The night air carried a quiet stillness, broken only by the distant barking of stray dogs and the occasional rustle of a rat scurrying along the crumbling pavement. The street was dimly lit, the glow of a few remaining streetlights casting long, uncertain shadows. Most of the shops were closed, their metal shutters pulled down tight, as if shutting out the world beyond.

I walked slowly, my breath visible in the December chill, taking in the reality that lay before me. The first thing I saw was a young boy, no older than eight or nine, crouched beside a small fire made from scraps of wood and trash. He held his hands close to the flickering flames, his thin frame shivering beneath a tattered shirt. His eyes, hollow with exhaustion, flicked up to meet mine before quickly darting back to the fire, as if afraid I might take even that small comfort away from him.

A few steps ahead, another boy lay curled up on the cold concrete steps of a shuttered storefront. His bare feet were black with dirt, his arms wrapped tightly around his chest. He slept fitfully, shifting every so often as if trying to escape the hardness of the stone beneath him.

I kept walking, my heart growing heavier with each step. Near the end of the street, I spotted two more boys huddled together inside a wooden trash cart. They lay among discarded papers and broken bits of plastic, their small bodies rising and falling with each breath. One of them stirred slightly, but neither woke.

We see this kind of suffering on television—documentaries and commercials showing children in desperate conditions, their ribs pressing through skin, their eyes pleading silently for help. But seeing it in person, standing just feet away from them on a dark street in India, made it real in a way I had never known before.

I felt an ache deep in my chest. I couldn’t just stand there. I couldn’t pretend I hadn’t seen them. Jesus’ words came to mind:

"Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble…" James 1:27

I had read that verse countless times, but here, in this moment, it wasn’t just a passage in the Bible—it was a command, a calling. These boys weren’t statistics or sad stories in a magazine. They were real, living children, abandoned and alone in a world that had forgotten them.

I took a deep breath, whispering a silent prayer. Lord, what can I do?

And as I stood in the middle of that quiet street, surrounded by the sleeping and the suffering, I knew that this—this moment, this burden—was why I had been called here.

India had changed me before, but tonight, it was about to change me forever.