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

Wanderings and Wonderings

Saturday in Kalimpong is market day, when the Heart Bazaar is filled with vendors: fruit, vegetable, spice, hardware, housewares, clothing, shoes... anything. As the sun rises it fills to the brim with people. The crowds flow like water through the windy streets occupying any empty place available.

Usually on Saturday mornings I hide under the covers for as long as possible and then creep out to leisurely drink coffee in my pajamas. Once I am ready to meet the world, the town and bazaar are too busy and too full to be an attraction to a western girl who sticks out like a sore thumb above the sea of dark brown heads. 

I have always disliked looking out of place. Quite vividly I remember, from the missions trips I took to New York City when I was in high school, hating to feel like people could just look at me and see that I was not a city girl. Not that I want to be a city girl, I just didn't like the feeling that I didn't belong. Though I still try to adapt to the culture and fit in here, I have resigned myself to always be an outsider. Saturdays are suppose to be restful and I don't often find being stared at and sized up by an endless number of brown-eyes (no mater how beautiful they are) very restful. 

But this Saturday was different.

Maybe it was the fact that I hadn't gotten out of the house much last week, or the fact that I am getting nostalgic as I mentally prepare to leave Kalimpong in just a month, but either way this Saturday I was drawn out from underneath my covers and down the hill to town, all before 10am.

I didn't have much of an agenda or shopping list. I just was hoping for some time to wander, think, and take photos. (I really wish that I could take photos with my eyes. Again I hate standing out as "that tourist” taking pictures of things locals would NEVER think about taking pictures of. Plus sometimes there is just not enough time to get the camera out... then that perfect moment, that exquisite image is gone.) As I meandered along the street I saw a precious sister. I have only met her once, but the love and light of our Savior emanates from every part of her. Seeing her face and bowing slightly in greeting as we passed, sparked my prayers for Kalimpong. 

I walked on and talked to the Lord about his heart for these people, his heart for this city. Then my eyes came to the other side of the road, the less crowded side, where two sons walked gently quietly with arms linked with their father in-between them. The father was quite hung over from a late night of alcohol. I imagine how the wife and sons had fretted and worried until he was found. Now they had to walk him home and get him sobered up, attempting to save as much face as possible. This scene sparked even more prayer... “Father thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

I looked up and saw it, a cross. 

Atop a dirty little shack that sells fried snacks, noodles, and chips was clearly a cross, not put there intentionally but left there somehow from old electrical poles and shrouded with tattered Buddhist prayer flags, electrical wires, and dead vines. This image shouted to me, “The Kingdom is coming! I AM is already at work here. Watch and see.”

It also spoke to me of how tradition in the church and Buddhism have constricted the free movement of what the Lord wants to do here. Like the old raiments of a beggar, neglected, stinking, full of holes, and good for nothing, the remnants of stale tradition in the church and the spiritual strong holds of Buddhism need to be torn down from this place before a fresh spirit of revival will be free to flow. 

 

But even still I know Christ is here and he is moving. 

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  

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) 

Jyoti-Tiger

The first day we visited Asha House we met all the kids. We played games with them and sang songs until we worn our selves out. My first memory of Jyoti is from that day. We both were sitting on the floor against the wall in the church room. I motioned for her to come to me, but she looked at me shyly. I scooped her up and plopped her on my lap.  She acted very timidly but began to warm up to me. She counted her toes and fingers in English and told me the English name for the colors on the clothes she was wearing. "ret, grean, bloo...won, do, tree..."  We sat there together for a long enough time that she fell asleep in my lap. Once she did I began to pray for her. I didn't know anything about her except her name, but I prayed for her to grow up to love God, for her to find a godly husband one day... and for healing.

After lunch that day all 11 of our team squeezed on to the 5x5 floor of the boys room at Asha House. Victor, the director of Asha House, was out of town but we were introduced to Simini, his wife. She told us the story about how Asha House came into existence (which I will tell you all another day). She also told us the stories of some of the kids. The one that stuck out to me that days was Joyti's: She has a older brother and a twin brother, neither of which live at Asha House. When she was a baby her father ran away with another woman and left her mother and to take care of the kids. This is an every day occurrence in the US, but in India there are very few options for single women and no good options for women who have been left my their husbands. Joyti's mother probably sold herself to make money to feed her children, until a man came to live with her. We are not sure about the sort of relationship they had, but it wasn't a good one. Jyoti ended up watching this man murder her mother. Her father came and took the twin brother away, leaving Jyoti and her older brother to beg on the streets.

A pastor in the slums found Jyoti and brought her to Asha House. She was very shy and reserved, especially towards white people (this is pretty common in new kids, because most of them have never seen white people).  Jyoti began to get very ill and Victor and Simini took her to the hospital. They found out that she has worms in her brain, that developed because when she live on the streets she had to eat dirt and whatever else she and her brother could find to stay alive.  She is being treated with a medicine and regular visits to the doctor. The worms should be gone in a few months from now. You can still be praying that she will be fully healed. I had no idea about this when I prayed healing over her sweet little sleeping body.

Victor, Simini and the rest of us were very concerned that Jyoti's condition would affect her ability to learn.  It hasn't! She is one of the brightest children at Asha House. During the time we were there she mastered writing her name, the upper and lower-case English alphabet, colors, numbers 1-20, months of the year, days of the week, and the names of fruits and animals. All of the younger kids got "animal names" to help them learn the English and Hindi names for animals. Jyoti is the tiger.  We would tell her "tiger bolo" (bolo means "say"), and she would make the cutest little raspy growling noise.  The only thing she has a hard time remembering is she life before Asha House...and for her, that is a huge  blessing.

Jyoti's name means "light." She truly embodies light coming out of darkness. This really stuck out to me one Sunday during church. We were worshiping and the Hindi speakers were singing a song in Hindi. We can't all fit in the church-room, so the younger kids sit on mats just outside the door. You can't see them, but as we were singing I was listening and could pick out Jyoti's sweet little voice. She was singing with all her might. It brings me to tears when I think about she singing because it is such an example of how God works all things together for the good of those who love him (Romans 8:28), and how He turns darkness into light (Isaiah 42:16).              
(the last four pictures were taken by various teammates, only the first one is mine)