November 18th. For my brothers and sisters at Bethania. I love you. Paige.

Saying goodbye to our family here was heartbreaking. We have grown to love all of these children, individually, so much. It was so hard to say goodbye to all this beautiful, sweet love and kindness.

We passed out little gift bags we had packed individually for each of the child and a card we had decorated and written individually with special memories, pictures, inside jokes and stickers on them, last night. We picked paper of everyone's favorite colors and stickers of their favorite animals and wrote letters and then extra words and special pictures for everyone. On Muga's of course there was a little monkey, a coconut tree and a dolphin. On little Karthi's there were pictures of his favorite Uno cards (we let him keep the Uno cards) and his favorite words to spell 'cat' and 'dog' with tons of stickers. Of course, a blue lorry for MK and chess pieces and a chess board for our favorite Chess Master, Antony. I love that kid. Alagar's is rose colored and Divya's green. All the kids were so sweet and showered us with Thank Yous and cards and little gifts of jewlery, bangles, and other sweet, thoughtful presents. Nandhini had filled envelopes with her tiny bangles, finger puppets, a beautiful stone and these funny plastic bead like things a lot of the children have given us. Not quite sure what they are. But the kids were also quite confused about the use for the glue sticks, socks and corks we gave them. 'Sister, what use?'

We colored and listened to music together, playing Chess, dancing and of course Uno cards. It all felt surreal. It's impossible to imagine life without these special people. Pandi saved us each two sparklers from Deepavali. And we lit them in the night and watched them burn, spark and sparkle in the dark air, while little Akash danced around happily screaming 'sissteerr!!!' Pandi was so proud. He's such a good kid, with a beautiful, generous heart like his big sister, Muthumari. Mani and I stared at a star/plane in the sky and discussed if it was a star or plane..I say plane, but all the children say star.

Muruganandam gave me the pink pendant he had been showing us magic tricks on the bus with. He's so funny. I would be amazed by his magic tricks, but then he'd explain the trick so I could do it later, laughing.

The day before we left we went to school in the afternoon on the bus to pick up all the children. We sat on the bus waiting for the boys, when a crowd of children from the elementary school stormed the bus, screaming 'white girls!' in Tamil. We waved and smiled at the 40 or so smiling faces calling out sister and asking our names in Tamil. We were relieved to see our children arrive at the bus soon though. Pandi rode up on the back of his best friend's bike. His best friend is so cute and is named Saddam Hussein. We asked a couple times to confirm his name and even ST, the bus driver asked about it. It was funny to meet such a lovely, cute, friendly, Saddam Hussein. He followed our bus on his bike for a while and I stuck my head out the window to yell 'Bye bye Saddam Hussein!' He was excited we liked to say his name so much.

On the bus Muruganadam, Joker, showed us magic tricks with the pink pendant, laughing and smiling. I'm gonna miss that face so much and those funny jokes. Sethu with his sweet smile and lisp. He's so sweet, even when he gets in fights with the other boys, you can tell he's just needing that attention real bad. He wrote me so many beautiful cards with hearts and awesome pictures and then gave me a plastic heart pendant. Smart Sathish hopped on the bus, and of course 'school is good sister!' with that super cute smile and of course he took his spot like always, back of the bus by the window, such a cool kid. Mani was there, handsome with those beautiful eyes, so kind, talking all about school. He's ranked first in his class. So proud! Little chess master Antony was there with his crazy cute smile and skinny little arms and legs. 'Sssiiisterrr!' His voice is so distinctive. Always know it's him. I love all these kids so much! Each one of them special. I'm so happy everytime I see them, and to say goodbye was so hard. It still hasn't really hit me that we're leaving. 'You coming back sister? When? June? Christmas?' Rani keeps wanting us to Pinkie promise that we come back this summmer. Even Lavanya, who is usually so quiet came over, 'no leaving sister!'

This morning when we were saying bye, funny, strong Muruganadam, brother of beautiful Nandhini was crying and it was breaking my heart. 'Don't cry jokeman! Snow White. Joker! Don't cry!' Nandhini and Muruganadam are such good brothers and sisters, they sign all their gifts and cards with both their names and always talk about each other and share their food and gifts. They've been through a lot of pain together. Such strong, amazing people. And big Muthumari, so strong and like a mother for all the girls, always with her intricate stories, and secrets and kind words to share with us. Her tears were breaking my heart. Dhana Packiam, beautiful, intense, wise Dhana Packiam. 'No crying, sister! You cry, all students are crying.' I told Dhana Packiam, 'you are a gift.' She's 15, been at Bethania since she was 8. Grown up there..

We played music this morning. All the favorites of course. We played 'Right Round' with the girls upstairs. Sathya danced to the whole song, beautiful, passionate dancing, never stopping. She twirled, the whole time smiling, hands on her hips, all the other girls watching and I'm singing. I gave her my necklace with a seashell. The boys set alarms on the ipod to ring later with their names, and we listened to 'Jogi' and then this morning at breakfast of course 'Gasolina' and 'Aisha.' These silly songs are all their favorites. Alagar, our favorite DJ, ran over to play 'Low.' All the girls kept turning around to look at us eating our idly and coconut chutney.

I'm gonna miss Divya so bad. That girl, she keeps it real, so funny and beautiful. A real friend. I love Divya. She gave us her doll Panjavarnam, so we're going to mail her photos of Panjavarnam all over the world, make a scrapbook. That girl loves the color green. And sweet Saraswathi from Kodai always there to give hugs (which most kids are afraid of) and kind words. I love that girl. She's our Kodai, Barbie girl. And of course, beautiful Ramya, the only art teacher or math teacher I've ever loved. She's taught me more about life and love (and art and math) than any of them. I gave her a blank journal and my watercolors and paint brushes. She's a beautiful artist and beautiful girl with such a big heart. I'm gonna miss them all so much!

We read from the Bible this morning at prayer in English, then the girls read the same passage in Tamil. I was going to read my favorite one about 'ask and you shall receive' in St. Luke 11:11 cause I wish the world for these people, that they have everything they need, happiness and love, health and safety. That God blesses them with everything they ever ask for. That every door they knock on is opened for them. But I opened up our torn old Bible, magic little Bible with no cover, no binding, the pages all yellowed and old, and the first thing I read was Jesus talking to the apostles.

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

St. John 15:27

Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If you loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I.

St. John 15:28

It's out of context, but I was crying reading it, trying not to let my voice crack, all the children sitting cross legged like always, on the floor of the hall where we always pray. We prayed, all kneeling, and I tried so hard not to cry, thanking God and asking for blessing upon on all these children, that they may be happy, and safe, and healthy, and loved always. That their lives are full of kindness and love and free of suffering. I love these children so much and I wish for them so much happiness and love. They have so much struggle, suffering, loss, pain and injustice in their lives, it hurts to see them cry. I thanked God for all the blessings.

We hugged everyone, giving away the last of our things, earrings, bracelets, everything, as they left for school. Big (little) Karthi gave me a bracelet. I love that boy. He's 'big' Karthi, but he always my little big Karthi, with his sweet smile. I love playing ball with him, throwing that tiny ball in the dark, his beautiful smile and laugh while we play. And Sathish and Pandi gave us both metal necklaces. Sathish is my boy. I love him. His favorite color is green. He's so smart, our narrator in Snow White plays, and always reading. He wants to be in the Army when he grows up, cuts out newspaper pictures of Army men, and he gave me his little Indian army flag pin. He can be so serious sometimes, but when he dances and is outside blowing bubbles, his smile is beautiful and when you tell him how super his reading is. We read so many books together.

Last night we took out all our clothes for the girls and passed them out. It was funny seeing the little girls running around in our big shirts, so silly and happy. M+M in her AC Milan jersey and Rani in Kelsey's green shirt down to her knees. Dhana Packiam in a button down white, Abercrombie shirt and little Priya in a white H+M shirt. We passed out handfuls of crayons, colored pencils, all the markers, sharpies and the last of the stickers. It felt so surreal. All their voices screaming 'Sister!' I'm going to miss all my brothers and sisters grabbing my hands, screaming, 'Sister!!! I Sister!! I sister!!' So much. So much. These children are such a gift. In the words of wise, beautiful, Dhana Packiam 'your love is stole my heart.' Don't worry, girl, I won't ever forget for you.

We hugged the children as they got on the bus. 'I love you' We reached in the windows, holding onto hands. Oh God.

We planted trees with GP and ST after the kids left for school, walked around and thanked everyone. We gave the kitchen ladies a fly swatter to keep flies off the food and vegetables when they are cooking and keep the baby chickens out of the rice. It was funny. I did a demonstration, smacking the flies that lazily hang around all the vegetables and they were all laughing. Watch out lazy Indian flies!

Saraswathi came home with fever and told us the children cried on the bus to school. It breaks my heart to leave them. Saraswathi said to not be sad, that we'll always be in each others prayers. We won't forget. I'm already thinking about all the photos and cards and present I want to send to all of them. We have a list of everyone's birthday and so many beautiful photos. They need so many simple things though, like handkerchiefs, pencils, water bottles, buttons...
And love.

We wrote a big sign with all the children's names and hung it in the dining hall.

'I love you'

Nithya, Priya, Nageswari, MuthuLakshmi, Muga, Nandhini, Sathya, Suganya, Rani, Veni, M+M, Baby, Ramya, Muthumari, Rosie, Dhana Packiam, Divya, Saraswathi, Surya, Mary, Lavanya, Tambi, Karthi, MK, Antony, Sethu, Karthi, Alagarsamy, Chella Pandi, Pandi, Muruganandam, Sathish, Mani, Chennaiya, Muni Muni.

'God Bless you'

'Love, Paige and Kelsey'