Conversations and discussions about God

Last week, we had a '48 hour prayer' event, which was good, fruitful, tiring, and overwhelming all at the same time. Everyone came back to the base for day-long sessions consisting of lectures, prayer times, and group discussions. We had two guest speakers come and talk to us about... I don't really remember, because their voices had THE most soothing and monotonous tones I've EVER heard in my life. It was a complete struggle to stay awake, and I may or may not have given in to the sleeping monster once or twice (or most of the time).

Plus we stayed up until the wee hours of the night talking and catching up in the girls' dorm, since we haven't seen each other in a while. It was so good to vent our frustrations about the program, the ministry, and the people and just laugh about it. So it was a combination of exhaustion, soothing voices, and sitting down in a closed room for hours that made me fall asleep and miss out on the speakers' message. But at least half the people were in dreamland too, so that made me feel a little better, although I felt bad for the speakers - it's really not their fault they have such calm and sleep-inducing voices. I really wanted to record their voices to use whenever I have insomnia, but I thought that might be a little over the top.

All that being said... the few times I managed to pinch myself hard enough to keep awake and listen, the message was really thought-provoking and interesting. We learned about ourselves through some Johari diagram where your personality is split into 4 areas - one part you show genuinely to others, one part that is a facade you show to others, one part you hide from others, and one part you don't know about. We also learned about God, and had updates from a couple who spent the last few years in Jerusalem reaching out to Jews, which was really interesting.

We also learned about this organization that is helping the Dalit children in India. I was totally awake for this one, because it was fascinating and horrifying and heart-wrenching all at the same time. I learned about the caste system in India in primary (or maybe secondary) school a long time ago, and I thought it was all in the past, but little did I know I was wrong. The speaker showed us videos and pictures and information about how the Dalits (the lowest people in the caste system) are mistreated because their lives are worth less than nothing. The things we heard... oh the horror. I really cannot imagine how human beings can treat other human beings so cruelly. It just pains my heart to think of how some people don't even have the basic freedom and rights to survive.

God made us all equal; I don't understand how some people can have such disregard for the life of another human. It's just... wrong. But the country isn't acknowledging the problem, so lots of people don't know about it. I just hate hearing about these things. I get so upset and then I want to do something to help, but I have no clue what I can do, and it's times like these that I wish I had all the money in the world so I could at least contribute a little to alleviate their suffering.