A Little Goes a Long Ways

It was an ordinary day at work, but precious moments usually come in simple packages...

If you haven't heard, I am going to Italy and Greece at the very beginning of August with Word Outreach Center. I haven't been out of the US for more than a year and I am really excited just to leave again. It is also thrilling to me to be able to experience a different continent and culture than South Asia. I am looking forward to seeing the differences and similarities in those who believe and follow Christ Jesus in Italy compared to those in India. There is also an anticipation of God radically changing my perspective once again, aligning it closer to him and his heart with this new experience. 

God's heart from before the beginning of time has been for family and for relationship. Over the past two years the Lord has been growing my heart for Godly family. This desire to help families has definitely been furthered by my experience helping Lindy last year in India, and is currently being fostered as I am providing child-care for another single mom here in the US who has two precious boys adopted from China.

In Naples, Italy we will be assisting with a family camp that is being run by an organization called Christ is the Answer. Then we will be going to a little town called Quaglietta in Italy to help with a youth camp. After that we will going to Athens, Greece to visit a ministry that is focused on loving refugees from Iran and Iraq, both Muslim countries closed to the gospel. Many of these refugees are coming to know and follow Jesus! This is the location that I am most excited to visit. I am thrilled to meet former Muslims who are now devoted to Jesus Christ. Getting to reach out and love on Muslim refugees is also something I am really looking forward to. 

This trip to Europe, though it is not something that I have done before, is developing into something just up my alley, as we will be pouring into families, teens, and people displaced from their birth countries. I am filled with more and more anticipation for what God is going to do with our short time there.

A few weeks ago I was staring to get a little stressed about this trip. If I was going to India, the trip would be cheaper and people would be more willing to give (at least that is what I feel). I am sure there are people who are thinking "why Italy?" and "is she just going on vacation?" Don't worry, I have been assured that there will be plenty of insects in Quaglietta and there might even be "squatty-potties." So if a missions trip has to include these two things to actually be legit, then this one is covered.

I have been saving some funds on my own for this trip, but I still need quite a bit to be donated. When I started stressing about this I was reminded of a precious moment of provision:

It was a normal morning at work: arrive at 8, help get boys breakfast, keep them busy, take them to the pool, and keep them from killing each other until their mom is finished working (these boys are really good, but that doesn't stop the "brother-dynamic"). I think this morning I was trying to get the little one to clean up his toys or put his shoes on. I felt the seven-year-old come behind me a shove something in my pocket. I was distracted with helping the two-year-old follow through with obedience, and didn't immediately check out what had been stuffed in my pocket. Later I pulled out a $5 bill, and asked the seven-year-old "what is this for?" He told me it is for my trip to California. :) I asked him if he meant Italy, and he said "oh yeah, Italy." Same thing, right?

This sweet gesture of generosity blew me away on multiple levels. First of all this seven-year-old had been getting a little obsessed with his money; dumping out his piggie-bank and counting it all the time, then bragging when he got more. Both his mother and I talked to him about different people who have been ruined by their greed. Apparently he took what we had to say and took an active step to change his tune from greed to generosity. It is always a precious thing when kids really get what you are trying to teach them... magical moments. Secondly this quiet generosity reminded me and continues to remind me that the Lord provides, especially through tiny gifts from unexpected places.

I have been really challenged to trust that the Lord knows my needs (even better than I do) and that he is actively moving to provide for them. Listening to a podcast from Bethel Church I was blown away by something Bill Johnson said, "once we have experienced supernatural provision, we have lost the right to begin any thought process with what we don't have." I have seen the Lord provide in so so SO many ways, for myself and tons of other people. If I begin my thoughts with "I don't have enough of..." then I am not trusting the Lord and that he has all my needs covered. I am going to choose to change my tune from worry and whining to gratefulness and joy, then watch the Lord do what he does best...come through in miraculous ways.




If you want to donate to this trip, follow this link: http://worldoutreachcommunity.org/short-term-missionaries.html 

A Dwelling Place

Where do I belong?

This is a question that has been creeping up in me over the past few weeks.

a view of Kalimpong

I left the states eight months ago as someone other than who I am now. Time changes you. Foreign culture changes you. Life changes you. 

If I am not the person who left the states, when I return will I still belong there? Of course my family (and bestest friends) will accept me and love me, but what about everyone else. And will I ever really belong in in passport country once I have spent so much time away? Do I even want to belong there anymore?

Since October when I arrived in hilly Kalimpong I have been trying to figure out where I belong here and make a place for myself. My place has been my cozy room, "Miss Sarah" to Manju and Jeewan Loy. It has also been "sathi/friend" "didi/older-sister" or "bhieny/younger-sister" to many people here. 

a wall in my cozy room

One thing that I look back and want to change is that I wish I could have plunged in more deeply to the culture here. There are more foreigners in this little city than I can count on all my fingers and toes. I have met pretty much all of them, and they are great people, but they are who I have spent the most time with. It has been wonderful to learn about what missionary family-life looks like, but I would like to have learned more first hand about the culture also. Now don't get me wrong. I have learned quite a lot, probably more than I realize. 

 What I would love to have is a feeling of belonging within the culture. There are two prongs that come against this desire. First: cultural/language learning would have had to the focus of my time here. Second: cultures like the Indian/Nepali culture are deeply reticent to allow anyone from outside to ever become "part of the group." If it is even possible to become "part of the group," to belong here, if would have to take years or even decades of dedication and self-sacrifice. I have been here long enough to realize that I don't belong, but not long enough to think about ever belonging. 

This is such a hard thing. Over the past few months I grown a love for these people-of-the-hills as I have lived on top of their hills. Their hills are beautiful. They are beautiful. Their faces draw me into wanting to know what is behind the brown eyes that are nestled midst the soft brown skin of their round expression.
It is a tough thing to know that I will never belong. 

Sister at a Distance

But then I remember that this earth (and its people) are not our true home. We are made for a heavenly kingdom and not any earthly one. 

Some ladies and I were talking about this issue of belonging and our concept of "home" after living in a foreign country. One of the ladies shared this verse: 

"Lord, you have been my dwelling place (home) throughout all transitions." Psalm 90:1 

this world is not our home

I am discovering the richness in not "belonging" in any particular culture. 

It is so beautifully true. The Lord is our home and his Spirit is our dwelling place, no matter how many transitions our life takes us through. 

I am not fully American, nor am I fully something else. 

No matter how much color I am smeared with I am still white.

I hope that I am becoming something more like what Sherwood Lingerfelter calls in his book "Ministering Cross-Culturally," a 150-percent person, someone who is 75-percent their passport culture (which means becoming less than 100-percent) and also becomes 75-percent their ministry target culture (which he acknowledges that you can never become 100-percent). He calls this the "incarnational model for personal relationships," and reminds us that as Jesus became incarnate, fully man to reach men, and that is how we should approach cross-cultural ministry (24). 

There is a beautiful stretching when this happens. You become less of what you were and maybe more of what God intended you to be. This is Kingdom culture. 

"So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit." Ephesians 2:19-22

I will never be their beautiful brown but I want my hands to touch them like Jesus.

The Real India: Life of Luxury

India is a huge country stretching from Pakistan all the way across to Myanmar and ranging from China and the Himalayan Mountains down to steamy Sri Lanka which almost brushes the equator. There are 28 states each with its own culture, language, history, and struggles. Even a native of India can only see their dynamic country through one pair of eyes and set of experiences. So the quest for the “true India” seems quite impossible and illusive. Once you begin to understand something about this culture, you discover something that throws a monkey wrench in your original hypothesis. This was really true during my trip to Delhi in February.

Flying into the Delhi airport felt like I was coming home, back to the familiar. When I am not in Delhi I crave when the plane I am on begins the decent into the Gangetic plain and I know that I will see my Asha family soon. This trip was different because my primary reason for coming to Delhi was something other than spending as much time as possible at Asha House. I did get to spend some beautiful moments at Asha House, but the focus of this trip was different. I was primarily there to be a support to a friend who was there to do some battle with the Indian bureaucracy. Because we needed to be in closer proximity to the government offices, we stayed with different people my friend knew in South Delhi and Gurgoan. This was not the part of Delhi I knew.

South Delhi is transversed by wide roads lined with lush greenery, and divided up in tidy sectors named with the letters of the English alphabet. In these cozy sectors you can find apartments and houses with gardens out front along quiet streets. The luxury cars (lot of imported Hondas) parked outside are meticulously being washed by the owner's hired driver. Just around the block is shopping area where you can get groceries, vegetables, photocopies, school books, and anything else you might need. Even though it is walking distance most people can afford Rs.10 to take a auto-rickshaw ride. If you are too lazy for even that you don't even have to leave your house. All you have to do is call up the store and they will deliver everything from rice and potatoes, to chicken, to potato chips and cold drinks (Indian English for soda). You also are able to order delivery of any kind of cuisine thinkable: Italian, Mediterranean, Chinese, McDonald’s, Domino’s, North Eastern Indian, South Indian, and the typical Northern Indian fare. In this neighborhood there are no beggars on the streets or dirty children playing in the dust. There is a gated play ground for the children of the neighborhood to play in with monkey bars, swings, and slides all painted cheerfully.

I don't know exactly when it started hitting me, the fact that the Delhi I knew was not the one I was experiencing, but if definitely hit me that I was in another world when I stepped into DFL Place Mall. This is actually one of three super luxurious malls that are built almost on top of each other. The only way you can tell that you are going into a different mall is because you have to go through a security check when you cross from one mall to the other. It is like having three malls larger and fancier than South Park right on top of each other. The other two are called Select Citywalk, and MGF Metropolitan Mall. Google it if you don't believe me. Honestly I had a hard time believing my own eyes. THREE luxury malls.... why in the world? May in Dubai but not in Delhi.

My friend and I were at DFL Place to meet up with someone. We were staying at someone's house in South Delhi so this mall was a convenient meeting place. We got there a little early to wander around and get some ice cream. I found a frozen yogurt place (what is a luxury mall without frozen yogurt?) and was pursuing the menu overwhelmed by the Western amount of options, when a young girl pushed her way past me right to the counter, literally pushed me. Flouncing her hair and adjusting her designer bag she tried ordering the largest thing on the menu for her and her boyfriend. The guy behind the counter seemed embarrassed because of her actions and helped me first because I was technically next, but the girl tried thrusting her handful of Rupees toward him to try to get served first. In my head I was wondering if this was really happening and what I should do. I would expect this sort of thing from the Delhi that I knew before. In this country everyone pushes and shoves to get what they need. There are no tidy queues(lines) unless there are police to enforce them. Even with this there is usually some extra courtesy shown to foreigners. I am not saying that I deserve extra special treatment, but I didn't expect to be treated so very rudely especially by a female and one much younger than I am, and on top of that inside a mall that seemed the pinnacle of “civilized India.” This girl seemed to think the world revolved around her. I thought that was a western thing... maybe it came as a bonus with her designer purse. I got yogurt but my head was too much in a whirl of culture shock to really enjoy it.

The entire mall (really malls) experience was the most culture shock I have been through so far. At first I thought it was reverse culture shock (because these malls were so western), but I am not quite sure that was quite it. This was still India, but such a totally different India than I ever expected to experience. Since being in Delhi I have read a book called,“The Beautiful and The Damned: Life in the New India,” by Siddhartha Deb. In this book Deb examines the lives of businessmen, farmers, activists, and women in this country that is so rapidly changing. This man who lived for quite some time in NYC and seen western self-centeredness there, gives his own account of wandering around DFL Place Mall:

“ I was still wondering why I had been unable to enter the Paul Smith store. I didn't normally go to designer stores but when I had ventured into some of them in New York out of curiosity, I hadn't felt such unease. Somehow, I was more exposed and vulnerable in Delhi. This wasn't because it would be apparent to everyone in the shop that I couldn't afford to buy anything- because that would be pretty obvious in Manhattan too but it mattered to me in Delhi that people would know, as if the very objects would sneer at me for daring to enter their space. In the West, with its long excess of capitalism, it might be possible to scoff at luxury brands. They had been around so long that they had lost some of their meaning. But in India, luxury brands still possessed power” (Deb, 240)

Reading this hit on the head what I had been feeling. I felt out of place not because everything around me was reminiscent of the excess of the West but because because there was a strange pride and power that oozed from every shop, kiosk, escalator, display, and the people who strolled around wearing designer clothing and shopping bags emblazoned with luxury labels on their arms.

The India I knew was one of the orphan, the leper, the beggar, the persecuted pastor, the struggling family; the India of the people who appear as a faceless nameless mass to the people cavorting in DFL Place. I knew in theory that the India of leisure and luxury existed, but to see it with my own eyes, to smell the sickly perfume with my own nose, to feel the perfectly cold AC on my own skin, to taste its delicacies with my own tongue, was something quite unnerving.

Work Cited:

Deb, Siddhartha.“The Beautiful and The Damned: Life in the New India.” Viking by Penguin Books India. 2001