put on another pair of shoes that I own. My worries and my needs are nothing compared to the people here. I have never had to worry where I would get my next meal from, or worry if my dad is going to beat me tonight because I didn’t get enough money begging on the streets, or worry about my house being burnt down with me and my family inside it because we couldn’t pay to keep it, or worry about my mom burning my hands in a fire because she didn’t think I was smart enough. These are all things that I see all the time here, but a lot of the time we will just turn our heads and pretend we don’t see, pretend we don’t hear the cries and pretend it is not happening, but the sad thing is, is that it is happening, it is happening all around me and still my biggest concern is what shoes I am going to put on in the morning.

Who knew what feet and maggots could do to a person? But the thing is you can’t see the maggots. A person sitting next to you could have “maggots” inside of them eating them away and you will never know how much your simple act of kindness could do for that person. Never judge a person because you don’t know what is going on in their life or what kind of “maggots” are eating at them..

Independence Day

Of course I haven't grown up yet. Why would I?! I'm only twenty. Tonight we were able to have an "American" dinner. Well... as American as you can get in India. Some of the kids were able to come over and join us and it was so fun with them. Their eyes were so big to all the food and the homemade American decorations. Dinner was good but the real fun started after, when the ice cream came out. We had gotten the mini ice cream cups strawberry and vanilla. Joseph came up to me and pretended to smear it all in my face. I told him if he did that I would get him back and it would be everywhere. He looked at me for a minute and then smashed the ice cream cup and all in my face and ran. I couldn't let him get away with that, i'm Amy Anderson after all, so I grabbed a cup and chased him down. Soon the ice cream was every where and we were both covered in a strawberry/vanilla sticky mess. The difference between ice cream fights in Utah and ice cream fights in India is that in India the ice cream melts and then turns into a glue on you because its so hot and then you start sweating and then it turns into a bigger mess. By the end we were disgusting from head to toe but it was worth every second of it.

The kids then had to go back to the school and have their study time and the coordinators had to clean up the mess. Once we picked up everything that we could we got buckets out and had to scrub down the ice cream, well as you can imagine it turned into a water fight. Least all the ice cream was gone, I would rather be wet then sticky.

I missed family time because of the sticky and wet mess I had become, Carl came back and had a special delivery for me.  I started to unwrap it and a necklace fell out, I picked it up and just stared at it, it was from Michael. I couldn't believe it. It was a nice necklace with pearls on it. Later I found out he had saved everything he had and had gotten it for his sister but when he found out I was coming back to India he saved it for me. It still boggles my mind how people here can be so giving, they have nothing, honestly they have nothing but they will give you anything to make sure you are happy and you are okay. Michael is my best friend here, yes he is only ten but he is teaching me lessons and changing my life one day at a time..

Follow them..

Happy 4th of July!! Today was full of tender mercies, miracles and of course more tender mercies. To start off today we went to the hospital, all our patients were quick on their visits except for one, Ruth. She had fallen and broken her hip and they were trying to decided what to do with her. Both Ruth and her husband have leprosy, so she can't really take care of herself and either can her husband. The doctor wanted to know if we were going to admit her or not. I turned to Navamani, the nurse in charge at Rising Star, and she looked at me and said, "Amy what are we going to do?"
Wait what!? You want me to decide if we should admit Ruth for six weeks in the hospital? I had no idea what to say, I told them to wait and I tried calling Doctor Susan. My panic started to rise when after a few calls Doctor Susan still didn't answer. How was I to know if we should admit her or not? I tried not to show my panic but inside I was freaking out, Navamani, the doctors and nurses and Ruth and her husband were all waiting for an answer. There was only one thing I knew I could do, pray. I pleaded with my Father in Heaven to let me know what to do, to give them the right answer. I tried calling Doctor Susan a few more times but with no luck. They needed an answer, so I whispered another prayer and said, Heavenly Father I'm going to admit her and if this isn't the right thing to do then please stop me. I gave them my answer and they all went into action mode. Everyone was going different ways, a doctor started taking one of my volunteers and Ruth out of the room. I was trying to talk to the other volunteers and explain to them what was going on when I heard a voice, follow them. So I turned and ran before I even knew what I was doing. I followed the doctor as he took us out of the hospital into another building to admit Ruth. I soon realized that if I had not followed them there was no way I would have been able to find this volunteers again. For I would have had no idea that they would have left the hospital. Even in a busy hospital the Holy Ghost will still speak to you, give you promptings and watch over you. We always need to be listening for it so when he does choose to speak we will listen and hear.
We admitted Ruth and as we sat there waiting for the doctor to come back Ruth wanted to say a prayer. We all gathered around her bed and she said a prayer. I have no idea what she said for it was all in Tamil but the spirit was so strong. The strength and spirit this woman had was overpowering. I am sure she was scared but she didn't let it show. Before I had to leave Ruth blessed me and kissed me, she just kept thanking me for everything that I had done.
I felt so bad walking away and leaving this sweet lady to fend for herself but I know Heavenly Father will take care of her. Her spirit and strength touched me today as I know it touched others. How grateful I am for the spirit and tender mercies. For a Father up in Heaven who hears my prayers and answers them in ways I would have never guessed, for a voice to whisper, Follow them..