I’ve said it a million times myself.

“I want to give a voice to the people that don’t have one.”

But after going to India a few months ago, it began to occur to me that my philosophy is completely off track.

Everyone has a voice. Even the people who are the most overlooked.

They have beautiful voices.

Broken voices.

Voices pleading for help.

Voices singing with hope.

Even their silence says something…

The phrase “I want to give a voice to the people that don’t have one” has to go.

It’s dehumanizing.

THEY have a voice.

The problem is WE don’t listen.

I have a terrible habit of not finishing beverages. Size doesn?t matter. Whether it?s a 16 oz bottle of water or an 8 oz tiny can of Diet Coke, I don?t finish it.

Bottled water for some reason takes the brunt of my compulsion. It?s embarrassing to admit but there are times where I?ll just take a sip or two of a bottle of water and never touch it again.

Such was the case with the bottle of water in my car. It was the middle of August and on this particular day I grabbed a bottle of water on my way out to run errands. I took two sips and it had been boiling in my car ever since.

On my way home from visiting a friend a few days later, I realized I was extremely thirsty. I hadn?t had a bit of water all day.

Diet Cherry Dr. Pepper?

Yes.

Lots of sips.

Water?

No.

As I looked around my car, this forlorn bottle of water sat in my passenger seat. It was the only relief in sight and my forty-five minute drive began to feel like six hours as the sun began to burn my left arm.

?It?s not like it?s contaminated,? I reassured myself. ?It?s just really, really warm. That?s all. You can drink it. It?s okay??

I unscrewed the blue cap, letting a bit of the air out of the bottle and took a gulp.

Warm and plasticky.

Delightful.

I began wondering how healthy this water could actually be if all I tasted was plastic. I thought about the segment on The Today Show where they compared the different numbers of the different plastics and I tried to remember which ones were toxic. Because I?m sure whatever it was I was drinking was not safe for consumption.

The heat of the water I was drinking, the droplets of sweat forming in the small of my back, and the sun being magnified by my untinted windows took me back to my trip to India earlier this year.

And this hot little bottle of water made me think of a little boy I met named Tushar.

***

Tushar is a five year old who lives three hours outside of Kolkata. A few months ago, my husband and I began sponsoring him through an organization called Compassion International.

When I was in India, a few days before I left, I had the chance to meet Tushar and his father. They took a train from their village into the city. The translator introduced us and I realized Tushar?s dad was holding a bag and would occasionally take out a bottle of water for his son.

The bottle of water wasn?t like anything you or I would see, much less drink from, here in the States. There was no label. The outside was scratched.

Yet what was most surprising was what kind of water the bottle contained.

If I didn?t know better, I would think it was sun tea with lemon. It was a light brown, with little pieces of something floating in it.

But it was Tushar?s water. His drinking water. Water that was so precious, his father helped him ration it throughout their trip.

After a visit to Science City, a museum that would be considered totally odd and possibly unsafe by Western standards, we went to a building that would be parallel to a Western mall. It had stores and a food court.

And it was lunch time.

Our host went to some of the restaurants to get us all something to drink. She came back with ice-cold bottled water.

Clean, never opened, cold bottled water.

Tushar?s dad reached across the table to open his bottle. Tushar leaned forward to take his first sip and when he grabbed the bottle for the first time, he immediately dropped it back on the table like it had bit him, almost spilling it. He pulled away and giggled.

I was a little confused but very much intrigued by his reaction. He wiped the condensation off his hand and reached forward for the bottle of water again. This time he didn?t grab it. He merely touched it with a couple of his fingers.

And Tushar giggled again.

Finally I realized something. He?s never touched anything cold before.

The area of India that he lives in rarely sees temperatures below 60 degrees.

The cold surprised him.

But in a good way.

Playfully, I poured cold water from my bottle into the tiny blue cap and splashed him with it.

He.

Freaked.

Out.

We continued our little water fight until his dad moved his bottle closer to him, as to say ?this is for drinking and not for playing,? and Tushar sat up, knowing his dad was serious, and took a sip.

His eyes got wide as he felt the cold water slide down the back of his throat. When it reached his stomach, he grabbed his belly and grinned and giggled.

Drinking cold water was such a new experience for this little boy.

***

So, here I was, between Nashville and Franklin, Tennessee on I-65 contemplating the level of “poison” in my completely safe water and I wondered about Tushar and what he’s doing today. I wondered about his bottle of water. I doubt he was drinking anything nearly as clean or as available as I was. In fact, I doubt he had tasted water as cold or as clean since our time in the food court.

I held back the tears that so wanted to escape and travel down my face because of the unfairness of it all.

I wonder how many bottles of water I?ve carelessly and needlessly thrown away when a little boy and his family are grateful to have their dirty water in a bottle they found and probably share and hold dear.

For Pete’s sake. Even my cat has access to cleaner water than Tushar.

I can?t send Tushar clean water in the mail. I can?t take it to him or even make sure that he can access it.

It?s a helpless feeling.

And it?s easy to ignore because it is so overwhelming.

What can I do? I can give Tushar a voice. I can speak for him by telling his story. You?re reading about him now. Maybe you?ll want to share his story too.

We may not be able to fix every problem we see, but we can allow the stories we hear to remind us of the incredible responsibility we have to share the needs of a broken world.

These stories can awaken us and inspire us to act. To donate money to a water charity or go on a trip to build a well or to take some clean water to the homeless in our own cities and towns.

***

So, now that you know, what will you do?

—–

All of us bloggerfolk made it back to the States uneventfully…well, as uneventfully as one can when traveling between three airports in India before finally heading home. I am looking forward to taking today to unplug, relax, and reconnect with life back here in Nashville.

One of the things we did right before we left was sit around a table and simply talk about how the trip has affected each of us. Shaun told us a story about how Compassion International started.

Back in the 50′s, a preacher named Everett Swanson went to Korea. Driving through a town, he saw piles of war orphans huddled together to keep warm. The military would drive up to these groups and make them scatter, not wanting anyone to discover the huge orphan problem the country faced. The children that didn’t survive the cold were thrown into the back of military trucks like sacks of trash.

Obviously upset by what he saw, Swanson sought counsel. The key question someone asked him was,

“Now that you’ve seen what you’ve seen, what are you going to do about it?”

Swanson took that and began Compassion International. What’s great to see is now Korea isn’t a country where Compassion children are sponsored, but one that sponsors children – like the US, or Canada, or the UK, or Australia. It’s completely turned around. Some of Korea’s largest churches are pastored by people who grew up sponsored through Compassion.

If you’ve been around my blog at all over the last year and a half, you know I still talk about the Uganda trip, so needless to say, this is not my final post about Compassion or this trip. And for the second time in a year and a half, I’ve seen first hand what something as simple as around $1 a day can do in the life of a child.? It’s been an honor to take you on this journey with us as well.

To close out the series of posts for this trip, I’d like to leave you with this thought:

“Now that you’ve seen what you’ve seen, what are you going to do about it?”

I personally hope you’ll sponsor a child with Compassion.

Seriously.

I have no idea how in the world I am ever going to blog again after a day like today.

I haven’t laughed harder – or cried harder – in my life.

And it all has to do with this little boy.

His name is Tushar. He’s five. He is one of the children Chris and I sponsor through Compassion.

Our day started out pretty simply.

We met.

Then…well…this madness ensues.

(Watch it. It will seriously be the best minute of your day. I dare you to disagree with me).

===

And, well, after five hours of that…there’s nothing left to say but this.

Only $32 a month to give this little boy and his family hope, food, care, education, prayers, letters, photos, laughter, rest, love?

After a day like today, I’d pay a million.

=====

Today was an INCREDIBLE day.

We spent all day with our individual sponsor children. I had the chance to meet Tushar, mine and The Hub’s sponsor child…who was the most ADD, hyperactive, bright, hilarious five year old I have EVER EVER met.

We are about to head out and meet with some LDP (Leadership Development Program) students. The Compassion Leadership Development Program is a unique program that targets these outstanding high school graduates who want to pursue a post-secondary education but lack the money to do it.

Anyway, until I can find the time to put everything together and introduce you to Tushar (because trust me – you do NOT want to miss this kid!!!) I thought I’d leave you with a quick video of what a typical day looks like here in India. Several of you asked some questions in the live chat we did last night (this morning for us) and I hope this gives you a glimpse inside our day.

Sans all the crying we do back at the hotel.

And the 120 degree weather.

And all of our BO.

=====

The project in this video still had about 90 kids who haven’t been sponsored. If you’d like to meet some of them, you can click here.

=====