The pilgrimage for me continues. The race ended for me in May of 2008. Here I am in India. The real life team I was leading has left India after all of the bomb craziness in Mumbai. They are happy, healthy, and at home :) I am here in Calcutta with my sweet, wonderful, crazy friend Tammy. Its been surreal. Being here in Calcutta has floored me. I keep meeting all of these ordinary radicals, and they keep on pushing me to live beyond materialism and 401k plans and fancy vacations, i LOVE IT! We meet with with phenomenal organization called Freeset that is essentially setting women free from sex slavery in Calcutta's red light districs. They are employing 150 women and their goal is to someday employ 10,000...meaning they're dream is to free every sex worker in Calcutta. Its beautiful. My jaw literally was dragging on the floor as they walked us around their property. It was amazing, all of these women, freed. And it all started with a dream that the Lord gave this unassuming New Zealand couple. They packed up their three little kids and moved to India in obedience and that has radically changed lives...seeds that have fallen to the ground and died to the dreams of our culture and our world and alive to the dreams of our big, beautiful God. And then today, just a little woman named Agnes and her love for the poorest of poor...just another seed fallen to the ground. Just ordinary people, like you and me swept away by His love. So much more...not enough time to process.
Christmas brings a lot of things to mind for many people: snow, Santa Claus, stockings, food, family, gifts, etc. It tends to be a time of year full of joy and excitement for many people. Small children fall asleep Christmas Eve anxiously waiting to open their eyes on Christmas morning.
However, this is not the typical Christmas for most people around the world, including here in India. There is a great need here, and this is a call for YOU to step up and be Jesus to the children and staff at Asha House and Asha Mission through giving. Jesus did not come and die so we can sit back and enjoy life. Jesus came and died to save us because we cannot save ourselves, and He has called us to love. That love needs to extend to all people of all nations, including the children of Asha House and Asha Mission.
We, the India team, are asking you to be Jesus to these children and staff by giving. Your giving is not going to useless wants, it's going to lagitament needs. Here is a list of items that the orphanages have a need for:
Asha House: Asha Mission:
-soap -winter clothes
-shampoo -closed toed shoes
-toothbrushes -sweaters
-mittens -blankets
-hats -bed sheets
-sweaters -new bunk bed
-underwear
Some of these items seem so basic to us, but the means to attain them do not exist for these orphanages. We have included the address and other information t o send money to below. You can be assured that every cent sent in will go to these orphanages for their Christmas.
Please prayerfully consider giving even just a little so that these children will be taken care of as best as possible. PLEASE don't finish reading this and ignore it as you continue on in your comfortable life while these children continue with so little.
Step up. You have the opportunity to be Jesus to these children.
"Religion that God our father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world" James 1:27
--India Team ‘08
Address:
First United Methodist Church
301 South Main Street
PO Box 35 Randelman, NC 27317
-Make checks payable to: First United Methodist Church
Going to the leper colony is hard. Its uncomfortable. Its awkward. There are no words to describe how odd it is. A group of Americans, walking through like a group of tourists to befriend the people who are living life in an Indian leper colony. Something about it feels so patronizing. And as you look into people's eyes you have to wonder, what makes you different from me? Are we different? What makes us the same?
We visited the leper colony once again and the dread in me was there again. UGH. I am a missionary and this is no glory story. The material need, the physical need, the health needs, the spiritual needs are so in your face. Jesus' response to all of this would be compassion, why is mine of self-protection and feelings of being overwhelmed. I can't handle it. So, I don't know what else to do but to pray. So in all of this need, this desperation, I pray the most honest prayer I have in all of our visits to the leper colony. We can't do this without You, Jesus. You have to go into that alley, touch eyes, hearts, minds, bodies in ways that a human cannot. We step out of the car, out of safety, out of comfort and into the alley. The children from the slums run over to us like they have honing beacons and can sense and smell western blood. We walk through the alley, people raise their heads from their beds. The hopelessness is thick. We walk to the end of the alley, gather the kids. We talk to Jesus and ask Him to join us there in that little patch of concrete that is swarming with flies, with these little ones from the slums. They sit with a stillness and quietness that they have never had before. I ask, do you know who Jesus is? Has anyone here heard of Jesus? Our translator translates the question. No. They have never heard of this Jesus. It's a profound moment. The team and I are struck by this realization that there is no knowledge of Jesus here, yet Jesus is here. So where do you begin? How do you begin to explain to these little ones that have no concept of Him? Jesus is God, Jesus loves you, Jesus loved you so much He died for you. Its overwhelming. We only have half an hour with them, we share what we can in the short amount of time that we can. I share about something thats been intimate to me in the past several years. I share about Jesus being God and God being in your boat when you are scared. When all you can feel is the wind and the the waves, and you want to run and hide. But then there He is. How we can talk to our God when we are scared, because even the wind and the wave obey Him. Because He is there, unafraid, even just hanging out and napping, while we run around screaming our little heads off.
After we shared, I saw a little old woman sitting on the ground. Watching and listening. I sat down next to her and started to chat with her through body language. Its amazing what you can communicate through pointing, grunts, etc. :) I found out that her children are alcoholics, they beat her. She is going blind, her legs hurt. This sweet little woman, just sitting there, listening to our children's teaching. She continues to come out every week, to sit in the back as we teach the children. The Spirit of God is moving in that place. His hand is moving. Human eyes cannot see it, but I am speaking it in faith. I've seen adults peeking their heads over the wall of the leper colony, listening. I've seen the lepers come out and sit as we teach the children, their curiosity tickled. And so, the Lord hears and He uses the fish and loaves that we bring to feed the hungry in ways that we cannot see with our eyes. But we believe in what we cannot see. So its all good.
I have always admired people that are really honest and shameless. Like, whenever I read people's blogs, especially some of these race blogs, I am shocked by the level of honesty I see and I crave it. I think about the type of people that talk about praying for sight for a blind man and then how they confess that they are not sure that God can heal him. That's so honest and so real and I think God is honored by it, honored that we know that He knows our thoughts and that there is no use in trying to hide them. So, in light of all of that I am going to be honest and confess some things.
India is hard. The culture shock I have experienced here was intense. You would think that after living in 11 different countries, living out of a bag for a year would have better prepared me for this. I know that I am so blessed. I've been blessed by parents that have sacrificed immensely to leave Korea and immigrate to the States in hope of a better life for their future family. I have grown up in plenty, been blessed with a college education. I am rich by the world's standards. All that to say, the transition was rough. Its hard to go from comfort, life with couches, carpet, screens on windows, a sense of entitlement, hot water, tv, internet, starbucks, green lawns, driveways, sidewalks, coffee machines...to our life in India. I'm not suffering. I'm uncomfortable. I get tired of gnats landing on my face and flying into my mouth when I'm trying to sleep. Its uncomfortable to have large ants crawling on my legs while I try to sleep. The pollution is bad. Preparing dinner is a challenge. We go to 5 different stores to pick up things for dinner for the night. Those things are inconvenient. But, it's an incredibly humbling thing to look at the staff at the orphanages as they get up at 5am to prepare the orphans for school and for the day. Their purpose is to serve the orphans daily for the Lord. So humbling. Stuff like that just makes you be quiet and gives you some perspective.
Another confession, sometimes I don't know what to do. I've noticed that the lepers don't really care if we are there or not. Its hard to love people that don't give a crap that you are there. We drive up to the leper colony, which is on the outskirts of the city. They live in these little one room homes that line both sides of this little alley. We walk up, the children from the slums go crazy with excitement to see white people and me J. We hang out with them for a bit, and then walk down the alley. People look out their windows, pick their heads up from their beds to take a look at us, roll back over and then go back to bed. So, we knock on their doorframe and invite ourselves into homes where we are not welcomed. What else am I supposed to do? I am stuck there for another hour, I am a leader, I'm supposed to know what to do. But I don't. It makes me realize how powerless I am. How much its not about me. Its humbling. All I can do is pray for them. Sometimes they invite the prayer, other times they are like sure whatever, in deference to us being Americans. Its hard for me to want to go to the leper colony.
Sometimes I wonder why God has chosen me to love these people, to love the orphans, to love the lepers, to love 17-23 year olds. I am so bad at it. I am not loving. I want to be loving, I want my life to be marked by love. Because in the end that's what everything boils down to. There are so many other people that I can think of that are marked by that kind of love, that would be better at loving these people. But then, here I am in India. But its like God is just showing me how I am not loving, how wretched, blind, broken, useless I am without Him.
I was thinking about all of this stuff as we were riding to the orphanage. And then thinking about how He picked me and how that makes no sense. I am amazed. Its undeserved. Its grace.
Thank you to everyone who has prayed for me, given to support me. You guys are amazing and I am blessed, SO incredibly blessed to have you in my life. Things in India are rolling. Most of us are almost 100% in our health. Ministry here with all of the cultural differences, language differences is filled with awkward silences, body language, awkward exchanges, but filled with beautiful moments with the lepers and the orphans. We are at our half-way point on our trip and the intense India heat is starting to die down. But all is well, it continues to be a time of the Lord silencing all other voices in my life except for His. He is bringing me into a time of refining where He will not allow anything to quench my thirst but Him alone. Its hard, its lonely, its everything that I want right now. :)
Thank you to all of my faithful supporters, you guys are wonderful and I'm blessed by your partnership. I am still short $710.32 and ask that you pray and consider supporting me. :) Also I am in need of prayer. I need it, not just I want it. I NEED IT. I've caught a cold, have a heat rash, and too many mosquito bites to count. Oh and a sinus infection. So please pray healing and health for me.
What inspires a man who is living out of his truck to spend his entire government check (perhaps his only source of income) on cooking a feast for his fellow homeless friends? I have been reading "Under the Overpass" about a college educated guy that decides to leave everything to see how real his faith in God was, to see if he could be the follower of Jesus he said he was. And there is a man that he runs across, that regularly takes his entire check and spends it all to feed one meal to 20 other homeless people. It doesn't make sense. In my mind, I think, logically if he saved his money, he would be able to get out of homelessness to rent a place, purchase some belongings. Logically, what can one meal do? It can stave off the hunger for a little longer, but they will be hungry again. What makes someone give himself away like that? I guess its as crazy as a man who finds a treasure in a field, buries it and then sells EVERYTHING he has to buy the field. That story never made sense to me. Why buy the entire field? Why not just take the treasure and run?
I am such a practical person. I can think of a ton of more cost effective and cost efficient ways for the homeless guy living in a truck to spend his money. But, maybe being practical doesn't work anymore. Maybe logic and practicality isn't what Jesus asks of me, when He says I have to lose my life to gain it. It makes me realize all of the ridiculous things that have been invented to save our lives, to save ourselves, to protect ourselves, to insulate ourselves. Maybe love is more than policy, and its more practice. Maybe Jesus is telling me to actually "give to anyone who asks" Luke 6: 30. Maybe Jesus is telling me to love my enemies. Maybe Jesus is telling to me to invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind...those who cannot repay me to my next lunch. Maybe Jesus is saying that love is not supposed to make sense.
Perhaps its because His love for us makes no logical sense. Jesus wasn't a practical person. His love was not logical or practical. He loved people that hated Him. Jesus could have lived His life quietly in obscurity, and simply to die on the cross and be resurrected. Do His job and get out. But, He didn't. He lived life with people. He gave himself away. His love for rebellious, stubborn people that always end up falling and failing doesn't make sense. His goal wasn't simply to free us from death and bring us life through the cross. Yes we were dying and our destiny was death and hell. But for some reason that wasn't what drove Him. Mother Theresa says that greater than the hunger for food, is the hunger for love. It was love that drove Jesus to the cross. It was love that made Him want to sit with children. It was love that made Him do it.
"A new command I give you: Love one another"
Lord, make my life one that is marked by love, Your love for me, Your love for this world.
Reading about Jesus. So precious.
Waiting for snacks to be handed out. I can't even imagine how much the Lord loves these little ones.
My fantastic coleader, the one and only, Jennifer Erin Miele, and myself.
Team India being American tourists :) this was the 8th picture that we took of the exact same thing.
We went to church last Sunday at one of the orphanages. It was broken. It was beautiful. We all crowded into one little overcrowded, overheated room with dozens of little ones and other believers from around Delhi. There were maybe 30-40 of us. There is something incredibly powerful about church with orphans. It teaches you so tangibly what it means to be adopted as sons and daughters of God, our Father, our Daddy in heaven. I sat there holding a beautiful baby girl that recently came to the orphanage as I listened to sons and daughters of the Most High talking to their Father. I could just imagine the Lord saying to each of them, "You, yes YOU, are mine." And it breaks me as I realize the power of the God of the universe saying that to one little person.
After the service was over, I wandered over to the girls' room in the orphanage and found a group of girls sitting on the ground playing and one Asian woman sitting on one of the tiny bunk beds chatting with some of the girls on our team. You make think I am crazy, but for some odd reason I now feel more drawn to fellow Asian looking people that I come across than ever before in my life. Maybe its because I've become so used to not seeing people that look like me since living in Colorado, or because I've become used to being the only Asian on the team, squad, etc. So I was curious about her and her story.
Her name is Sutni. She is from Kathmandu, Nepal. Adopted and raised by a western woman and her Indian husband. She now lives by herself. She wouldn't tell us how old she was. She simply said she was old. She was the most beautiful, old Nepapli woman I have seen. She has lived alone, never been married, and has been traveling back and forth between Nepal and India. Her spirit was crushed, she was hurting and alone. Immediately, God brought the first verse in the Beatitudes to my mind: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for the Kingdom of God is theirs." We prayed over this petite, beautiful daughter of God. We prayed His words, His promises, His truth over her. Gave her hugs and said goodbye.
It hit me that sometimes we just need to be reminded that we are His. He says, " Others were given in exchange for you. I traded their lives for yours because you are precious to me. You are honored and I love you." Isaiah 43:4. He traded Jesus for Sutni because she is precious to Him. He traded Jesus for you and me because we are precious to Him. That is just the craziness of His love for us.
India. Yes, friends and family, the land of mother theresa, delicious foods, beautiful saris, beautiful poeple.
The past several weeks have been a whirlwind. I woke up Wednesday morning and thought to myself, "Where am I today?" Since, I returned from the race, I spent 6 weeks in Denver, a week and a half in the Dominican Republic, 2 weeks in Denver, a week in Georgia, a day in Tennessee (YEA Brooke & Silas!), a week in Denver, a week in Seattle, a week in Denver/Colorado Springs, 2 weeks in Georgia, 2 days in Philadelphia, a day in Georgia, and now the next three months in India. The Lord has become my home in so many senses. As my team struggles with homesickness, I am reminded of my first week in South Africa at the start of the World Race. I was literally nauseas because of anxiety and homesickness...wondering if I was where I was supposed to be and wanting so much to feel like I was home. The Lord's response to me was, I AM your home. And that rings so true still. Although, my "bed" looks different in each place and my "family" looks different in each place, the Lord welcomes me in each place, saying "Here I am...you're home!" Its strange to say it, but everyplace I have gone since I have returned from the Race feels like home. Our home certainly is not a place, it's a feeling. The feeling of being welcomed by His arms in each place.
All this to say, I've arrived at home in India. It's a beautiful place, pray that we will pierce the darkness with His light and love. J
