India: Part Two

During my trip to India, I encountered many children who changed my life forever. Megkhana was one of them. Today's story is about Mina. As part of the Student Team, I will write a mission story and produce a mission video as well, which I look forward to sharing with y'all in the coming weeks.

On the first day I was in Bhubaneswar, we spent our morning on the third floor of the hospital playing with the children before they went to screening, where they would be photographed, given speech evaluations, and seen by pediatricians and anesthesiologists to determine whether they would receive surgery or not.

It was there that I met Mina.

She took to coloring right away, and was taken down early for screening. Until her surgery on Wednesday, I would see her around the hospital nearly everyday, and she always had a huge smile for me and a wave.

Tuesday night, we had one of our longest days, and didn't leave the hospital until nearly eight. She and I had so much fun making silly faces at each other, and playing pattycake for hours.

While waiting in our Child Life room, I learned from her anxious mother that she had had two previous surgeries, and that there were complications during the first, and she was very worried.

She loves going to school and is in Grade 5. 

Since she had already had two surgeries, she was only having a lip scar revision, and I returned on our last day to see her smiling and ready to go home.

I will never forget her sweet family, and her calm, strong mother. What trust and faith these parents had, to come from far away to put their child's life in doctors and foreigners hands. Although we did not share a common language, we all communicated on a deeper level, one that did not require words, but simply hugs and smiles.

It was so hard to say goodbye to her, knowing that I would never see again. Before she left, she and her mother gave me two hard candies, probably a luxury to them, and something that most wouldn't think anything of. I still have them sitting on my dresser, a daily reminder of the little girl who changed my life.

xoxo,

Royar

{The Young Southern Prep}