To respond to questions from the previous blog entry: yes, Joseph is an amazing boy. That's why he is one of five children we are hoping to send to an international youth conference in Connecticut this summer. Teenagers there will participate in athletic classes and workshops on peace.
Joseph's application essay (most of which is reproduced below) was so poignant that I wanted to share it. Someone asked me whether he composed it by himself. Joseph wrote it out by hand, with coaching on what to include. I adjusted the grammar.
We've been warned that it is nearly impossible to obtain passports for minors in India. We are determined to try anyway, so wish us luck!
And there have been a few hurdles even on our end, such as lost birth certificates, the fact that our children only have first names, and a student whose birth certificate bears the wrong name (apparently his confused grandmother misreported it)!
Joseph's name is actually Stalin. Communist sympathies run deep in southern India. But a previous director at Rising Star did not think that little Stalin should be going through life with such a name. So she changed it to Joseph. Fine, but none of this assuaged my befuddlement as to what I should write on the US application, since it required two names. "Joseph Stalin"? Will they think this is a joke?
Be that as it may. A remarkable feature of the kids' essays is that every one of the five wrote about how they want to draw on this experience to lift others. All of them included this on their own, without any prompting.
Here are a few more excerpts:
Gracy
[I can't find a picture anywhere and give up. Just take my word for it that she's a cute girl!]
"When I come back to India from this summit, I want to help the poor and leprosy affected people in southern India. I can teach my friends and family in my colony about how to take better care of their sores and how to make the life in the colony better. I know that coming to this event will make me a better person. I will learn things that will help me in college when I study to be an engineer."
Shankar
"I am from India. I have a lot of potential. It is my goal to be a positive leader to help my family and my country. My grandparents have leprosy and so my family has been very poor because they cannot get jobs. I want to show my country that the people who come from leprosy families can do great things."
Rajesh (above, in red): "When I was a younger child, I lived in Paranur with my grandparents. Paranur is a leprosy colony in southern India, and my grandparents have leprosy. Now I am staying at a boarding school, but I go to visit them on all of my school holidays. I help them by carrying water to their house, getting food and other things at the store and sweeping the floor. My Grandma and Grandpa cannot walk well so I walk for them."
Joseph's application essay (most of which is reproduced below) was so poignant that I wanted to share it. Someone asked me whether he composed it by himself. Joseph wrote it out by hand, with coaching on what to include. I adjusted the grammar.
We've been warned that it is nearly impossible to obtain passports for minors in India. We are determined to try anyway, so wish us luck!
And there have been a few hurdles even on our end, such as lost birth certificates, the fact that our children only have first names, and a student whose birth certificate bears the wrong name (apparently his confused grandmother misreported it)!
Joseph's name is actually Stalin. Communist sympathies run deep in southern India. But a previous director at Rising Star did not think that little Stalin should be going through life with such a name. So she changed it to Joseph. Fine, but none of this assuaged my befuddlement as to what I should write on the US application, since it required two names. "Joseph Stalin"? Will they think this is a joke?
Be that as it may. A remarkable feature of the kids' essays is that every one of the five wrote about how they want to draw on this experience to lift others. All of them included this on their own, without any prompting.
Here are a few more excerpts:
Gracy
[I can't find a picture anywhere and give up. Just take my word for it that she's a cute girl!]
"When I come back to India from this summit, I want to help the poor and leprosy affected people in southern India. I can teach my friends and family in my colony about how to take better care of their sores and how to make the life in the colony better. I know that coming to this event will make me a better person. I will learn things that will help me in college when I study to be an engineer."
Shankar
"I am from India. I have a lot of potential. It is my goal to be a positive leader to help my family and my country. My grandparents have leprosy and so my family has been very poor because they cannot get jobs. I want to show my country that the people who come from leprosy families can do great things."
Rajesh (above, in red): "When I was a younger child, I lived in Paranur with my grandparents. Paranur is a leprosy colony in southern India, and my grandparents have leprosy. Now I am staying at a boarding school, but I go to visit them on all of my school holidays. I help them by carrying water to their house, getting food and other things at the store and sweeping the floor. My Grandma and Grandpa cannot walk well so I walk for them."
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