Last Day at Rising Star

Goodbye

Some of Cindy's fan club

The sweetest girl in the World!

Veera and his sister Veralakshmi.  He and Carson were inseparable!

Today was very bittersweet.  For our last day at Rising Star they had a schoolwide science fair, and we got to be the judges.  It was a tremendous amount of pomp and ceremony with myself and the father of the other family Eric giving the words of wisdom and advice to the gathered students.  After the opening ceremonies, they gave each of us a flower lei, put a bindi (red mark) on our foreheads, sprinkled our heads with water and gave us a piece of rock sugar to eat.  The halls of the school had been decorated with intricate designs that were done in colored rock salt.  Following the science fait they had the big cricket match featuringthe sillyAmericans who had no clue what we were doing.  Despite the fact that we made fools of ourselves, we all had a good time.  The rest of the day was play time with the children, nighttime prayer time, dinner and then a movie with the children (The Forbidden  Kingdom).  Makenzie had many of the girls give her little gifts, bangles, a ring, necklace and one girl gave her two books.  It is almost impossible for me to talk about the children without getting emotional. This was the easy part of the trip!  It took zero effort to fall in love with these beautiful children.  They are all so loving and open with everyone they meet.  They have had tough lives!  They come from families with Leprosy that have been cast out of society.  They only get to see their families for 30 days a year.  And they are the happiest people you could ever hope to meet.  With all we have in our lives, the simple gift of love and happiness that they so fully own somehow seems beyond our reach.

Leprosy

Probably the most difficult thing to convey to others is the emotions and feelings I had working with those who had been afflicted with Leprosy.  Frankly I was a little creeped out by the idea of not only working with someone who had leprosy, but how I would react to them. Dealing with blood, and big open wounds is also not very high on my list of things I am able to deal with.  But, I will tell you that working in the Leper colonies and those people was by far the highlight of the trip for me.  Frankly that even sounds weird for me to say, but it is one of those things that you have to be there to understand it.  The love that they give back to you and the true appreciation that you receive from them for the service you render is unmatched.  Truly a life changing experience.