Getting ready to go... to INDIA!

It's Friday afternoon. All week I've been thinking about the things I need to do before I leave for India. It's time to shift from thinking about them... to doing them! Getting this blog started is one thing I can cross off my list. :) Amen!

On Wednesday, 28 November I will fly from Halifax to Toronto to Frankfurt to Bangalore City to spend 2 1/2 weeks visiting Chalice's Kerala Sponsor Site and presenting at a Regional Meeting of our Site Directors. How blessed am I to have this awesome opportunity!

 

12 years ago I started volunteering with Chalice in our Springhill, NS office. At that time it was called Christian Child Care International (CCCI). I was in High School and visited the office at Christmastime with the Girl Guide group I belonged to. We posted Christmas cards made by the sponsored children for their sponsors in Canada. After that first evening I was hooked! I arranged to come afterschool a few times each week to help in the office. My first duties were filing and stuffing envelopes. I remember being so amazed at learning about the lives of people in countries I had never even heard of... When I was in University I worked 2 summers at Chalice as a Summer Student (2003 and 2005). I helped in almost every aspect of the office and got a crash course on many things! By this time Chalice had become part of my extended family. In 2007 just before I returned home from a year abroad I contacted Jackie (the Office Manager in Springhill) to see if there were, by chance, any job openings. There were not. So I started working at my old job (Tim Horton's). Before I even went in for my first shift Jackie tracked me down to tell me the good news! There was an opening in the Finance Department, processing donations, and she wanted me to come for an interview. God is so good and the job was the perfect fit for me. I was back with family and working in a field I felt called to be in. (As a side note, Jackie likes to boast about the influence CCCI had on me when I was in University... my Chemistry degree morphed into an International Relations and Religious Studies degree! If she only knew just how much of an influence my time in her office was...)

In the five years since I started working full-time I have worked in the Finance Department processing donations, been a Sponsor Representative for India and the Philippines - linking sponsors to their sponsored children and supporting the Site staff with sponsorship administration - and am presently the International Department Administrator in our Lower Sackville office - supporting our three International Managers. I've always dreamed of meeting some of our partners and some of the beneficiaries of our programmes. That dream is coming true... very soon!

Join me on my journey to southern India as I travel around the states of Karnataka and Kerala, visiting some of the families who participate in our programme, experiencing life in rural India and urban slums, visiting a devadasi village (I'll explain more about devadasis when I am there - in the meantime, check out the Wikipedia page. We all know the pros and cons of Wikipedia... but the opening paragraph seems to give a good overview. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devadasi), dropping in on our Skills@Chalice initiative (see the latest edition of the Chalice newsletter - page 3 http://www.chalice.ca/images/stories/newsletters/newsletterfall2012.pdf), sightseeing at the Backwaters of Kerala and the Alappuzha Sea (this area is referred to as the 'Venice of the East' - I loved the Venice of the West, so this should be amazing!), bringing blankets and teddy bears to children at the Holy Cross Special School and delivering workshops on Sponsorship Administration and Results Based Management to our wonderful Site Directors at a Regional Meeting. The whole time I will be 'shepherded' by the lovely Sr. Deepa (see her lovely face below) and staying in Holy Cross Convents all over southern India. Check out my trip route here: http://goo.gl/maps/hyAvU
Until next time...
Alisha