Rupees? Nah. Toys!

I went back to the ocean today. Its at the very tip of India where three bodies of water meet: The Bay of Bengal, the Indian Ocean, and the Arabian Sea. Its amazing. And its also a huge tourist attraction. Apparently there's like 100,000 people who visit that area every day. Since there's so many people in and out of the city, there are a lot of people who come to beg, including some children.

Most of them are unkept with dirty faces, messy hair and no shoes. They'll come right up to you, asking for rupees and will even follow you around. The difficult part about this besides them being ridiculously precious, is knowing that they are likely just being used. Who's gonna say no to a tiny, poor Indian child? So their parents send them out. What's interesting is even in the slums in Calcutta most of the kids were clean and "put together." Generally, Indians take pride in their self-image. That makes it even more sad to me because you know their parents want them to be disorderly so they seem more needy.

Anyway, after observing them last time and knowing that giving them money doesn't really help, but my heart still being sad for them, I had the idea to bring toys today. It was fun. I just had a few matchbox cars and a few other items. One girl came up to me, so I handed her a present instead of money, which she was very excited about. I didn't think about how that could create a little havoc once the word got around. haha. It wasn't too bad though. I only got bombarded once and praise the Lord had enough things to give away.

Shout out to Denise Meyer and the sweet girls from our fourth grade Bible study last year for sending the toys and gifts to me! It was so wonderful to give them something that I knew they could have fun with and not turn around and give an adult who is just using them to make money.

Praise the Lord for a really good day. :)