Prem Dan

After our first day of volunteering I was set against working at Prem Dan. I wanted to work at Shishu Bhavan (Children's Home in Bengali). Half of the kids at the orphanage are physically disabled or mentally handicapped and the other half of the kids in the orphanage are "normal" (their words) and are adoptable. In order to work with the kids that are able to be adopted you have to be able to work there for 2 months so we were not eligible. We had to go to the Mother House to get our two week work assignment and for this we were able to request where we wanted to work. As we waited...and waited...and waited I just felt challenged and felt God tell me that He didn't bring me to Calcutta so that I could do something I knew I could do. I know I can work with kids...so I decided to challenge myself and request Prem Dan...knowing that the following day I would probably be kicking myself and wishing I was working with the kids. So, every day for the rest of our time in Calcutta I was assigned to Prem Dan to work with dying adults. I have to say that now I am so glad I made that decision and while it was challenging and I was way out of my comfort zone I made the right decision.
Every day was basically the same routine but it got easier the longer we were there because we came to know what the Sisters expected out of us and how they wanted things set up. Let me tell you, they know exactly how they want things and if a bed is even half an inch off they will fix it. Some days it was really frustrating because they were more focused on the work than on the patients and I was reminded of the story of Martha and Mary where Jesus explains that the relationship, not the work is more important. However, they seemed to think otherwise...But, we got through it and only got yelled at by a nun once. She was mad because we were visiting with patients while we waited for the floors to dry and we were suppose to still be cleaning. She told us to either work or leave. We decided to go back to cleaning but it was really tough because I simply wanted to love on the ladies. So, like I said, after we knew what the Sisters expected out of us it got a lot easier...and we didn't get yelled at again! Each of us seemed to find a couple patients that we would spend time with and we would make sure to say Hi to them in the mornings and give them their massages...we became somewhat territorial over "our" ladies.

There were quite a few volunteers from other countries there to work with Missionaries of Charity and many of them were there simply to be a help. They did not come with a church or because they even believe in Christ but because they saw a need and felt they had to do something. We got to know quite a few of these volunteers and as a team were able to share Christ with them. Very few patients at Prem Dan speak English so we were not able to communicate with them using words however we would tell the patients about Christ and pray that God would use our words to convey the message in a way that they would understand.

The picture at the top is where the more able-bodied ladies at Prem Dan would spend most of their day. They could only go outside when accompanied by a volunteer but most of them simply wanted to sit in this area all day.