Friday 7 December – Sunday 9 December

Lal, Christeena’s father, drove us to the train station this morning after breakfast. The train ride was not the most pleasant 8 hours of my life but we survived. We had a sitting reservation in an air-conditioned coach. The AC was broke and it was HOT! But the time we arrived at Pilarthara I was not feeling very well. We had a warm welcome from Sr. Tessy and the other Sisters. Sr. Tessy is the sub-site director (HCR) and just amazing; so much energy and life! She felt really bad that I wasn’t feeling well. She dragged my bed directly under the fan and ordered me to rest and drink water until dinner. She also brought me fresh papaya – the first I’d had. Dinner for me was plain rice and plantains. I went directly to bed and slept straight through until the next morning.

I felt like myself again after a good night’s rest. It’s a good thing because we had a full day ahead of us! Before breakfast I ventured outside and came across a group of girls who are studying to enter the Convent. They were all smiles as I took photos of them filling buckets with water. They had a lot of fun asking me questions in English and they called me their “White Sister”. After breakfast Sr. Deepa, Sr. Tessy and I headed out for some family visits. Our driver today was Godwin. His auto-rickshaw was the nicest I’ve seen. I could tell he was a man who was very proud of what he had in life.



Our first stop was to the home of a sponsored child – Stephan. Compared to the homes we visited in Mannackanad, Stephan’s house was very nice. His father is a carpenter and his skill level was evident in the home he (gradually) built for his family. Stephan’s brother Richard is differently-abled. I wasn’t quite sure what happened but I gathered that he was born healthy and started getting sick when he was 2 or 3. He is about 12 now and totally dependent on people for everything. In addition to his mental challenges he also has serious internal injuries that prevent him from being left alone for even a minute. He can’t attend school and there are no rehab or special facilities close enough for him to attend. The bond that the brothers share was instantly obvious. Stephan takes care of Richard and helps his parents a lot. 

He is presently in the 10^th standard and his dream has always been to become a priest. Stephan’s sponsorship allows him to attend an English Medium School and get a far better education than his parents could ever have given him on their own. Stephan’s mother cannot work due to Richard’s condition. Sr. Tessy wanted her to join the Skills@Chalice tailoring centre so she could develop skills to be able to work from home but the attendance is incredibly strict and the programme very demanding. Stephen’s sponsor sends an extra $20 per month to help with Richard’s medical expenses. This help is beyond description for this family. Stephan’s parents were so grateful to me for the help they receive from Chalice. Their joy was written all over their faces and I got hugs from everyone to take home to Canada. I can’t wait to call the sponsors of the children I visited! It’s such a blessing to be able to pass along the words of gratitude first hand.

The next home we visited was... Godwin’s home! His wife Joyci graduated from the first Skills@Chalice class here. Their son Jibin is sponsored and they spoke of him with such pride. His dream is to join the army. They told me that he has a passion for music and loves to sing and play the guitar. It was in moments like these that basic human alikeness was so apparent to me. Jibin could be any 17 year old boy I know. And his parents’ pride in him was not unlike that of my parents’ in me and my sister. Godwin’s mother Sumitra stays with them. She is in a lot of physical pain and it was a struggle for her to stand and walk. I gave her my chair and once she was settled she began to cry as she told me of her difficulties. She was such a sweet lady and thanked me for coming to visit them. Godwin and Joyci had disappeared into the kitchen and returned with tender coconut for us, right out of the coconut! Once I drained mine they broke it open so I could eat the yummy flesh. It was the best one I had yet! Joyci told me of her experience with the Skills@Chalice. Before taking the training she wasn’t working at all. She had no confidence in her ability to learn something and began the course with very low expectations. Now she is sewing night gowns and selling them in the community. The Skills@Chalice course taught her how to sew and most importantly proved to her that she can learn new things and contribute to her family’s economic well-being. I commented to Sr. Tessy on how nice their home was when we left and she told me that Godwin is a very hardworking man and always put his family first. After seeing so much evidence of the contrary when we did our last home visits, this was such a refreshing thing to see.

The last house we visited was almost a mansion compared to the tents and ramshackle homes we saw earlier this week. It was the home of another Skills@Chalice graduate. Her husband is a retired police officer and they have two grown sons. While their economic condition was nowhere near as pathetic as the other families we visited, the wife’s inability to contribute to the family before taking the training was the same. It was really nice to see that Skills@Chalice is reaching out to as many people as possible in this small community – if a woman could benefit from the training she is accepted, despite the level of her economic situation. As I would witness later, one of the biggest gifts of this programme is that it has brought women together in solidarity and given them a support circle that they were lacking before. This woman was so proud to show me some of her projects. Before taking the Skills@Chalice training she knew absolutely nothing about sewing. She is now making clothes for some of the children in the community and gaining so much self-confidence.  She smiled the whole time we were there and was so grateful that we took the time to stop and visit her.

Back at the convent we had lunch and I was shown the Skills@Chalice centre and the grounds of the convent. This place is truly a piece of heaven. The tranquility made me never want to leave! I hope to come back someday and spend some time nurturing my soul. My only regret is that we were to spend less than 24 hours here before having to make the journey back to Bangalore. The Skills@Chalice training is taking place in the old convent. After building the present building they turned the old (very tiny) one into a computer room for the children and are now adding an addition on to give more space for the tailoring class. I was also shown the Chalice-funded well. We had a staff meeting and discussed some of the obstacles the sub-site here faces as well as the success of the Skills@Chalice initiative.

The afternoon consisted of meeting the two Skills@Chalice batches and a meeting with sponsored children and their parents, complete with a cultural programme. Meeting the women who have graduated from or are presently in the tailoring class was a joy! I took the time to look at every single exercise book that they brought to show me. They were all very similar but the pride I saw on these women’s faces when I opened their book made each one unique and personal. Many of them stood and spoke of how much of a blessing this opportunity was for them.

They spoke of things like self-confidence, new friends, support and independence – the actual skills they learned seemed almost secondary to the experience in itself. Some of the women had been working demanding jobs which had taken a toll on them. These new skills have given them the option to work from home and continue to contribute to their family. Others had never worked and have gained independence and self-confidence. Many had never gone for higher education. This course showed them they are never too old to learn something new, despite their convictions that the book had been ‘put back on the shelf’ for good. The dedication of these women was so evident. They are committed to each other and to making their lives more meaningful.

So far every Skills@Chalice initiative I visited was completely different. It is wonderful that we can be flexible and meet the needs of the communities in which we work as opposed to having a ‘cookie cutter’ model that the communities have to take or leave. In my opinion this is one of Chalice’s biggest strengths and the sponsorship programme is the same in this respect. Before a Skills@Chalice course is ever started the Site does a market scan to see what services are most needed and would be the best skills training to offer. In this way they are making the community aware of the training and hopefully securing job opportunities for the graduates. This is the part of the process I would like to learn more about as it is a crucial step. From what I’ve gathered the outcomes of Skills@Chalice initiative will be much greater than imagined. I’ve already seen evidence of this in the passionate responses I’ve gotten from the participants I met. This is about much more than skills training...

The programme with the sponsored children and their parents was excellent. Some people shared their story – a sponsored girl spoke of how much her life has changed for the positive and broke into tears when she told everyone that helping others is now her top priority in life; the older brother of a sponsored boy spoke (in English) on behalf of his parents and thanked Chalice for giving his brother an opportunity to excel by attending a good school; the father of two sponsored boys (it was the sponsor’s request to sponsor the brother – usually we sponsor one child per family unless the family is really large) came forward and told everyone how sponsorship was a blessing to his whole family as he suffers from a serious skin disease that prevents him from working. A boy who is very talented in public speaking recited a speech about faith. It was really moving and though I didn’t understand what he said, his passion touched the hearts of everyone in the room. After he spoke I addressed the whole group and told them that we are all required to live out our faith through action. In order for good things to happen in our life we must work hard to achieve them, while keeping faith they will happen in their own time and way. Praying for something isn’t enough. I used the example of myself, of how I always wanted to visit other countries and though I had faith it would happen I worked very hard to get here – I didn’t just wake up in India! I also spoke of the importance of using the talents we are given. It may take time to discover them (like the women in the Skills@Chalice course) but once we do, it is our responsibility to use them to their fullest.

Finally it was time to sit back, relax and watch the programme! The Skills@Chalice women performed two beautiful dances and one sang a traditional Christmas song. Sr. Tessy told me that many of these women were incredibly shy and withdrawn a few months ago. You would never have guessed it by the way they performed! I was also told they had been practicing for weeks to get it just right. A few children danced and sang and a cute little boy of 4 or 5 recited a poem (he was newly sponsored). When it was over each parent wanted to greet me personally. I was asked to sign autographs again and took many photos! It was really hard to leave the crowd but we had to get to the train station for the overnight journey to Bangalore. As I was making my way back to the convent a boy of about 16 ran after me and asked me to take a photo with him. He asked me if I knew his sponsor and showed me her name on his Chalice badge. I assured him that I would call her when I got back to Canada and send her a copy of the photo we took. He was so pleased.

On the train Sr. Deepa and I met a couple from Bangalore who had spent 10 years in Zambia and came back to India to settle in retirement. They were on their way to a family reunion in New Zealand. The man was an accountant and the woman was a biology teacher in an international high school. We had some really great discussions. Again I was on the top bunk and slept a lot better than my first night on the train. We arrived in Bangalore at 7 am to some very sad news. Sr. Amabel, one of the Sisters at Sr. Deepa’s Convent in Bangalore passed away at 5:30 that morning. When we arrived at the Convent we paid our respects and I went to my room to allow Sr. Deepa time to help with the preparations for her funeral. I spent the day resting and getting ready to go to the Good Shepherd Convent where the next part of my amazing adventure would commence and prove to be exciting and incredibly valuable to me and everyone attending – the Chalice India Partners’ Meeting.