This week three incredible young teachers from Little Miracles, Rob and myself have been in India. We have come to train Early Childhood teachers in a school that is attached to an orphanage. The children from both the orphanage and the village nearby attend the school that goes from age three to twelve years old. These people are the Dalit people who are the lowest class of people in India. India is a country that is very class conscious, and the Dalit are the poorest of the poor.

It is amazing how beautiful these people are, the children are so hungry to learn and the teachers are very keen to know how to teach well. We have all found this whole week to be a very humbling experience.

The poverty is all around and yet the people are so generous with what they have and so very welcoming. The children find so much pleasure in such simple things. They are so polite and respectful and so very well behaved in class. Our hearts were captured by each child right from the first meeting. As we arrived, they were all lined up in the driveway and as we walked up the drive, each child had flowers that they threw over us. We were offered beautiful lays of fresh flowers to wear around our necks, the abundance of flowers, smiles and love we received nearly exploded my heart.

As we walked the length of the driveway, there was a carpet of flowers covering the ground behind us. A carpet of red, yellow and orange flowers it was just beautiful. Our hair, clothes and sun hats were full of flowers; the fragrance was magnificent. We were made to feel like royalty. It was entirely unexpected and very unbelievable to see such enthusiasm in all the faces of these precious children, teachers and

staff. Each day has been an adventure watching the children and teachers experience new and exciting things that our beautiful children in our Little Miracles Centres in Australia experience on a daily basis.

To see the faces of the children as they finger painted for the first time was just wonderful. They were very timid to touch the paint at first, however once they felt that lovely thick gooey paint on their little fingers and saw how they could move it around the piece of paper to make swirly patterns. As they did this, their whole face would light up. 

As they swirled and combined the colours to make even more colours they began to giggle. Their sense of wonderment awoke as they could see their creations unfold in front of them.  You can just imagine how proud and excited they were as we placed their first piece of craft up on the walls for all to see. There were squeals of excitement.

It was so much fun to go shopping and buy the ingredients for play dough and slime and then teach the teachers how to make them both. They were like little children themselves as they played with them for
the first time. They could hardly wait to show the children the next day. Again, the children were timid at first, they just sat there and looked at the play dough not sure what to think but after some encouragement and example from the teachers and us, they were soon having so much fun creating all sorts of snakes, snails, butterflies and fish.

I could go on and on telling you about the wonderful firsts that we have experienced in these days. I could share about all of the things we have taught them. However, I want to tell you of some of the beautiful things they taught us.

These wonderful people have shown us how to be grateful, how to enjoy the simple things in life, how to be generous when you have so very little and how to honour others. We have been so very spoilt, they have gone to so much trouble to serve us food that we can eat without too many spices. As soon as they know we like something they have gone out of their way to acquire it for us. We just mentioned how we love fruit in Australia and the next day we are served watermelon, oranges, apples and bananas. This may sound like no big deal; the truth is to buy this for us they had to spend money that is needed for themselves and they had to travel about 45 minutes to the shops just for us. They are so grateful for what we are doing they just can’t do enough for us, they are truly so hospitable, their hearts are so grateful, we are very humbled and blown away.

The biggest challenge the Dalit people face is the class distinction; they are classed as less than dogs and taught by society that they deserve to be poor and can never be of any value or significance. This, of course, is so wrong. They are just the same as us all, they are born for a purpose and a future and we are here to help them achieve that.

As a mother of four and grandmother of ten (soon eleven), I am so very grateful for my beautiful country of Australia and all it offers myself and my family. I want to encourage us as parents and grandparents to teach our children that everyone is of the same value, we are all, as human beings made for love and respect.

Let’s make sure we aren’t living with class distinction in our societies and that everyone knows without doubt in our world that they are significant and valued. Let’s teach our children to love, honour and respect everyone regardless of how poor or rich they may be.

Be blessed,
Susanna