Official Update Letter

Ok, here's my official update letter. If you keep up on my blog, it'll probably sound pretty familiar.

Hello everyone,

I've been in Kolkata for a bit over a month now, and it seems like
I've had more experiences than would fit in an entire lifetime. This letter will try to summarize things, but it won't be able to do it any real justice. For those of you that don't already know, I've been maintaining a blog at http://pvegdahl.blogspot.com/. My first post from Kolkata was on February 19th. Please take a look at it if you want more information on what I've been doing. I will continue to update it as often as I am able. I'll send out another one of these summarizing updates sometime in mid-April.

My first few days in Kolkata were very emotionally challenging for me. I felt completely overwhelmed just by the simple realities of day to day life. On top of that, the city is unlike anything I've ever experienced in America. It is busy, crowded, smelly, noisy, poor, dying... I could go on, but words really cannot explain what it is like being here. During my first few days I often felt like crying, just because of the incredible pain and suffering that I observed everywhere on the streets. After just a month of being here, so many of those things have just become natural parts of my everyday life. This isn't to say that I don't struggle with it anymore, because certainly I do. Rather it is just that I am no longer shocked to see it. Now it is part of my daily expectation to see those things.

Five days a week our team spends time in the Missionaries of Charity (Mother Teresa) homes. At first we all went to Kalighat together. Kalighat was the first home that Mother Teresa started, and is a home for the destitute and dying. After three days at Kalighat, our team was given the chose to switch to any of the Missionaries of Charity homes. We were asked to commit to investing in one or two homes rather than just bouncing around between all of them. Our team of six ended up splitting into pairs and going to three separate homes.

I have been going to a home called Nabo Jibon (Bengali for "New Life") run by the Missionaries of Charity brothers. It is split into three wards. The first ward is for handicapped boys. I spend a lot of time in there just trying to keep the boys active. Many of them have the physical ability to walk, although some of them need help or are confined to wheelchairs. The biggest problem is that they really need attention. This can take almost any form, but seems to be very important for them. Without any stimulation they often just sit around doing nothing and often seem very depressed. Spending time with these kids often seems unproductive, but God has been teaching me a lot about patience and love through my time there.

The second ward is for men with tuberculosis. Although there is no guarantee, the hope is that the men in this ward will all be able to recover and return home. There has been at least one man who recovered and went home since I started serving at Nabo Jibon. I have not been aware of any men dying, but I could have missed it. Some of the men in there are very weak. My time in this ward is purely relational. They don't speak much, if any, English, and I am far from fluent in either Bengali or Hindi. Still, the men enjoy me and I enjoy being with them. They have helped me practice the Bengali I am learning (our team receives lessons twice each week), and I have helped some of them as they try to learn some English.

The third ward is a general ward for men suffering from anything else. I have spent very little time in this ward, so I'm not sure exactly how things work in there. My understanding is that this ward has a combination of patients that are likely to recover, as well as some that are likely to spend the rest of their lives at Nabo Jibon.

On top of our work in the Missionaries of Charity homes, our team has daily interactions with natives throughout the city. Some of these interactions are with the people that live in our neighborhood, some are with people on the streets of Kolkata. Being white in Kolkata really makes you stand out, and the Indian culture doesn't have the same sense of privacy that I'm used to in America. When I get on the subway everyone stares. If I stop to play with a street kid, people will stop and watch. Some of the biggest challenges I face are how to interact with natives in loving ways, particularly when I am upset or frustrated with them.

On March 31st, our team will leave Kolkata for the month of April. We will spend the bulk of that month in Sri Lanka working with Habitat for Humanity rebuilding homes. We will also spend a little time visiting some Word Made Flesh homes in southern India. Kolkata has really worn our team out, and I think we all need a bit of a break.

Please continue to pray for our health. It seems like there is always someone sick on our team. Kolkata is a hard enough city to deal with without being sick. You can also just be praying for our energy. It has been getting noticeably hotter during the past few weeks, and that has really been wearing us out. As far as heat goes, it is likely to get a lot worse when we travel south, and be absolutely horrible when we return to Kolkata in May.

Please keep praying for us that we would really allow ourselves to be emotionally present in while we are here. It is really easy for us to distance ourselves emotionally because Kolkata is such a hard city to be in. Pray that we would continue to struggle with, and enter into the pain around us. Pray that God would help us take the small steps to love the people in this city.

I feel like I can't really express much of what I'm feeling in this letter. If you haven't already, please take the time to at least read a few of the stories on my blog. They will give you a much better picture of what I'm dealing with than this overview letter will.

Thank you again so much for your prayers,
In Christ's love,
Philip