Bina

Tuesday before Easter one of my colleagues (not at the school) and her husband were watching TV when they heard moaning noises from their 12 year old work-girl. The girl had wanted to go back to her village and her grandmother since she had come about a month previously. It is very common that families send their daughters (and sometimes sons) away to work at a young age. This often solves two problems – the work-girls family have one less mouth to feed and the family the children work for have someone who can take care of little children or help with household chores. My colleague went into the room and tried talking to the girl who at first didn’t respond. It didn’t take long before she noticed that there was a ring of hair around the bed in which the girl lay. Someone had cut the hair and placed it in a band around the bed. When my colleague touched the work-girl to make her wake up, she felt a strange sensation going through her body and didn’t remember anything until almost three hours later.

 

When a friend of mine (I apologize for not using names, but some of the readers might recognise people) arrived at the home it was closer to midnight. The work-girl was on the veranda and the woman she worked for was sitting in the living room laughing and crying. A group of church people had gathered and were singing and praying in another room. My friend didn’t have to ask to get the story. He could see the hair for himself and noticed how beautifully it had been cut. Soon the church people arrived in the living room and started praying and asking the woman to say each other’s names, to hold and read a Bible and to say Jesus’ name. They were quite unsuccessful. The only exciting thing that happened was when the work-girl came into the room and they started shouting at each other; the woman shouted to get the girl out of the room.

 

After having failed, the church people decided to leave and prepare themselves better before trying to right the situation again. They came back after some time and realised that the woman had been sitting in a corner of the room. After putting her in the centre and laying hands on her and many more prayers had gone up the woman finally started talking coherently; reading a Bible verse, saying people’s names and even Jesus’.

 

The following morning the work girl was taken back to her step-mother and the village she had come from. On the way there she said, ‘my grandmother is happy now that I am coming back home to perform puja.’ (Puja is an act of devotion in Hindu religion.)

 

Please pray with me for this girl, her name is Bina.