{"id":1695,"date":"2015-09-28T05:43:07","date_gmt":"2015-09-28T05:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/?p=1695"},"modified":"2016-03-29T04:41:11","modified_gmt":"2016-03-29T04:41:11","slug":"the-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/?p=1695","title":{"rendered":"The Children"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Submitted by Mandy Zimmerman, a member of our U.S. team from August, 2015 trip:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>The first few days in India, I found myself often asking God, \u201cWhat am I doing here?\u201d It wasn\u2019t until I was home for several days that God began to weave pieces together in my heart.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong><em>The children.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"http:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Kids-Kullu.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-1693 alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Kids-Kullu-168x300.jpg\" alt=\"Kids Kullu\" width=\"88\" height=\"148\" \/><\/a>Having four children myself and having been involved in Children\u2019s Church, school activities and child care, I naturally lean toward children. While conducting conferences in Kullu, I noticed I got very little attention from the children. As they would walk by me, I would stare longingly at them with a smile, waiting on one glance my way.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>When we got to Palampur, we were greeted by children who were alive and spurred by the <a href=\"http:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Children-at-Palampur.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-1672 alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Children-at-Palampur-300x235.jpg\" alt=\"Children at Palampur\" width=\"208\" height=\"165\" \/><\/a>love of Christ. I was in awe that they seemed to be the center of the ministry. The church would often go to children for prayer. Then at a tea plantation, we were met by children who stared longingly but showed little emotion when reached out to. I scooped up a little girl and planted her on my lap during our visit. She sat, singing songs and listening but neither offering nor receiving affection.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a title=\"The Children\" href=\"http:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/?page_id=1671\">Continue Reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Submitted by Mandy Zimmerman, a member of our U.S. team from August, 2015 trip: The first few days in India, I found myself often asking God, \u201cWhat am I doing here?\u201d It wasn\u2019t until I was home for several days &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/?p=1695\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1695"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1695"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1696,"href":"https:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1695\/revisions\/1696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}