Not Prepared for what was happening on Jan. 7th

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Today we visited the Mother Theresa Hospital for the sick, dying, and destitute, and the Mother Theresa Orphanage..... We were totally TOTALLY unprepared for what we were about to see..... I am not sure I can even think of a way to describe it besides it felt like we were in a horror movie..... it was just SO intense and surreal ....

We walk in.....and it's a couple HUNDRED men...sitting very close together..... all wearing uniforms with numbers on them...it felt like we were visiting a jail.... we were walking in and the men were on all sides of us and started clapping.... it felt like we were zoo animals... I really didn't like it at all.....looking around I noticed how sick these men were....... imagine the sickest, most crippled person you have ever seen laying on the streets..... and imagine 500 of them all in one place..... it was heart wrenching....

We then toured around the hospital (which I felt totally weird about... I felt like we were just looking at all these sick people and doing nothing for them). They had these large rooms STUFFED (I mean STUFFED) with as many cots as possible..... and each room was a designated sickness....they had a room for everyone with lice and typhoid fever..... they had a room for men living with TB..... and so on..... We went upstairs where they kept all the "mentally handicapped" young boys..... they were all screaming and talking at the same time...but were all laying flat on their cots.... begging us to come in and and talk to them..... it was just heart breaking to see that they would spend their entire life in this room in this hospital because they were totally outcasted from society.....tears welled up as a few of my team members and I started to have this realization...

We then went over to the women's side...and it was just as bad as the men's side...... just so much sickness and brokenness....... the "mentally handicapped" floor was almost too much to handle.... there were little girls screaming, and crying, and shouting...... and there were girls in the beds, and crawling around on the floors, and hiding in corners...... and when we would walk by they would swat at us.....and if we tried to touch them, they would bite us.... there was this one little girl who was cripples (with polio I would guess) and couldn't stand up...but was jumping around on the ground, and she would bite and scream....I have never seen a human act this way...it was almost like she was demon possessed..... it was heart breaking.....

To be honest... I had absolutly NO CLUE how to take all of this in or process any of it.....it was SO far out of my comfort zone.....I don't feel like I even did a good enough job explaining it to u...... I felt so selfish standing there thinking about how UNCOMFORTABLE I FELT.... I hate that about being human...... And as I stood there thinking about the fact that this facility cares for around 1000 sick, dying and destitute..... that HERE at this hospital is WAYY better then the streets..... and that if Jesus were here on earth, THIS is who He would be hanging out with...... wow.... what an overwhelming thought..... and a motivating one..... I keep asking myself... WHY did I feel SO uncomfortable.... WHY did it bother me SO MUCH....is that a good thing? or a bad thing?

After touring this hospital they walked us over to the orphanage to see the HUNDREDS of children and CHAOS!!!!! I couldn't snap into "FUN ASHLEY" mode.... I couldn't get out of "overwhelmed at what I just saw mode....." There were hundrededs of kids.... as young as 1 day old..... with no manners or rules and regulations..... and after the tour, I just couldn't handle this at the moment...

On the way home listening to my ipod... I was listening to HILLSONG'S song "YOU HOLD ME NOW"..... and thought of all these people...... "NO WEEPING, NO HURT OR PAIN, NO SUFFERING...YOU HOLD ME NOW" and just thinking about how one day when we are with Jesus...... NOBODY will have to hurt like this anymore..... I could just picture in my mind Jesus walking through this crowd healing them one by one.......

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