A Painful Journey

As I sat in the living room of a small orphanage in north India, I had a front-row seat to a child’s painful journey into her past.

Kajal is 10 years old and was rescued out of the slums of an industrial hub on the outskirts of Delhi. Innumerable people from all over India, in hopes of a better life, have moved to this area in search of work. Many find none and are forced to live in slum areas in desperate poverty. The slums are devoid of water and electricity. Violence, alchol, and illness are rampant. And children are the ones most often at risk.

It is with this backdrop that Kajal took center stage, recounting to me her story. Ironically, I didn’t really hear much of her story. I can’t remember much of what she said of her parents, or of how desperate her situation was, or of how she came to the orphanage. The reason I can’t remember these things is because I was observing her face and her eyes; I was listening to her voice; I watched as she slipped into the darkness of her past. As her story progressed, I could see her struggle for composure. She desperately tried to maintain a smile but soon it disappeared. Her voice became uneven. Her eyes began to water over with emotion. She began to cry as she relived a past that would most likely make most of us cringe. Having a daughter of my own of similar age, my heart went out to Kajal in a special way. I could sense my fatherly protective nature begin to rise within me. This little girl was suffering, and I wanted to protect her from it. I wanted to call the whole thing off!

And then, there was a shift. It was as if she had hit the bottom of her story and was now ascending towards the light. As she spoke of being rescued and of the love and care she received at the orphanage, her eyes once again began to sparkle, and her endearing smile returned.

I sat there marvelling at what I had just experienced. Her actual story is not the important thing, as it is akin to the story of thousands of other children who have likewise experienced hardship and heartbreak. The amazing thing was watching this dear child go through that experience, to witness her descend into the darkness of what was her reality and then ascend into the light of her new life! In five minutes this 10-year-old painted a graphic picture for me of what was…and now what is.

In my 12 years of orphan ministry I have never come upon a greater testimony to the powerful effect of what can happen when Christians reach out in love to abandoned children.

Written by Dr. Matthew Smith, Executive Director