Hard Labor

One of the girls on the team works for Compassion International in the U.S. and so yesterday Heather, Joe and I traveled with the team to Vijayanagram to visit a Compassion site. One of the things we saw while there was a stone quarry.

Endentured Servitude

Many of the laborers migrated to this place looking for work. When things don’t pan out as they’d hoped, they take a loan from a wealthy businessman to make ends meet. This wealthy business man happens to be the owner of a large stone quarry, and he agrees to let them work off their loan – and impossibly high interest – by working in his quarry. These people will spend the rest of their lives working off their debt.

The men swing sledge hammers all day, breaking larger boulders into manageable chunks. The women take those chunks and sort them into piles by size, carrying the stones on their heads in baskets. Then a huge lorry truck comes to pick up the rock piles and take them to who-knows-where where they can sell them.

The workers earn about $2 for every full truck that leaves the quarry. Many of these people have been working everyday for 10 or 15 years. Short of their master forgiving their debt, there’s no way out.

Walking around the quarry yesterday brought a new sense of importance to the work Vision Nationals is doing in India. I was looking at the life most of the children in our Children’s Home were destined for before the Lord plucked them out of their circumstance and brought them to us. How different these kids’ lives will be. And their kids, and their kids, and their kids…because of the work being done here. How blessed I am to be such a small part of such great change.

Changing one life at a time.