Mama Pushpa
Mama is David Lall's mother. She is an 80 year old widow that still stays up until 11:00 just to visit those in hard situations. From the way she lives her life, she should be worn out, but she has gained even more energy from serving Christ so fervently. Anytime someone is sick in the church, she will visit them. Anytime someone has something to celebrate, she will go celebrate with them. From what we can see, she has never missed an opportunity to reach out. And on top of this she still runs a widow ministry, and teaches destitute women how to sew and make money. She also runs a ministry that works with special needs children who would otherwise be either killed or locked in thier house, hidden from society. Each time we meet with Mama, we prepare ourself to be met with a holy kiss! This woman gives a warm and welcoming feeling to everyone indiscriminantly.
Mr. Mick
This man is changing the status quo to the extent that I cannot even use his real name in this public blog. Even though the caste system was erradicated by the government, most people still live by those rules. Most people from lower castes, do not even know the oppression that they are under. For them, the reality is that they are inferior beings.
Mr. Mick had an enlightening experience that led him to see the system from another light. He was from a very low class. So low in fact that people believe that they couldn't even touch items that these low class people had touched, lest they become "unholy." One day Mr. Mick accidentally touched a table where someone was selling tea. The salesmen screamed and cursed at him for making his table "unholy" and set out to have his table cleansed. Right after this happened a dog came and urinated on the same table. The water salesman did nothing. So Mr. Mick began to question him... "I touch the table and you get very upset, but this dog relieves himself on you table and you don't mind?" The salesman replied, "That was just a dog." It was at this point that Mr. Mick realized he was part of a system that viewed him as being lower than even "dog piss."
At that point he sought to find something else. He thought there must be more to life than this, there has to be some higher truth. So, he began seeking "Truth" and preaching freedom to the lower castes. He now has a following of over 45,000 people.
The first time we met Mr. Mick he has brought in 15 children from a village. He was explaining child marriage to us. In lower castes only children have marriages arranged for them when they are 9 or 10
years old. Out of the 15 children present, 9 of them were already married. Soon the girls would become mothers. And if the child husband became bored with her, he could leave her and entertain other interests in marriage, which would leave the first girl open to multiple marriages and sleeping partners, or destitution. The high castes, on the other hand usually are educated through college, then they start looking for spouses. This leaves the lower castes oppressed in terribly torn family situations and uneducated views of life.Education is another passion for Mr. Mick. He has seen that the higher class are purposely taking away good education opportunities from the lower castes. In a particular village, all children were attending a government school, but several years ago the high class parents have taken their children out of the government school and put them in expensive private schools where they will get a very good education and continue on through college. This leaves the lower class students with teachers who pay little attention to them and a drunken principal. He found that by the 8th grade, students from low castes could barely write their own name in Hindi, let alone speak or write English. Since the government school is in the afternoon, this man has helped to set up a tutoring program in the morning which teaches the students first to read and write Hindi, then English, Math, and Sciences. This man's life is in danger for what he is doing.
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