Rickshaws, street food and Christmas cheer...

It has been exactly 2 months now since we first stepped foot in what was to be our new home. The beautiful, exciting, crazy Kolkata. And what a wonderful home it has become.

What can we tell you about the past few weeks? We have been attacked by cockroaches and red ants at Freeset, jumped and climbed on by children at Hatibagan school, been asked for the 6^th time if it’s our “first time” at Little sisters home for the elderly, improvised playing games in the dark at Entally girls due to a power cut, took a ride in a rickshaw and tried out proper street food for the first time.

Josh and Ellen on a cycle rickshaw!

It’s getting closer and closer to Christmas at a phenomenal pace. It feels like just last week when we were opening the first door on our advent calendars! Everywhere is getting very festive, streets and buildings decorated with thousands of lights, various groups of people practicing and performing Christmas carols and nativities, Christmas cards being sent and presents being bought. We all decorated the guesthouse the other day with copious amounts of tinsel and little decorations that have been used by many teams before us.

Josh and Naomi putting up decorations.

We have also all bought our outfits for Christmas day. Josh in his Punjabi suit and the girls in saris. Photos to come after Christmas!  We are all feeling excited about Christmas, but also struggling to really get into it. This was to be expected, especially with everyone mentioning Christmas being about getting together with family and we are thousands of miles away from ours. But God brought us here and God has met us here, so we know we are in the right place.

The children at the school have been practicing for their Christmas nativity for the past few weeks. As a team we decided it would be a nice idea to make costumes for the children so they can properly get into their characters and enjoy it to the max. So we bought material and got sewing! Wings and halos for the angels, head dresses for Joseph, Mary, Elizabeth and the shepherds. A cloak for the messenger, an apron for the inn keeper and, of course, crowns for the kings. They loved them!! And they look so great!

The children at Hatibagan school wearing the costumes we made for them!

We visited a different school also run by the Good News Children’s Education Mission to watch their Christmas performance. They performed a lot of lovely songs, and they looked amazing! This school is located in the middle of a big slum, right next to a beautiful lake, and is a lot bigger with about 600 pupils.

The children at Daspara school perfoming their Christmas production.

We have all settled down into the churches where we feel our hearts have set. Harriet and Naomi go to Emmanuel Church which is just around the corner from the guesthouse. It is quite small and has a nice welcoming family feel. Josh and Ellen both go to Assemblies of God which is a massive, lively church about a 15min walk away from the guest house. Then on a Sunday evening, Harriet, Josh and Ellen go to Assemblies of God for the evening service called ‘Soar’. This is aimed mainly at youth and young people but is open for anyone to attend. We all find it very rewarding and easy to be open to and get close to God. We especially enjoy listening to the pastor who sounds just like King Julian from Madagascar!!

This week we have visited other organisations similar to Freeset. Mainly selling recycled sari based products which are just beautiful. It’s great to see and know about other places that want to do so much to help their community and to serve God.

We are getting properly stuck into the Indian way of life by risking street food!! And it is amazing, we will never go back! Egg rolls are one of our personal favourites. Why we didn’t try these things before I don’t know! We were being far too careful. Harriet and Naomi are now regulars at a little shop that sells ‘firni’. It’s an Indian desert and it’s divine!  The other two aren’t so keen but after church every Sunday H and N go and get their weekly treat!

That same day we visited William Carey’s college of theology and one of the churches set up by him in Serempore.  It was great to see where the man we have heard so much about actually lived and worked.

Though as a majority our time here has been so amazing and rewarding, we have also seen and heard so much which has been challenging. In the past few weeks there has been a suicide on the metro where someone jumped in front of a train, one of the ladies at Freeset drank poison, and though we thought she was going to be fine, two days later she sadly died. We see children and families starving on the streets every day, we see people with limbs missing, physical and mental illnesses,  dealing with things we couldn’t even begin to comprehend. The children at Hatibagan come in each day with a new cut or burn for us to treat. But God is also moving in this place. One of the girls at Hatibagan school has something wrong with her ears, more than just an external problem, and she has had days of being in quite a lot of pain from it, but after a lot of prayer, both of her ears are almost completely healed. We obviously can’t know for sure of the change on the inside, but from what we can see she is a lot happier and much more comfortable with it. We were told that one lady at Freeset had a demon in her, and every time people prayed for her or mentioned Jesus she would go into fits of screaming and shouting. Within the same week of witnessing this, the lady was freed from all demons and gave her life to the Lord. At church today we heard a prayer request for something that struck us. We were asked to pray for the people living on the streets at this time of the year when it’s cold, that they don’t die, because the death rate is so much higher around now. It’s hard to hear that so many people die on the streets just because they don’t have enough warmth. However, today we also found out that the first night shelter is being set up for the homeless people in Kolkata. This means they have a place to stay for the night without having to worry.  Please pray for these people, and for the people and organisations related to them.

We have also heard that a few of the ladies from Freeset still return to the sex trade at night even though they know it’s not the safest option for them. Prayer for this would be so greatly appreciated. These ladies have such an amazing opportunity and freedom through Freeset yet they still choose to line up at night and sell themselves.   

So we are taking the amazing with the challenging. A city so riddled with poverty, disease, destruction, oppression, hatred, sadness and crime is the same city that God has taken into his hands and with the help of some obedient, inspirational, willing people, has made and is continuing to make it so beautiful, creative and colourful, so alive and full of laughter.

Broken hut on stilts over a lake.

We <3 Kolkata!!

Happy Christmas to everyone, have an amazing time.

God Bless,

Josh, Harriet, Naomi and Ellen xx

Kolkata Action team