Servants trip to India February 2008

Gary & Colley Boyd and I are leaving on Friday night February 15th to go to Chennai, India to visit the HOINA Children's Homes. We are very excited about this trip and look forward to spending time with the girls and boys of HOINA.
Keep checking in to see more updates about our trip!

Arriving at the airport

One of the things I realized about India right away is there are a lot of people there! India is the second most populous country in the world with 1.3 billion people living there. We arrived in Chennai, which is the 4th largest Indian city with approximately 16 million people living there. When we got to the airport there were tons of people outside even at 4 in the morning. Some were waiting for people to get off planes some we hanging out in the parking lot and as you can see in the picture, many were just sleeping on the sidewalk!

The reason we go!

Here is just a small group out of the 100 girls currently living at teh HOINA girls home near Chennai. Each girl has her own special story and a unique personality. As we settled in the first day of our visit we were quickly surrounded by these girls, eager to to get to know us and for us to get to know them!

HOINA

I wanted to share a little about the organization we went to visit in India. HOINA was founded over 30 years ago by Darlene Large, formally of Lancaster, PA. In two separate orphanages, one for girls and young ladies, a separate facility for the gentlemen, HOINA houses, feeds, clothes and educates south India's abandoned, abused, and orphaned children—from infancy to adulthood—providing food, clothing, medical care, education, and training them for professional careers.
HOINA's goal is to develop successful, productive, responsible members of society—each joyful and self-confident, each with a marketable skill or talent that will allow them to support themselves. Since HOINA’s doors first opened in 1978, the organization has sheltered more than 1,000 children. HOINA's graduates have gone on to successful careers as educators, artists, engineers, and business professionals. We were very impressed by the work we saw first hand in India.

HOINA Staff

At Servants we firmly believe in relationships. Whenever we go anywhere we want to build relationships and friendships that will last. We try not to leave anyone out. It is easy to love on the children but we try to go the extra mile and build lasting relationships with the staffs of the places we visit as well. Colley is exceptionally gifted at this and you can always find her in the kitchen elsewhere where the staff are. Here she is at the girls home getting to know the kitchen staff and Steven the driver.

Trip to Boys Home

Anytime you are on the streets in India, it is a very interesting time. We saw all kinds of sights. I like these little yellow cars the call rickshaws (luckily for the driver he gets to sit inside instead of the old way of being out front and pulling it). We also saw some grass huts which were pretty common although the majority of homes are brick and plaster. We also got to experience Indian driving. I think the only rule in Indian driving is "Don't crash". Pretty much anything goes just don't crash doing it. The horn over there is a means of self expression and i guess an warning. Like beep! beep! "look out here I come!! " But for all that craziness I didn't see any accidents. During this trip to the boys home I was once again reminded and almost overwhelmed at the shear number of people in India. There were cars, rickshaws, motorcycles, bicycles and people walking everywhere! It was a testimony to the need of the Inidan people because anywhere you have that many people you are going to have tremendous need and a lack of resources.

Darlene & Bruce Large

Here is a picture of our hosts, Darlene & Bruce Large. Darlene founded HOINA 30 years ago and we were really impressed by all that she has accomplished over the years. She has done an amazing work with the children and we saw the product of that in some of the staff members that are actually products of the Homes. Darlene & Bruce took very good care of us and we can't thank them enough for what they did. We are looking forward to the future and working with Darlene and HOINA again.

Got a little work in too!

While we were there we were able to help paint some of the fence that lines the property. It is a very striking image and it is the first thing you see as you approach the Boys Home. We were thankful for the opportunity to help out. It also gave us the chance to meet and interact with some of the staff.

Section of the fence

Here is a small section of the fence at the front of the Boys Home. It looks very nice. This is probably about a sixth of the entire length.

Here are a couple great guys we got to work with. Pictured by himself is Ramu and pictured with me is Ramudu. They were very nice to us and helped us with our painting. We probably slowed them down alot but they were very gracious and let us help. Ramudu grew up in the boys home and now helps with maintenance and works in the evenings as a tutor for the boys while he finishes school.

Cricket anyone?

The boys tried to teach Gary and I cricket. The emphasis is on "tried"!

Colley with the other kitchen Staff

Here is Colley with the kitchen staff of the Boys Home! Talk about spoiling us... these ladies really took good care of us!

Friends we made

More friends

Up in the Villages

One of the highlights of the trip was the day we spent with Darlene up in the mountain villages. A Lady in the States donation several baby blankets that she had made and we took them up to the remote mountain villages to distribute to little babies. We had an interpreter that translated for us. All the women were so appreciative and it was just another way that we saw that HOINA was making a difference for the people in India.