As we soared above the clouds, the names of places we were flying over flashed on our plane’s tiny video map—Karpathos, Rhodes — magical sounding names I’d heard since childhood but never dreamed I would be near, even at an altitude of 33,000 feet.

I was en route to India. Nine months earlier Alan Ouimet, the founder of FFA (Franciscan Family Apostolate), had written in a newsletter that family sponsors were welcome to accompany him to India. My center resonated as I read the invitation. I was intrigued. Somewhere, literally on the other side of the earth, I had been involved in the construction of eight homes and a myriad of other projects for a stream of families I had sponsored. I had a folder of "Before" and "After" photos, but it felt too remote. My intuition was hollering at me that this was a chance to check out what appeared to be an unusual and unique organization that seemed almost too good to be true.

It was sheer luck I even knew about FFA. In going through my late father’s papers I discovered he had been caring for a family his deceased sister had begun sponsoring in India. I wrote to learn more. I learned that FFA was a small non-profit organization that focused its efforts in the environs of Alleppey, India — a small town on the southwest coast of India. Alan Ouimet, a former FBI agent, began the organization in the early 70’s to serve the destitute of all faiths in the region. My aunt had been one of the first sponsors. Today there are about 900 sponsors helping 1200 families through monthly allotments and other community development projects.

So, there I was on my way to the third world, to see first hand what my family had contributed to. I had a bit of trepidation. While there are many well to do in India, I was visiting those at the other end of the spectrum and staying with those serving them. I had been forewarned of no hot water, questionable toilet facilities, muggy tropical weather, and a formidable array of bugs not to be bitten by. But, the chance to experience more of this world, to grasp a bigger picture of how we humans live, and to experience firsthand what "living in need" can mean far outweighed my concerns. In my heart, my center, I had to go. Perhaps it was an acknowledgement of a weariness, a search for rejuvenation or inspiration which drove me to a very different place from the suburban middle-class town in upstate NY where I resided.

As I waited to embark from our plane in Cochin — a city two hours north of Alleppey — an elderly Indian looked me in the eye and said, "Ah! A woman with a beautiful smile. God smiles upon those who smile. Have a beautiful day." Not your average stranger-in-the-plane conversation, sort of a heads up that I was stepping into another world. Soon there I was, following a robust, friendly ex-FBI agent, through an airport filled with women in saris and men in skirts, into another culture where I relearned that regardless of culture, people are people

Poetry in Motion

India is sensory bombardment, a perfect test for staying centered under pressure. To say that Kerala, the province Cochin and Alleppey are located in, is densely populated understates the issue. In the two-hour drive from Cochin to Alleppey, we never passed a place along the way without a roadside stand, building, or shack, and some people. In fact, in eight days I don't think I ever turned my head (outside of the privacy of my room) without seeing a person somewhere in the landscape. People live in a fish bowl. When we visited a family, neighbors appeared out of no where. They not only came to peer into the yard to see what was up, they came into the yard, and into the house to hear what was being said. When I toured some hospitals, family members surrounded each bed, jammed the hallways, and camped on the grounds. The norms are totally difference from the U.S. For me, the introspective observer, I found myself constantly pausing, breathing deeply, and hoping I could retain all the images flashing before my eyes until I could return to the solitude of my room. record them in my journal, and integrate them in a meaningful way.

India sings and dances its way through life. Quiet is a non sequitur. One evening as I sat on the verandah outside my room, I recorded the sounds in India’s symphony: a mosque’s loudspeakers, a train whistle, cathedral bells, crickets in the garden, a cat's meow, and, of course, traffic. Indian traffic is a colorful mosaic: men hauling carts filled with anything from logs to coir fiber to bananas; auto-rickshaws (motorized black taxi cabs on three wheels); men on bikes with carts or cabs attached; trucks painted in primary colored designs; filthy old red buses with people not only jammed inside but hanging to the outsides. To get a full impression of a Keralan road, add in lots of people on bicycles, some cars, and the inevitable pedestrians — women in exquisitely designed saris, some with baskets on their heads; clusters of school children in colorful uniforms; and men conversing in random groups.

Poetry can be beautiful, but dark and poignant. The country I saw on that first drive was picturesque — huge palm trees, lush greenery, interspersed with water; people moving with grace, women’s saris creating bouquets of color. But even in those first glimpses, poverty was undeniable. Trash dotted the roadside and the canals. "Stores" were often collections of soda pop, fruit and multi-colored grains on a few outdoor shelves. We passed families living in the medians and on the side of the road in tents. All constant reminders that this land was both beautiful and tragic at once.

Life in a Fishing Village

My main purpose in Alleppey was to visit families — the focus of FFA. I met with countless families, those with sponsors, those in need of sponsors, and those having moved beyond sponsorship to self-sufficiency. To speak with them, we traveled dusty narrow roads filled with ruts from the monsoon season into the many villages surrounding Alleppey. Each village was an amalgam of shacks, small houses and a few nice larger homes. Indians tend to stay put, sometimes living their entire lives on one plot of land. The land is passed down from generation to generation and families build what they can afford on the plot. Thus a falling down shack may sit next to a brick home with electricity and running water.

FFA assists those with not enough to eat, often too ill to work. The homes of these families are often one or two room shacks of woven bamboo with no windows or doors; the floors are sand (or mud in monsoons). Each time we reached a home, there was a flurry of activity as neighbors clustered and ran to let absent family members know we had arrived. I often stood helpless, trying to take in the activity. I still have vivid recollections of walking into huts: the sand yielding under my feet, the warm air enveloping me, and, as my eyes adjusted to the poorly lit interior, being greeted by heaps of clothes and the inevitable collections of religious items, school papers, and tin pans for water and cooking.

Whether the family lived in a home or a shack, the living conditions were basic, often primitive by western standards.. If a family had a brick home (such as the ones built under the FFA housing program), there might have been electricity if they had saved for it from their monthly allotments. Whether bamboo hut or house, the family often slept in one room on woven bamboo mats. Even if there was a wooden slat bed, most likely some family members still slept on the floor. Cooking was often on an open fire, sometimes in the same room as the family slept. If there is only one room and it’s raining, where else can you have a fire? I saw relatively few food supplies — no walk-in pantry’s here. Water came from a village well, or perhaps a well or pump on the property. The water was brown (even in restaurants). The toilet, if it existed, was outdoors and of the outhouse variety. (Toilets are a luxury for there is always the bush).

Lessons in Compassion

Each family we visited touched me deeply. I had resolved before I left home that all I could be on this trip was my authentic self. There seemed little else I could offer these people but my presence and my caring for their situations. I realized as I strove to be simply me that such authenticity allows you to share in both others’ joy and their pain.

One day we drove and drove and then hiked across a field to visit a family sponsored by Allan ’s son. As Alan chatted with the family, I watched the woman next door, standing in her doorway with two small children — maybe six months and two years. Alan had told me that I was welcome to watch for families in need of sponsorship. I stared at the hut, maybe 10’ by 15’ and listing to one side. Common sense told me it was not likely to last the monsoon season. My heart beat a little faster. I walked over to the woman who looked at me through eyes dulled by hunger. The little girl hid in her mother ’s skirt. The baby cried in her arms. My heart went out to them.

Darcy, an FFA staff person along for the visit, introduced her as Reethamma, a sister of the family we were visiting. She lived in the one-room palm shack with her children, Belsy and Reynold, and her husband, Joseph. Belsy, the two-year-old, suffered from asthma and had chronic breathing problems. I walked inside their hut, there was a place to cook and floor space to lie down. That was it. There were holes in the roof. There was nothing else on the property except a clothesline with a few pieces of clothing drying in the sun. I learned that Joseph worked for a local weaver, making coir rugs on a loom. His income did not provide enough food for the family, let alone medication for Belsy. As I stepped back out into the Indian sun, Reethamma’s mother, who lived next door, clasped my hand, beseeching me with words that needed no translation.

Compassion flooded my soul. The contrast between my comfortable life in Victor, NY and this family’s life in Alleppey overwhelmed me. I thought of how easily I shopped for my family, the abundance of food in our pantry. As a mother, it made me shiver to imagine not having enough to feed my children. I also felt a bond of pain with Reethamma’s mother, who was too old and feeble to help her child and her grandchildren. I resolved that I would find a sponsor for Reethamma, if it meant taking her on myself. Months later, I am filled with gratitude that Reethamma and her family were accepted for sponsorship. Belsy, the two-year-old, became gravely ill, requiring immediate surgery to save her eyesight. With the support of FFA, Belsy was hospitalized and was awaiting surgery as I write this.

Every day brought more families, more stories, and more opportunities to center and absorb the lessons being offered me. We went to see the Arresseril family, living in a shack on the shores of the Arabian sea. Their hut was dark and filthy. There was a platform for them to sleep on but little else in their home. They had been waiting for a sponsor for a year and a half. Their kitchen was full of trash and there was no food to be seen. As is typical with most families awaiting sponsors, they didn’t have enough to eat. Silvester, the father, suffered from asthma and rheumatism and was unable to work due to cataracts. His wife had high blood pressure that limited her ability to work. The eldest son, Ouseppachen, had tuberculosis and chronic headaches that had forced him to drop out of school and now kept him from working. The two youngest children attended school but often went without any food. In a corner of their yard I spied what looked like a rusty old wheel. I learned it was a rad, a spinning wheel with which the family created cord from the fibers of coconuts obtained through a tedious process of soaking the coconuts till they rot (a month or more), and then beating the insides to create a filament that could be attached to the spinning wheel. After all this, the yield for about four feet of rope was 62 rupees - less than $1.50. That plus occasional fishing comprised the family’s main sources of income. I lay in bed at night wondering how these people carry on, working for so little, never having enough to eat and stay healthy. I marveled at their inner strength, their faith, which allowed them somehow to embrace their circumstances with a gentle warmth and peacefulness that left a far greater impression on me than their destitute physical circumstances.

Of all the families I visited, perhaps none haunts me more than one I met on the last day of our stay. Mariamma Joseph lived with her in-laws and five-year-old paralyzed child in a ramshackle hut with a rusted through roof. Her husband had deserted them; her father was bedridden, paralyzed from a stroke. Her sole source of income was a few rupees from occasion coir work such as I described before. Mariamma had just received a sponsor to help her clothe and feed the four of them. Until then she and her family had subsisted on random gifts of food from neighbors. The photos I took of Mariamma remind me of a Madonna with Child. Again, her grace spoke more strongly of her plight than any woeful lamenting would have and stays with me to this day. Alan videotaped Mariamma, depicting her plight. It did not take much time back in the States for someone to step forth with a donation to build Mariamma a new home and purchase a wheelchair and other items to ease the care of her daughter.

Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained

FFA has been involved with many projects over the years to help families improve their living conditions. Some have worked better than others. Always there has been a drive to keep trying, learning from outcomes, and exploring more ideas. The overwhelming result has been progress.

One year Alan brought supplies to experiment with solar stoves. With all the sunshine and the health problems created by cooking smoke in the huts, this seemed like a great idea. But, there is a reason the coir industry dominates in the area. Everywhere you look there are palm trees. Alan quickly discovered that the solar stoves would only work on the beach as the many palm trees shaded the huts. But people didn’t want to go to the beach to cook — it was inconvenient and they were embarrassed to have others see what they were eating. Great idea in theory, impractical in use.

In contrast, the housing program has been a stunning success. Over 200 houses have been built, twenty-some in the past year. A portion of the money for each house comes from a community development fund. The rest from the family or a sponsor. Funds go far in India. For $1300 it is possible to build a small but dry home. The family contributes much of the labor. Over time they can add electricity, a toilet, even additional rooms.

Fishing and the coir industry are the main sources of work in the villages. FFA has tried a number of programs to supplement these income sources. Poultry raising met with limited success. The feed became infested with maggots in the monsoon season so the animals starved. Raising goats has proved more successful. For $400, a sponsor can buy their family a goat complete with shelter and food. That goat serves as a source of milk for the children and supplements the family’s income through breeding and sales of surplus milk to neighbors.

None of these projects would exist without someone willing to step forth and take risks. I began to appreciate the power of a centered organization. Faced with the population density, health conditions, and hunger among the poor in Alleppey, it would have been easy to throw in the towel, and simply feel sad for the terrible circumstances some must live in. FFA chose instead to acknowledge the circumstances, experiment and learn what might be done, and thus move ever forward toward a goal of empowering individuals and a community — a beautiful example of dealing appropriately with conflict. As my visit progressed I began to see many parallels between the families, able to transform their destitution into progress, and the benefactors, able to experiment and persist in face of overwhelming odds. Power resides with those with vision willing to take action. And that power, freely flowing, adapting to life, creates miracles.

The Gift of Service

One of the clearest examples of centered power was Omana, a woman I had sponsored for three years. My fascination with Omana and her story was a major factor in my decision to travel to India.

In 1996 I was asked to sponsor Omana. At the time she was living with her husband, Uthaman, who was too sick to work, and her three small children, all ill and suffering from malnutrition. Shortly after my sponsorship began their thatched hut collapsed in a monsoon leaving them homeless. Early photos I received depicted an intense, stressed woman with a gentle plea in her eyes. Descriptions focused on her determination to provide for her family. For three years, her letters amazed and inspired me, as she became a living example of the phrase, "True power is energy flowing freely towards a purpose." Through the housing program she received a simple but sturdy house for her family. I bought her a goat. With other funds I sent, she began a firewood business. The small monthly allotment I sent enabled her to purchase food and medicines. Soon her husband was working, her children healing. As the family’s savings grew, Omana began another business, selling ready-made dresses in her village during their festival season. By 1999, she no longer needed monthly assistance from me. She and her family were self-supporting.

When I finally met Omana, her many ventures were thriving. Her husband was building and selling furniture. She had purchased a sewing machine. Her children were bright-eyed and active. Her eyes gleamed, her smile was radiant as she showed me about their property and we shared stories about our children. Confidence and pride resonated in her every word and action. I was amazed to see she was less than 5 feet tall as, with a small amount of support, she had, in effect, moved mountains through simple intention to care for her family.

Our visit together was wonderful. It amazes me that this woman lives on the other side of the world and somehow, through a miracle, we have touched each other’s lives. She feels I have given her so much. In truth, she has given to my family and me. Her story has encouraged us; my children have grown up with a legacy of service and concrete examples of how they have helped others.

And, Omana is not unusual in FFA’s history. So many individuals, with the benefit of medical and nutritional care, supported by seed donations for goats and the like, become energized. There is Michael who was partially paralyzed and received aid for a simple bicycle to rent out to neighbors for carrying items to and from market. From that beginning he expanded into what is now a full fledged storefront rental business. Then there was Joy, who had come up to Alan on one of his many trips begging for help so he could support his mother. Alan found a sponsor to donate a loom and from there Joy created a thriving business that employs others in his neighborhood.

We also visited another of my former families, Mariamma Francis, where three bright-eyed immaculate children greeted us. In the front of their property they now have a store. Excitedly they pointed out to me that they had just purchased a handcart to rent out to neighbors. As I toured the home I had helped build, I saw a first communion dress for their youngest girl hanging in a bedroom. They were a beautiful family with eyes glowing and health written over them. I remembered early photos I received of them, forlorn and ill. With just a small amount of support they had achieved a comfortable living standard. The gift for me was being able to meet them and share in their happiness over their success.

Reflections

My last night in Alleppey I had dinner with the Bishop who provided the office space for FFA. He asked if I would leave a piece of my heart in India, to which I answered, "Yes!" It is such a beautiful country populated by people so full of grace and need. As I prepared to leave, I finally understood why at the beginning of my visit, he called it "God’s Country".

Later I sat writing in my room, under my blue mosquito netting, my heart full.

What I have experienced – the look in the eyes of a mother who can provide for her children compared to the pain in those unable to. The innocence of the sick, undernourished child who almost looks through you as though they are only partly of this world. That compared to the joy and love flowing freely from the healthy, well-fed children. When you have seen both alternatives over and over in a few days time, who could say "no" to creating dreams and empowering these people?
It is impossible not to want to help these people, to offer them support that empowers them and allows them to realize their dreams. What I have experienced firsthand is the difference one person can make. And, I feel blessed that I have made a difference in people’s lives and have been given this chance.

So here I sit. Before I came I was told India will change you. You will never be the same. Is that true? Already I experience the joy of making a difference at a deeper level. I think whenever a problem arises back in the States, I will see the silhouette of the deserted Mariama Joseph holding her paralyzed five-year-old and know I have no troubles. And, when I begin to doubt my own power and effectiveness, I will remember the shining eyes of Mariama Francis’ children who are so well nourished knowing I played a role in their health. The joy that I shared with their parents as they showed me with pride what they have done with their property will never fade. I realize my journey is a gift not just for me but for them too as we’ve been able to celebrate together.

Compassion, celebration, commitment – these are the teachings of this trip. Am I changed? No, not really. Rather validated and rejuvenated. I know that somewhere in the universe my Aunt, Grandmother and parents are looking down, pleased with what is the legacy of our line.