Late night children’s welcome, flowers included

By Hillary Walters

My boyfriend Matt and I had the chance to travel to India in January 2008 to work with BIRDS, an organization our church in Portland, OR has an ongoing relationship with. After meeting in Hyderabad, India, our team of four volunteers traveled by jeep across bumpy Indian roads before arriving at the facility that would be our home for four weeks. Balancing jetlag and culture shock, we’d spent seven hours on the road before arriving at the BIRDS facility. Exhausted from the travels, and fighting to keep my eyes open, I expected we would each be quietly shown to our rooms for a night of deep rest.

As our jeep pulled up alongside the curb of the main lodging facility, it appeared that a crowd stood outside in the dark. As we emerged from the vehicle, the crowd became individual faces of beaming children. Organized in orderly rows below a banner that boasted our names and a welcome message, the group of 100 orphans that lived at BIRDS greeted us in unison with a prepared message that rang like out like a song. Following the greeting, our group of four received hand woven flower leis, and were surrounded by gangs of children that reached out to touch our hands and practice their well-polished English phrases.

The genuine joy and exuberance the children demonstrated upon our arrival deeply touched me. How long had they stood outside in the dark awaiting our arrival? How much time had been spent weaving the beautiful flower petals placed around our necks? I was floored that these youth, who knew nothing about us, could be so giddy to have us in their presence. Didn’t they have games they’d rather be playing? Or nails they’d rather be painting? Or music they’d rather be listening to? It was clear that in that moment, these children desired nothing else than to welcome four strangers into their midst and shower their eagerness upon them.

The image of the children greeting us that first night in India stays with me. The welcome drew us immediately into the BIRDS community, where revolutionary things were, and are, being accomplished by a humble Indian man from the nation’s lowest caste. The children’s welcome preceded many more acts of overwhelming hospitality, including parades before church services and banners with our pictures on them strewn across the small towns we visited.

Reflecting on the welcome we received in India, the children’s smiles bring me warmth, and they challenge me, in this season of Risking a Deeper Welcome, to joyfully look for opportunities to welcome strangers into the communities I’m apart of. While I never mind extending a verbal hello, do I ever demonstrate the same giddiness the children showed for me? Knowing how good it feels to be so warmly received and welcomed into a new place, how can I live that model in my own life?

Late night children’s welcome, flowers included.