Step Into My World: East India Rural Plains

Happy Saturday, everyone! We're definitely on the wind down with these posts, as the end of the year comes to a close. We travel to India again today (I have a lot of kids there). This time, we'll learn about the rural plains of East India.

This is where my little girl Nandini lives:

She lives outside the city of Bhubaneswar: 

In India, life in rural settings is very primitive. Homes are larger than typical homes of families living in poverty, but are unstable. Built out of grass, bamboo, and and mud, these homes are powerless against strong winds, heavy rains, and flooding. Homes are often destroyed and have to rebuilt. 

This far outside of the city, there are no paved roads, no automobiles, no electricity, no running water, nothing we would consider a modern convenience. Rural East India is truly like stepping into a time machine. 

A simple task for us in the modern world, cooking a meal, is made even more difficult for families living here. Firewood has to be collected, which usually involves walking for several hours a day. Thankfully, water is nearby, at a shared community pump. 

Meals are often meager, not consisting of enough food to fill an empty stomach. These meals consist mainly of rice, with a few vegetables. One of the biggest concerns in these communities is malnutrition. This leaves children hungry, sickly, and small for their age. Thankfully, children enrolled in Compassion can know that they will receive a large, healthy meal every time they attend their project. 

In this area, education is almost unheard of. Schools in the area are few and far between. Families have been uneducated for generations and parents of children in these communities don't see the value of education. Instead, small children remain at home, doing chores or running freely through the streets. Older children and teens are often expected to get jobs outside of the home to earn money for the family. 

Compassion, in these situations, work to explain the importance of education to families and encourage all children to enroll in school and/or receive extra tutoring lessons. 

Children enrolled in the Compassion program are taught that they have value, that they are loved, and that they have an important role in the future. Compassion is working to teach children that living in poverty does not dictate their lives in the future. Change is possible. 

Compassion East India Rural Plains asks for sponsors to pray for the following things: 

- Pray that children's fragile homes will withstand damage from annual rains and flooding. 

- Pray that children will be protected from the annual malaria epidemic. 

- Pray that caregivers will be able to find steady work and not have to leave their villages in search of employment.