On Monday, we travelled a very long distance (8 hours!) along the coast to a place called Anaikarai. There we stayed overnight until Tuesday afternoon at the Mercy Home, run by the Sacred Heart Sisters, an Indian congregation.
The Mercy Home is a residence for eighty physically and mentally challenged girls and women, aged 15 to 70. Most have a quite severe mental handicap.
These women and girls have, at some time, literally been abandoned. Each of them was brought here by the police, by ordinary people, or by sisters and priests, having been found abandoned and destitute on the streets of some village or town.
In the Mercy Home they at least find safety, security, companionship, food and a bed. The sisters and staff here do their best to give the women and girls some vocational training, counselling, and they help them to care of themselves as regards health and hygiene.
The Mercy Home gets no Government aid whatsoever. They are totally dependent on donations for the work here.
Notwithstanding that, the sisters embarked on a fantastic new building for the girls and women four years ago. It's circular in shape and there will be a big open area inside. This will be home for the women, along with many other facilities.
The amazing thing is that the sisters embarked on this project knowing that they could only build the new Home stage by stage, as donations became available to them. Their faith and hope paid off for them, because the Home will be completed in June 2010.
It was a joy for Joseph and myself to celebrate mass, very simply, with the sisters and some of the women in a small chapel. The rest of the morning we spent just spending time with the residents here. They have all the attributes of a child: trust, smiles, affection, warmth.
Tuesday has been a very special day of my travels through Tamil Nadu having met with very special people.
