The Day I Translated a Life-Changing Message in Kolkata (Ken & Janelle)

In this video, Janelle shares a touching memory from 2007 when she served as a missionary with the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata, India

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Transcript

Welcome back everybody it's great to see you thanks for joining us it's a little bit colder here today so we probably won't be too long today um so Ken and I were just talking about what we could share in this video and I had recalled this memory that I had from quite a while ago um it was in 2007 and I was about I think 26 years old it was before Ken and I were married and a group of us there was five of us we traveled to Kolkata India to do some missionary work with the Mother Teresa's order the missionaries of Charity and I remember I was placed um in one of the orphanages and I worked there and I kind of helped to do some of the teaching to the children and one of the sisters found out that I actually could also speak in French and at one point she came up to me and she said you know we have this young gentleman here who traveled from France he's a young adult and he wanted to find out about his history because this gentleman actually was one of the orphans in this very orphanage you know 25 years earlier but he could only speak French and the sisters were able to speak English so they needed a translator and so um they asked me if I would be willing to uh relay the information to him so we had this really special meeting in one of their little humble offices where this young gentleman his name was Augustine um sat down and he started asking questions like you know what was my mother's name or what was what was the circumstance under which I was brought to the orphanage and it was like really humbling for me to be able to tell this young man like such important um truths about his life because he didn't know but and you were the translator in this yeah I was a translator so the sister would speak to me in English I would relay the information to him in French then he would ask a question in French and I would then proceed to ask the sister that same question in English and so it was like a super um privileged moment to be there and just to be able to even tell him his mother's name you know and that he came from a Christian family and that his parents didn't um bring him there because they didn't love him but it was because of their circumstance and their poverty that they could not care for him um and they wanted a good future for him so it was it was really special to be there and I just thought um I I really really cherish that memory and the other thing that really stood out to me in that experience was uh so often when people come to India like sometimes they'll it seems like um there's a lot a lot of tourists that buy kind of the tourist kind of outfits that people wear and and it's very um cultural but at the same time it's also connected a lot to like Hindu traditions because the Hindu religion is very um common in that part of the world and so this gentleman was wearing I think he was wearing either a shirt or some pants with like I don't even know if I would have been able to tell but they had like symbols of of Hinduism on them and so the sister proceeded to ask me or she wanted to relay something to him and what she said was you know do you know that what you are wearing um reflects uh the Hindu religion and I don't think he was aware of that and then she wanted me to make sure that he understood that he came from a Christian home from a Catholic home and that he should be behaving and be um living out his life as a Catholic and that a Catholic should not be wearing clothing like that and I remember translating this back to him in French what was his response I remember I think he just smiled and I think he just received it he wasn't offended at all um but I just thought that was really important it's like if we ever have the opportunity to call someone to a higher standard maybe because they just simply don't know I think that that God can can use that moment what was was what was his uh reaction when he was learning learning about his parents for the first time cuz did was there information on both his mom and dad no it was just his mother actually yeah no there wasn't anything about his father what was his reaction oh I think it was like he was very delighted to find out there wasn't a ton of information like I bet you the meeting lasted all of 30 minutes maybe but um I think there was some documents that he was able to look at and things like that um but yeah so was he adopted out of this home after what happened like what was he actually adopted or you know oh yeah he was adopted from one of the homes like one of the orphanages that the sisters ran in Kolkata called shishu bavan and then he his family was from France and so he moved to France which is why you were translated yeah and then 20 some years later he came back because he wanted to find out this information wow so interesting I I when you were sharing this earlier with me I just thought of how throughout human history and all the different civilizations that we we are aware of there's always this longing of where did I come from this is a natural longing you know every civilization has their myths and their creation stories and but from the Catholic perspective we don't believe in myths we believe in Revelation we believe in God the Father Almighty creator of Heaven and Earth we believe that we have a Creator and that Creator is father and sometimes we are born born into situations where it's not ideal like this young man it wasn't ideal for him to be born in poverty but there were still longing to know where he came from I I think of other situations where people are not born into an ideal situation a little sidestep here but the situation between where there's maybe two women who are in a romantic relationship and they want to bring children into their relationship and what they do is they they can't do that without a man so they introduce another adult into this situation and through unnatural means they conceive a child and bring this child into the world but then intentionally remove that child from one of its biological parents this is very different than adoption for in this case the interests of adults are placed above the interests of a child whereas adoption is the interest of the child being placed above the interest of adults and you can see this in the strict um protocols and background checks that people have to go through just to adopt a child why because the interest of the child is being placed above the interests of adults and any time in our life or in this Society where we place the interests of adults above the interests of children children get hurt and sometimes we just that's not that child's fault um at all and there's there can be a wound because everyone wants to know where did I come from that's that child's going to ask that question a an adopted child's going to ask that question um when we come from a broken home and maybe one doesn't know their father or their mother vice versa you know they're going to ask that question where did I come from and so we live in a broken world what's the solution we have to go back to what we have been what has been revealed to us we believe in God the Father Almighty creator of Heaven and Earth God the father if he's father he also has sons and daughters and so the wound that might be caused because of unideal situations by which we've been brought into the world can be healed no matter what our situation is by the grace of God in Jesus Christ because through the merits of Jesus Christ by his grace we become adopted children adopted Sons and Daughters of God and I think that's the beauty of Catholicism that answers the longing of the heart that every situ every civilization has been searching for where did I come from and we get that answer in our faith so thanks for watching oh hey before we close here advent's coming up right yeah Advent starting on December 1st and so and so we will be starting our Advent series again this year and we would love to invite you to join us so five days a week we're going to be doing videos Monday through Friday we take the weekends off reflecting on the spiritual life we are once again going to go back to St Fus Lori because we just love him uh and so we're going back to him and we're going to look at his writings with fresh eyes and hopefully A Renewed heart and so if you're interested in joining us and getting those videos by email that's the best best way to do it there will be a link in the description of this video click that link it'll bring you to a landing page where you can opt in and join starting um December 1st December 1st you're going to start getting videos 5 days a week from Janelle and I and there might be a little surprise an occasional special guest but we'll we'll figure that one out first but that might also be there so we hope you join us for that mm and are there any other requirements for the Advent series well we often typically have asked people to to say a rosary with us yeah and I will really try hard to make sure the videos aren't too long cuz I know if you're like me you don't maybe always have a lot of time yeah but maybe most people aren't like me and they want long videos I don't know anyways so please join us Link in the description for the Advent series coming up uh and share with us below with the do all right God bless you