Longing for the Spring of His Kingdom

The cold branches of winter seem to be grasping at my heart, with all their sad stories, frigid days, and hopeless nights.

Over the past few months, maybe few years, my life has intercepted with so many stories that bring tears to my eyes that I feel like the sadness on my face has become permanent.

Stories of
rape (God, so much rape)
cancer
broken families
depression
abused children
stubborn despair-causing bureaucracy
terminal illness
gripping worry
car accidents
sudden death of beloved pets
lies (so many lies)
abandoned children
limbs amputated
failed relationships
trafficked women, men, children,

lives broken, hearts bruised, hope gone.

Lord, where is your Kingdom coming? Where!?! Cause I don't see it.

The cold winter closes in on my heart. I forget what the trees look like adorned with buds and leaves. The grey sky above becomes a constant, if not in reality then in my countenance.

Can anyone, can anything stop the changing of the seasons? Spring has to come. It just has to.

Hold on heart until it does.

Through the tears and sadness I have to cling to the truth that I will see His goodness in the land of the living and that one day, though it seems far off, one day He will make all things right. 

How do I make it through the winter of this world to the spring of His kingdom?

Trust. 

Thankfulness.

Remembering who our God is and how redemption is His particular specialty.

"For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: In returning to Me and resting in Me you shall be saved; in quietness and in trusting confidence shall be your strength..." (Isaiah 30:15, Amplified) 

Stumbling across this scripture for the hundredth time the Lord whispers to my heart, "Return to me. Rest in me. Quiet yourself and trust confidently in me and I will make things right. I will because I AM."  

All these stories, sad sad stories... some of them have already begun to sprout life... some are heading into a darker season before they can hope for light. But I have to remind myself that all life comes from seeds that first have to die. Death is not the end. Sometimes it is the beginning.

This is not the end
This is not the end of this
We will open our eyes wide, wider

This is not our last
This is not our last breath
We will open our mouths wide, wider

And you know you’ll be alright
Oh and you know you’ll be alright

This is not the end
This is not the end of us
We will shine like the stars bright, brighter

 Lyrics to "This is Not the End" by Gungor

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 Kingdom and a Ring

So last month (woah is it really March already?) I was able to take two short trips, one to New Delhi, and one to Nepal.

Beautiful Kalimpong

It was so nice to get away from Kalimpong for a little while. Kalimpong has really everything one could want or need, but it is still a little hill town, where everyone knows everyone, so it was great to get to eat some KFC, McDonalds, and Costa Coffee, do a little shopping, and just get a change of pace.

Sweet Babies

I was also able to spend a few short days at Asha House. I would have loved to spend more time there, but I spent as much time as I could fit into the schedule. Things are a little different at Asha House when you come as an old friend just popping in and not as part of a long anticipated team. I think you get a better picture of the real everyday Asha House. Even at a place as special as Asha House there are still days of drudgery: the days at the end of the school term when the kids are ready for a break but instead need to study for exams, when the diapers and laundry pile high, when there is another 70+ servings of rice and dhal to prepare, when life just moves slowly on. It was a good reminder to me that life is still life even when you are living the "dream" and fulfilling your vision. God has been showing me a lot about that these months. This just confirmed that there is something beautiful in doing what you were made to do, but there are still those days and seasons where everything doesn't sparkle and shimmer with meaning, where the days get dull and need a little elbow grease and trust to shine again.

Ready for Lunch

The couple who started and run Asha House are expecting a baby this summer. They have been trying to get pregnant unsuccessfully since they were married 8 years ago. We are all so excited but holding our breath. She has doctor's orders to be on bed-rest until delivery partly because of the delicate nature of this pregnancy and also because she has been having really bad morning-sickness (actually all-day-sickness). When I was there it got so bad that she spent the night in the hospital. She is doing much better now after getting on new nausea medicine. Her days are especially dull because she is pretty much confined to bed, and doesn't even find enjoyment in eating because of the nausea. Please keep both her and the baby in your prayers.

Rachel in 2009

I try my hardest not to have favorites and to spend the same amount attention on each child, but I definitely have a special connection to a little girl I will call Rachel. In 2009 when I first met her she was a tiny shy three year old, who had never known the love and attention of a functional family. Before she came to Asha House she and her siblings lived with their mother who worked in a brothel. In 2009 I helped teach her and four other little ones their "ABC's" and "123's." She was reserved and had a sadness in her eyes. During "school" she really had a hard time focusing and barely could hold a pencil. By the time I left she could write her name. I look back and see this as one of the most precious things in my life. Another one of these moments was in 2011 when I was back at Asha House. This little girl who I taught to write her name and who didn't know how to give or even receive love when she first arrived at Asha House came up behind me surprising me with a hug and the words "Aunty, you are my Aunty. I am loving you so much!" I was blown away by this outward sign of affection from a little girl who had been so reserved just 2 years back.

Leaving Asha House in 2011

During this most recent visit to Asha House I had another one of those moments  I was just hanging out in the girls room while they were getting ready for bed. I was leaving back to Kalimpong the next morning so I was trying to make sure that I spent quality time with as many of the girls as possible. I was sitting on the cement floor discussing the movie "Titanic" with the older girls who had just seen it, and over comes Rachel, who I affectionately call "miro chuha" (my mouse). She brought with her a little plastic blue ring, and showed it to me explaining that it was one of her Christmas presents. Rachel put it on my pinkie finger, the only one of my fingers it would fit on. I admired it and oohed and aahed that she should receive such a wonderful Christmas gift. I am not sure if you have even been to a children's home or an orphanage, but typically the children who live there don't have very many possessions of their own. Especially in India where community is the way that society functions, all possessions are shared among the group. When a little girl gets something pretty of her own it is quite a special thing.

The Best Gift

When I got up to say "good-night" I gave Rachel her ring back, thanked her for showing it to me, and told her that it was such a nice gift. Again she surprised me and said that I should keep it. What?!?! How could I take this token from this precious girl who has so little? Why would she want me to have it? Once she was tucked into her bed I tried to give it back to her again; her response was "take it Aunty, I want to love you." I don't think that there has ever been a moment to top this one. To be loved like this, to be presented with a gift such as this, from a little girl who has such a hard life at six years old, what a treasure! So much love in this tiny plastic ring. Every time I think about it it brings me to tears. Next to salvation and the love of God, the love that "miro chuha" keeps surprising me with is the best gift I have ever received.

Rachel at the beginning of 2012, picture courtesy of Andres Valenzuela

I want to love with this kind of selfless love, a love that gives generously even when it has nothing in the world's eyes. To be challenged to love by an orphan is such a humbling picture of the Kingdom coming.

"behold, the kingdom of god is in the midst of you" (Luke 17:21b)