NGO visit and Reunion

 A visit to my favorite friend and NGO.  

It was time for me wake up and get fruit for my NGO visit. I woke up not feeling 100 percent, but I was feeling well enough to get ready and get out of the house. I had to get going to find a good spot for fruit and that spot ended up being in Supatra, which is one of the next town’s over. I walked in the store and the manager was right in front of me. I said, “I need your best fruit assistant please to help me.” The guy giving me the death stare when I walked in was not going to be my helper.  Over comes Praveen, “How can I help you madam.” We get papayas, bananas, oranges, and watermelons. He packages it all up and checks me out. He says, “ I think your husband was here yesterday.”  

He is Indian, “I said, “Yes, my husband he must have been here.” I have no idea what he is talking about, but my friend is picking me up so then I figure things will make sense.  

He runs over to put the things in the car when he arrives. “Bye madam, thank you Madam.”  

You Know what? I am definitely a Madam.  

My friend and I drive over to the NGO. So many things have changed in 5 years with many new buildings in the area. I do not even recognize the area anymore until we get to the long back dirt road and it leads right to the gate. We open it up and the kids are napping. It is very quiet and my friend, Uncle, sits there smiling and waiving me in. It was so good to see his friendly face. We had been talking over the years and always keeping in touch.   

Prior to my arrival he said, “Things have changed and you will see when you get here.”  I was not sure what that meant, but I was worried that something had really went wrong. Things looked the same except for the fact he had no staff and only a couple new volunteers.  

After the pandemic, he lost all his staff because he could not pay their wages. The donations stopped coming and the government continued their mission to defund Christian NGOs. He is the most kind and humble person, but I could see that things were very difficult for him and he was mentally exhausted. The kids were no longer going to school and he was now providing them with homeschooling, food, and then their parents come pick them up at the end of the day. Five of the older boys lived on site and they were in charge of cooking, cleaning, babysitting, helping with homework, repairs, building, and any task he had assigned to them.  Everything there was pretty much built by hand by the kids. They were cooks, builders, cleaners, helpers, and just all of the above.  They are teenagers 16 years old with challenging family situations. A couple of them have their mother and father living nearby, but they are not well enough to care of them. You grow up at a faster rate when you have to take care of yourself and a whole family of 15. In the time my friend and I visited, they were cutting wood and making building materials to build a new jungle gym house for the kids-the other one was eaten by termites. 


The boy who catches my attention is Ragu, he is a young boy just 16 and he is incredibly sweet. His eyes are just full of hope and promise. He has a lot of responsibility there and he shows us things that he built and asked how we like it. He made us our coffee and we said that we really enjoyed it.  


Emit and I played soccer with the kids and they were overjoyed having us as visitors. They showed us the ducks, the turkeys, and the bunnies and would do random cute things to get our attention. Emit would lift them up on his shoulders and they would pick berries off the trees. He was really great with kids and I was happy to have a friend like him.  

Amar took me on a tour through the place and it was evident that this place needed a lot of work-organizers, builders, cooks, helpers, teachers, and more.  

Even though, God created this amazing man to do it all-it takes a team of people and he needs help that I think is difficult for him to ask for…He talks about me coming to stay and how much the place needs some “TLC.” Tender Pris Care. TPC.  

Both of them, Ragu and Uncle, looked me in the eyes and said, “You are coming back right?” When will you be back...”

When people look at me in that way, it touches me spiritually as God taps me on the shoulder and says, "Priscilla, they need you...spend time with them.


I knew that I had to go back and I definitely had some work to do…a whole lot of work to do…to find this man staff and volunteers that were going to be consistent. He desperately needed staff to help and I wanted that to be my mission-to leave him in a better place, which is always the main goal with any NGO I visit or volunteeer with abroad.

Leaving the kids was just incredibly sad as they looked at us with the saddest eyes and I felt so guilty. I think my friend was just ready to put his address into the GPS and head back to business. That NGO was my business or that was where I should have spent most of my time....but that will be debatable later in the posts....


 

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