India Becomes Real

chloe-grazing-sheep-and-fate

Until yesterday, my trip to India was still an abstract idea.  It didn’t seem quite real.  Even though I’ve collected over $10,000 through the generous support of so many readers, and have already paid for the trip  and my airline tickets, and have so many of the details taken care of, there was still something unreal about the whole thing.

What changed the way I was feeling about it was when I got a facebook message from Dahn Gandell, the minister who I’ll be traveling with.   She sent me a copy of a message from Aloka, who runs the Womens Interlink Foundation, where I’ll be teaching the girls there to make potholders.

Aloka wrote “Yes indeed, it will be a great advantage for the girls to learn pot holders.”   Then she said how the girls “love to do hand work and make creative items so they will enjoy a new skill which is marketable.”

When I read Aloka’s words, I could, for the first time, imagine me being there, working with the girls.  I think it has something to do with hearing that the girls would want to learn how to do what I love to do.   And that  it will benefit them monetarily  and help them on their journey to becoming independent.

It’s not just something that I want.  Because I do want it.  And I’m realizing it’s something I’ve always wanted.  To be able to share what I’ve learned and have it make a real difference in someone’s life.

Aloka wrote that is was kind of me to do this.  But it doesn’t feel like kindness to me.  It feels like a passion that’s been lying dormant in me for a long time.  And it’s just beginning to surface.  How could I not have known that I’ve always wanted this?  When what I feel inside me now is that I’m blessed to have this opportunity.

I know I can  touch people with my work through my blog, but I don’t want to do this from a distance.  I want to see it and smell it and touch it.   I want to feel it with my heart and with my hands.

And look into the eyes and faces of the people who want to learn from me, and free themselves from their own kind of bondage, as I freed myself from my own kind of bondage.

I guess I want this so badly that it feels  almost selfish to me.   But hearing from Aloka that what I know and will teach may help the girls earn a living and be independent, just as it did for me, makes practical sense.

So bringing my potholders to India is no longer just an  abstract idea of the heart.  It’s become a reality.  Just as it has become a reality in my own life.

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