Patience is: "passion tamed; the art of hoping." -Lymon Abbott; Vauvenargues

Discouragement has been a battle for me the past few days, and so tonight Steph encouraged me to celebrate the little victories that God has given us.

Victory #1: Yesterday, Gowramma and I baked 44 banana bread muffins in my apartment. Earlier in the afternoon, our neighbor's house maid, Sangitti, knocked on the door and pointed inside, so I said "sure" as she wattled past me and into the kitchen. The three of us made "chippatis", Indian tortillas, and eggs while we waited for the muffins to bake, exchanging stories and laughs through Kannada and English....but mostly, they were the ones just laughing at me haha.
Victory #2: The oven came to Anatoly's apartment last night, so we were able to start using it today. It is super shiny and functions great, and Anatoly was glowing this afternoon as she boiled milk for chai over her temporary stove top. (We will be moving it to a storefront/ training facility hopefully sometime in the next few days. But then again, this IS India, so maybe more like sometime in the next few weeks. Until then, I will be teaching baking classes at her home.)
Victory #3: Steph and I found some fresh veggies in the market and went a teensy bit overboard...we have enough tomatoes, onions, okra, carrots, peas, and squash to last us at least till the end of the week, and that is after we had veggies for dinner for the past two nights. We've made sautees and soups and pastas, whatever sounds good to us at the time haha.
Victory #4: After trudging through the the rain this afternoon to a total of 5 grocery stores/ food marts, I was finally able to find vanilla extract to use to bake some cookies tomorrow. During our three hour search, I gawked at shelves with extra virgin olive oil, flax seeds, Hershey's syrup, Red Bull, vanilla beans, capers, sun dried tomatoes, and more, wondering how vanilla extract--like one of the most common baking ingredients--had not made the cut at Bangalore stores, but Red Bull had? Who knows.
Victory #5: Lakshmi said that she was interested in learning to bake today, so tomorrow she is going to help me and Gowramma. Today, she watched as we made another several batches of muffins as well as translated the banana bread recipe into Kannada (local language).
Victory #6: Gowramma has found another job in a garment factory. This is definitely a victory because she will be able to support her family with a substantial income each month. However, she was supposed to be the main coordinator for the baking program after I leave, so I am just trusting that God will bring another baker into the picture...maybe Lakshmi will be the one :).

It has been difficult to be hopeful these past few days...the more I learn about this culture, the sufferings of the people, the drastic separations between castes and classes, the thousands of diseases, the bondage and mistreatment of women, the extreme poverty, the success of the sex industry in this country, the cyclical lifestyles and patterns in families that seem to indicate there is no hope for change just drains the energy and at times the desire to even try to do something. Regarding our work with commercial sex workers, many times the women can make more money as a prostitute, so they have no incentive to join our programs or they leave the program to go back to "work", so that has been heartbreaking and disheartening. Many of the CSWs dont think they have worth or value or the ability to have a different profession, especially when CSW work is all they have known and moreover, all that their mothers and their grandmothers have known, so change is scary and daunting to them. Steph lived with the the girls in the old Rahab's Rope center for six months last year, and after hearing all of their stories, she emphasized to me the reality of fear that comes with the unknown for these women. Though baking bread/making jewelry/sewing may be better for them in the long run, all they know is the life of commercial sex worker, and thats all they see themselves as.

My heart is to find a way to transform the women's view of themselves, to empower them to step out of the known into the unknown and be freed from their doubts and insecurities. My prayer is that they would have hope and a fighting spirit despite the hopelessness and darkness of their worlds...that their eyes would be opened to how precious they are, how much value they have, how much they can be, and that they would have the strength to change. All these changes ARE daunting and time-consuming and difficult and frustrating, full of obstacles and fears and and mistakes and challenges, and being patient is OH SO HARD. But I'm trying to surrender the desires of my heart to help these women to the perfect timing of God's plan...to ask him to tame my heart and my passion to help these girls, that I would not lose hope in each girls' rescue and healing, but I would wait for His guidance and wisdom on how to effectively love and help.

Today, I had to face the reality that a bakery or a bread baking program could not work right now, and all of my plans and efforts and ideas might not come to fruition during these six weeks, or ever... but ultimately, the success of this project is not why I am here in India. I am not here so that I, Emily, can be successful, nor am I here just to start MY baking program MY way on MY time. Sure, I have pages and pages of plans and budgets and ideas on how to start a baking program in Bangalore, and it is awfully humbling to say all this, but this six weeks is not about what I have in mind, and bread is not the bottom line. LOVE and HOPE are the bottom line, and whatever way I can give these girls those two things is the reason I am here.