Celebration Day at Nabo Jibon

Today was a special day for the brothers at Nabo Jibon. There were three new brothers taking their first vows. Before they can take their vows, they go through two years of training as novices. Catholic brothers and sisters from all over this part of India were in attendance of the ceremony. Todd and I made it too, which was a little hard since it was part of a 6:30am Mass. Usually Todd and I aim to catch a 7am subway train to start our commute, so this was a lot earlier. It was also complicated by a subway that doesn't run that early, and buses that don't run anywhere close to as often. Somehow, beyond reason, Todd and I still made it there in time for Mass in spite of leaving late.

After Mass breakfast was served. The brothers had asked Todd to perform a song during that time, and Todd had talked me into singing one with him. Todd and I gave them "Lord, Reign in Me," followed by Todd performing two more on his own that I didn't know. After the mini-concert, Todd and I grabbed breakfast and joined some of the brothers from Nabo Jibon. During this time we also got to meet the current area brother superior (No, I don't really know what he does or how big "this area" is. His title just sounds impressive).

At 9:15am they had another ceremony to initiate the new novices (brothers in training). Then there was a third ceremony to transfer some position of leadership from one brother to another. Between all of these ceremonies, I only got to spend a little time with the boys this morning. I'm not really complaining though. It was really great to be able to celebrate all of these things with the brothers. They have really done a great job of welcoming Todd and I into their community during our months here in Kolkata. I'm going to miss them.

That Explains the Price

About a week ago I was at a bookstore in Kolkata and bought a classic work for a mere 50 rupees (remember 1 US dollar = 43 Indian rupees). Previous classics that I have bought were all from another publisher, and cost more like 88 rupees. I started reading it a couple days ago and found that the quality of this reprint is noticeably lower than that of the first publisher. I think it has averaged more than one typo (that I noticed) per chapter. Some of the pages are printed crooked. There were even a couple pages that were starting to fall out. My guess is that this is a really small publisher in India that has simply taken a classic work, republished it (I have no clue how copyright laws are in India), and then sold it dirt cheap. This theory is somewhat confirmed by the publishers email address, publisher_name@hotmail.com, and address in Delhi. In any case, the book is still quite readable and enjoyable. For a bit over a dollar it's really hard to complain all that much.

One/Two Week(s) Left

Two weeks from tonight I'll be on a plane flying out of India. One week from tonight our team will be on a train headed for Darjeeling for a one week debriefing retreat. It's kind of crazy to think that four months is almost over. My mind has certainly been shifting homewards in a lot of ways. Sometimes it takes a real effort to keep myself present here in India. Keep praying for all of us. I think that's a struggle most of us are facing.

Me of Little Faith

I got a much better email from my Mom today. I don't think she'll mind if I post a section of it.

Grey seemed to be a bit better when I got back. Last night, her appetite was back, to the point where she yowled at me when I didn't get her food to her fast enough. She ate about 4 times as much last night as she had in a whole day earlier in the week. And no signs of the intense pain in her mouth. This morning she asked to go out to relieve herself, (she has just been using the floor inside most of the time recently) and then trotted around a little in the backyard and didn't want to come in right away. The improvement is dramatic. So I cancelled the appointment to have her put to sleep.

Praise God! I'd been praying for it, but I really didn't hold out any hope that she would get better. In fact, I was even wondering if she would pass away on her own before she was put to sleep. This morning I woke up and assumed that she was dead. When I checked my email I was expecting a confirmation of that. I am absolutely amazed to have gotten the email that I did. I really don't have enough faith in God to answer my prayers. She's still an old cat, and I know she won't live forever, but now that she's eating again I know she has some life left in her. I'm very thankful. Even if she only lasts a little while longer, I'll be thankful for all of the time that God gives her.

Thank you so much for all of your prayers and supportive emails/comments over the last few days.

Reflection on Suffering

[Edit 05-28-05: I accidentally posted both my first attempt at this post (which I didn't like, didn't finish, and really wasn't a great expression of my true feelings) in addition to what I meant to post. I just removed what I had never intended to put up there in the first place.]

When I found out that my cat was dying, it brought me to tears that unlike any I have experienced since my first day at Kalighat. In fact, ever since those first few weeks in Kolkata, I have shed relatively few tears for anything. This brought up a question that I am stealing from a M*A*S*H episode, but that I'd like to think I would have come up with on my own: If I cry so much over the death of my cat, why don't I cry for the pain, suffering, and death that I see around me every day in Kolkata? Just to be clear, I'm not questioning the tears that I shed over my cat. I understand those and think they are appropriate. I'm wondering why I no longer feel the pain around me. Every single person in Kolkata is deeply loved by God. It breaks God's heart that so many people are living in so much pain. Sometimes I wonder if my heart has become as small, cold, and hard as a frozen pea. Although it has been a gradual decline with plenty of ups and downs, I have reached the point where my heart rarely breaks for any of the pain around me. Somehow I need to learn to let my heart break again. Somehow I need to get over the difficultly and the pain. At least once more before I leave, I need to feel the deep pain of this city. Even when I cannot do anything tangible to change their situation, I need to be with them in their pain.

The Pain of Loss

I found out yesterday that Grey, one of my cats back home, is dying and will be put to sleep this Friday afternoon (Oregon time). As many of you know, I'm very much a cat lover. That alone would make this hard for me. What makes this even harder is that she is the cat that first made me love cats. As long as I've loved cats, she has been at the center of it. Every cat I love or have ever loved, was because I first loved her. Whenever I returned to Oregon after a semester at college, or after working in Santa Barbara, I wanted to see her as soon as I was home. It is hard for me to think about returning from four months in India and not having her there to welcome me back.

Although it is hard being on the other side of the world while this is happening, I'm not sure it would be any easier being there either. I so much want to hold her just one last time, to let her curl up in my lap and take a nap. One time wouldn't be enough though. It wouldn't make it any easier to say goodbye. I remember saying goodbye to my cat Dusty almost three years ago. I was the one that took Dusty to the vet. With a trembling hand I signed the form authorizing for him to be put to sleep. I held him and gave the nod to the vet. Seconds later I felt the weak beatings of his heart stop, and I knew that it was over. I don't think that was any easier. Honestly I'm somewhat relieved that I don't have to sign that form this time.

Finding out while I was in a public internet cafe was hard. I dealt with a few other emails to try to get my mind off of it. I printed off a copy of the email from my parents, and headed home. I fought back tears most of the way. I felt overwhelmed as I squeezed into a crowded subway train. The Indians always stare at me because I am white. Their stares felt even worse since I knew that my face was covered in tears.

When I got home I went over to the girls place. We were meeting for a community fun night, so even though I was showing up early, I knew that in all likelihood there would be multiple people there. At this point I was no longer weeping, so it may not have been entirely obvious how I was doing. I hung out for a bit until Kristen (non-leader) asked me how I was doing. Unable to talk about it, I simply handed her the copy of the email. As she read it I started to cry again. She offered me words of comfort, and gave the email to someone else. I talked about it a little as each members of my team took turns reading the email. The more I talked, the less I could talk because of my tears. April offered to pray for me, which I easily agreed to. I wept even harder as she prayed for me. I felt the love of the people around me and somehow that gave me the strength to truly let go. It is an awful, terrible, scary thing to feel pain that has no answer. It is even worse to be alone in that pain.

After that we sat in silence for a while as my tears continued to flow. Eventually other people cautiously started talking. Listening to them distracted me from my pain, and eventually we were able to spend the night telling stories and laughing together. I think it was really good for me to have that break and just enjoy the company of my team. Eventually I returned home. I looked at a picture of Grey that I brought with me to India. I turned off the lights and cried myself to sleep.

I have a lot more reflections already on my mind about this, other things going on for me in Kolkata, and how all of it ties together for me. Hopefully I'll get those written up sometime in the next few days.

Struggling, but Improving

I don't have the time, emotional energy, or clarity to post much right now. I've been struggling a lot off and on since returning to Kolkata from Sri Lanka. The past few days were really hard. I just had an encouraging talk with Kristin this afternoon, and I have a few new insights that I think will be helpful. Still, I need a lot of prayer. I'll post more when I have the chance.

Proposal

Part of the Word Made Flesh Servant Team is that I'm supposed to write a proposal for something that WMF could do in the future. Generally this means some new idea for ministry in the city you are in. The proposal doesn't have to be particularly long, but it does require some thought, research, and knowledge of the city. Those are three things I could probably handle, if only I had an idea. I only have two weeks left in Kolkata (plus one week on retreat elsewhere) and I have no idea what to propose. I feel like all I've really had much experience with is Nabo Jibon, and I don't see that there is a whole lot to propose for WMF to do at Nabo Jibon. Anyway, it's one of those things that's nagging at the back of my mind (while gradually moving forward) and I really wish I had some inspiration. I'll have a chance to talk with Kristin about it on Wednesday. I'm hoping she will have the inspiration I need. Please be praying for me. Oh, and if you have ideas just from reading my blog, please let me know. I wouldn't put it past myself to overlook something that's right there in my own blog.

Kids Helping Kids

Usually the boys at Nabo Jibon don't interact with each other very much. A lot of them love the volunteers, but treat the other kids like they don't exist. I've been trying to find ways to overcome this for a while, and mostly without success. Two boys that are capable of walking by themselves, but insist on having me hold their hand while they walk around, can tell the difference between holding my hand and holding the other boy's hand. Some of the more physically able boys love to toss a ball back and forth with me, but I cannot get them to throw to each other.

In the past week or so I've actually had a few successes. One of them I was particularly happy about. Robert is an energetic boy with the strength to walk. Unfortunately, his ankles are misshapen so that he cannot balance without holding on to something. Robert loves it when someone will support one of his arms and walk around with him. Then there is Ushwal, he seems to understand a lot of what goes on around him, however he only has a little control over his body. As a result, he is stuck in a wheelchair. Ushwal gets excited whenever someone will push him around outside in his wheelchair. I try to do this at least once every day, but often I get distracted by the other kids. Last week it occurred to me that I might be able to combine these two kids. I lifted Robert up and placed his hands on the handles of Ushwal's wheelchair. I gave it a little push to get him started, but Robert quickly got the idea and continued to push Ushwal around. I still had to provide a little help in guiding the wheelchair so that it wouldn't get stuck on bushes, but Robert could provide all of the strength. I loved the fact that it was far easier for me to guide them than it would have been to help either of them on their own. Both of them had a great time, and I really enjoyed seeing that together they could do what neither of them could do on their own. It seems like their might be some parable that relates to community in there...

Thank You George

Our team took the day off of work yesterday to see the very first showing of Star Wars Episode III that we could find in Kolkata (11am). I really, really, really enjoyed it. My enjoyment may have been amplified a bit since this is the first new movie* I've seen since I hit Kolkata in February. I was skeptical of whether or not George Lucas would really make the dark movie that was needed to bridge the gap from episode 2 to 4. I can say without hesitation that he did exactly that, and did it very well. In fact I'm even willing to forgive certain past sins simply because it provided the setup for such a great movie.

Anyway, I'm not going to say anything more about the movie itself. Rather, I want to mention some of the interesting differences of watching a movie in Kolkata. First of all, people clapped during the movie. It wasn't just once or twice either, it was more on the order of a dozen times. Fortunately there was only one time when the clapping took place during dialog. Most of the time is was during loud battles. Second, when we got to an "on the edge of your seat" moment about half way through the movie, the screen went black and the sound stopped. In about half a second (just long enough for my minor heart attack) the screen displayed "Intermission." Apparently movies in Kolkata have intermissions about half way through. It was probably for the best anyway, because both Todd and I needed a bathroom break. After a fairly short intermission (five minutes maybe?) the movie resumed without warning.

Anyway, it was a nice little escape from Kolkata. Now I just wish I could go rewatch four, five, and six to see how all of it ties together.


*I got to rewatch a few movies while we were at Tammy's.

May Update

Here's another one of these "official" updates. Most of you probably got this as an email anyway, but here it is for anyone that didn't:

Hello again everyone,

I'm down to a bit less than one month left in India. The next time I send an update, it will be a wrap up written from the comfort of the United States. For now, I'll try to give you a little idea of everything we've been up to since I wrote last month.

After returning from Sri Lanka, our team spent the end of April in Chennai and Bangalore, two cities in southern India. In Bangalore we visited a children's home headed up by an American woman. Although I suppose it technically is an orphanage, I hesitate to call it one. They really seem like one giant family. Tammy serves as a mother to all of the kids there, and it is clear that they all love each other dearly. In Chennai we visited a Word Made Flesh home run by an Indian couple. The home is specifically for kids affected by HIV/AIDS either directly (they have it) or indirectly (they lost parents to it). We didn't get to spend a lot of time at this home, but it was still great to get a glimpse of what was going on there.

In early May we made it back to Kolkata. May and June are known for being the hottest months of the year. We were blessed with a some evening rain showers early on, which kept the temperature down to a semi-reasonable level. Unfortunately the skies didn't keep that up, so now our team is dealing with temperatures above 100 F with high humidity. Air conditioning in Kolkata is an extreme luxury, so our homes and most places we go are only cooled with fans. Try to remember AC as a luxury next time you escape from the heat outside into a nice air conditioned building. Also, please pray for us as we deal with the extreme heat. It is easy to just let yourself feel miserable in heat like this.

Todd and I have continued working at Nabo Jibon. Recently I have spent a lot more time talking with the Catholic brothers there and have received a lot of support from them. They have dedicated their whole lives to living in community with each other and serving the poor together. Thanks to the relationships I've been building with them, I've found a lot more joy in the work I do at Nabo Jibon. In particular, I've been spending a lot of my time with the handicapped boys. They are constantly both a challenge and a joy for me to work with.

As I mentioned in my last letter, I was a bit apprehensive about how our team would function as a community once we were back in Kolkata. I can say with confidence that we have been growing, and that we are not the same group we were at the beginning. Still, there are a lot of ways we can still grow. Often I will compare this community to communities I have been part of in the past, and look at ways that this community is comparatively lacking. Please pray that I will be able to love the strengths of our team without getting upset about the weaknesses. Also pray that our team will continue to grow closer together right up until the end.

Finally, as I said at the beginning of this letter, we are in our last month. I'm already feeling myself pulled back home emotionally. This is a danger to me being emotionally present here in Kolkata and really receiving everything that God still wants to give me. Honestly, this problem of being emotionally present probably applies to everyone on our team. Please pray for all of us to keep ourselves emotionally present right up until the end.

For our last week in India, our team will be taking a debriefing retreat together in another part of India. The retreat lasts from June 6th - 12th. Please be praying for us as we are on our retreat and trying to process together what has happened over our four months in Asia. Also pray for us as we return to America. Many people have told me that the reverse culture shock of returning to the United States is likely to be harder to deal with than the culture shock that I experienced coming to India. Four of us (myself included) will be back in the US on June 14th. The other two will travel in Asia some more before returning home.

Thank you so much for all of your loving support and prayers during this time.

In Christ's love,
Philip

Last Few Days at Nabo Jibon

Monday at Nabo Jibon was an absolutely amazing day. It was the first day back after a prayer meeting dedicated to praying for each others different homes. I spent all of my morning with the handicapped boys (minus a little chapel time). Every single one of them had a good day. That has never ever happened before in all of the days I've been volunteering at Nabo Jibon. Usually there are at least 2 or 3 kids that are having bad days. There is even one boy, Ragiv, who always has a bad day. He is partially blind, not very coordinated (although he can walk), and usually needs a lot more attention than he gets. Whenever he is upset about something, he lets out a loud, high pitched wail that can be heard from just about anywhere at Nabo Jibon. Sometimes this will be accompanied by him smashing his head against whatever he is mad at (either a person or a door he cannot get through). The wailing generally occurs multiple times every hour. If he cried out a single time on Monday, I missed it. Then there is Sonu, a boy that is often upset anyway, but had particular reason to be upset on Monday. He was showing signs of possible epileptic seizures (I don't know how they judge that), which he periodically suffers from. The brothers wanted to prevent him from hurting himself if he went into one, but couldn't have a single person dedicated to watching him. Their solution was to tie him to a seat or into his bed. I've seen him tied down before, and he absolutely hates it. Those tend to be the worst days for him. On Monday, it didn't seem to bother him. He just sat there quietly and enjoyed his interactions with anyone that happened to stop as they walked by. All in all, an amazing day and a real answer to prayer.

Tuesday was less amazing. Really, it was a fairly normal day. Then again, perhaps that is to be expected, we hadn't gathered together as a team to pray for our respective homes.

Then there was today, when once again we failed to join in prayer. The day was fairly normal, right up until lunch. During lunch, Robert (one of the boys) decided his food wasn't enough, and bit into the arm of the boy next to him. That boy screamed out, and several of us rushed over. He was really clamped down, so it took us a bit to get them apart. I had never seem Robert upset before. Usually he is one of the best behaved boys, but not today. It took me and another grown man to wash him, change him, and get him into his bed. As soon as we were done with all of that, he settled down.

The contrast of these three days is astounding to me. It certainly makes me think that our team needs to come together in prayer more often.

Annoying

On the bus ride home from Nabo Jibon this afternoon, the bus hit a bump. Actually it hit lots of bumps, but one was particularly memorable. It wasn't memorable because I caught air (that happens on a semi-regular basis). Rather, I remember it because it caused my wrist to hit the edge of the window in just the right way to knock the pin out of one side of my watch band. Fortunately, I didn't lose the watch out the window, but I couldn't find the pin, so now the band on my watch is fairly useless. This isn't a big deal, but it certainly is annoying.

Current Book

We finished up Compassion and discussed it last Saturday. Once again, it is an amazing book that you really should read if you haven't already. This week we are reading The Good News About Injustice. I'm about half way through, and so far it seems like a pretty good book. We'll discuss it on Saturday night.

Strange Morning

Todd and I had an unusual experience on the bus this morning. I was lucky enough to be sitting, and Todd was standing a few feet away. An older Indian man got on and stood between us. At first I didn't pay any attention, but then I realized something about him wasn't right. As the bus moved, he rocked back and forth with a lot of jerks in his movement. There isn't anything particularly unusually about this since the bus rides in Kolkata are very bumpy. There was something else unusual about his rocking, however. It didn't stop while the bus was stopped. He kept rocking back and forth with unnaturally jerky movements. It seemed like his body was responding to forces that only existed in his world. He seemed completely unaware of the world around him. A snot icicle began to form from his upper lip. He took no notice of it, although I certainly did since he was kind of standing over me!

After a while, the fare collector decided he didn't want the man on the bus. He got the bus to stop, then peeled the man's hands from the bars they were clinging to. Other than that, the man put up no resistance and the bus drove away leaving him sitting on the side of the street.

The experience left me with a multitude of unanswered questions. What was going on with the man? Was he drunk? Handicapped? Did he have a stroke while standing on the bus? Why did the fare collector want him off? Had the man failed to pay his fare? Did the strange behavior of this man make the fare collector uncomfortable? Lastly, although I didn't understand what was going on, was there anything I could have done to help the situation?

One Year Out - One Month Left

One year ago today I graduated from Harvey Mudd College. It seems both shorter and longer than that. On the one hand, I still have such strong memories of my time at Mudd that it almost seems like just a month or two ago. On the other hand, my life has changed so much in the last year. At graduation, I never would have believed that I'd be in Kolkata, India right now. I wouldn't have expected to be so plugged in, involved, and supported by a Church after a year of involvement, and I was only there for four months! I praise God for all of it.

On the other side of things, I have just a little under a month left in India. I will be back in the United States on June 14th. Our last week in India will be a team retreat somewhere north of Kolkata and up in the mountains. That means I only have three weeks left in Kolkata. It's crazy to think that the time has gone by so quickly. Before I know it I'll be back in the United States trying to reconcile how it is possible for India and America to exist on the same planet. Please pray that our team will continue to grow during this last month, both as a community and each of us personally. Pray that we won't check out emotionally, but will still be present in our day to day lives.

Free Set Bags

Check out this company. In particular, make sure to check out their story. I got to visit their worldwide headquarters (read: only location) yesterday. It is so great that a company like this exists!

Brothers at Nabo Jibon and Howrah Station

The past few days I've really been appreciating the chances I've had to interact with the brothers at Nabo Jibon. Several times this week I've chosen to stay later than usual just because it is a peaceful place to read, pray, journal, etc. As a result of being there later, I've gotten into more conversations with the brothers. On Wednesday I stayed late enough to join them for a short afternoon prayer meeting. I don't know why it has taken me until now to start appreciating the community they have there, but it really is pretty amazing. (Ethan, I'm beginning to see how amazing life must be for you right now.)

This morning I made a point of getting there earlier than usual. I was aiming to get there by 8am at the latest. Usually I get there between 8:30 and 8:45. I ended up arriving at 7:15am, both because I gave myself a safety margin and because there was less traffic so the busses could drive faster. Those 45 minutes allowed me to catch the last 5 minutes of their morning mass, as well as enjoy breakfast (second breakfast for me) with them.

It was not, however, for mass or second breakfast that I showed up early. This morning I got to go along with two of the brothers in training to Howrah Station, a large train station just outside of Kolkata. The brothers go there every Saturday to look for men that need medical help. I don't know why there are so many people just living on the platforms at the train station, but they are there, and many of them aren't doing well. Each of the brothers carried a small medical kit as we walked up and down each of the platforms looking for those in need. Those with minor wounds are dealt with on the spot. Men with serious wounds or that are very ill are taken back to Nabo Jibon in an ambulance for the brothers to care for until they are better or until they pass away. Particularly during the hot months of May and June the beds at Nabo Jibon are usually full. This means that there is only room to bring back the most serious cases. Fortunately we didn't have to make any decisions like that today.

We (and I use "we" loosely because really it was mostly the brothers) cleaned and dressed the wounds of several men that we found. We found a boy with an infected wound on the palm of his hand. The brother I was with at the time cleaned the outside of the wound, then had to cut it open to drain the puss out of it. As it turned out, there was some small object (I'm not sure what) that was lodged at the center of the wound. The boy cringed and even cried a little as the brother got it out. When he was done with that boy, he attended to another boy in the group (there were four total). During this whole process, a third boy kept asking me to by him a treat. The brother told me quite not to buy them anything, because then they wouldn't leave us alone to the work we came for.

Sometime in the middle, we ran across a man sitting against a pole under an overhang. It didn't look to me like anything was wrong physically, and he made no attempt to attract our attention. I don't know why, but the brother decided to stop and talk with him. I couldn't understand the conversation, but it was clear that something wasn't well in this man's life. He began to weep, and a little later I held his hand, not sure what else I could do. We gave him a few of the bananas we were carrying, and walked on. Somewhat while we were still there, and somewhat as we walked away the brother explained the situation to me. Apparently this man is stranded in Kolkata, away from whichever part of India he is from. He doesn't have anything here, nor does he know anyone. I have no idea how this occurred, and I can only imagine the fear, loneliness, and perhaps abandonment he must feel. The brother clearly felt for the man, but could not provide him a bed at Nabo Jibon, nor a ticket home. I found out later that a ticket for him would cost around 200 rupees (less than five US dollars). As we went on, I kept thinking back to that man. I had the money on me, and decided that I should have given it to the man. There is little doubt in my mind that his story was genuine, and an almost inconsequentially small sacrifice from me could have been a life changing difference for him. I thought about asking the brother if we could go back, but I didn't. I thought about going back to the train station by myself later and trying to find him, but I have not. I doubt I would be able to find him. I don't have a clear memory of what he looked like, nor do I remember which platform he was on. I wish I was better at taking initiative in the moment, rather than thinking about what I should have done in retrospect. Why is my initiative so small?

In addition to the significant experience of going, I had a great time talking with the two brothers. We talked about how things were different today because I was along. Apparently in a train station with thousands and thousands of Indians, a lone white guys draws a lot of attention. They said that they were approached by beggars much more than they usually are. Then we talked about some issues regarding beggars in Kolkata. It was a great experience, and I was invited to go along for a similar trip on Wednesday, when two different brothers search through one of the nearby slums. Assuming I can get myself up out of bed in time, I plan to go along.

Not an "Or" Question

I'm beginning to realize that very often I (as well as lots of other people) tend to ask questions as "or" when the answer should be "and." I will create entire arguments to explain why one thing is better or more important than another. This results in mentalities where one thing is completely important, while the other is seen as completely worthless by comparison. The problem is that quite often, this is used more as a justification to avoid the "lesser" thing, while in reality both are critically important and one without the other will usually be empty. Here's a few examples that immediately come to mind:

Solidarity and Solutions: When someone comes to you, pained by something, what is your response? For a long time, if I could respond with a solution to their problem, that was the only response I gave. Only in the absence of a solution would I seek to comfort them by joining with them, acknowledging and sharing their pain. I saw solidarity with others as a fall back when I couldn't do the "better" thing of offering a solution. In reality though, both are important.

An excellent example of this is the way Jesus responds to Mary's pain at the death of Lazarus. Jesus knows that He is going to raise Lazarus from the dead, he could easily and painlessly skip to the solution. Instead, He sees Mary's tears and joins them with His own. Jesus allows Himself to feel Mary's pain. He acknowledges that her pain is real, and joins her so that she is not alone in her pain. Only after Jesus has joined Mary in her pain does He provide a solution.

I find that all too often I am quick to jump to solutions for people. I never stop to let them know that I care about their pain or to let myself hurt because they are hurting. By jumping to a solution I imply that their pain doesn't matter. It is only after acknowledging that pain and joining with them in solidarity that I can offer a loving solution.

On the other side of things, if you truly allow yourself to hurt because they are hurt, it is only natural that you would seek to give them a solution. In many cases it isn't possible. I cannot undo the death of the tsunami, but if I truly feel the pain of their loss, I will at least seek to help them rebuild their homes.


Prayer and Action: This one comes up a lot with a lot of people I interact with. God calls us both to pray and to act. Without prayer, we are working on our own strength, unwilling to seek God's strength and guidance in our actions. Without seeking to act on the things we pray for, we are denying God of ourselves as workers in the Kingdom. We are hiding behind fear of risking ourselves in ways that may hurt, or believing the lie that God cannot use us. Yes there are times when you can do nothing more than pray, but to claim that acting out in faith does not matter to God is an absolute lie.


Community and Solitude: I'm not going to go into this one as much. Jesus wants us all to be involved in community. It is also critically important to our relationship with Jesus that we do maintain times of solitude and prayer. If you look at the Gospels, it is clear that both community and solitude were huge parts of Jesus life on Earth.


There are a lot more cases of these questions. I'm sure that I will continue to ask "or" all too often and fail to see that the answer is really "and." Still, I need to acknowledge it when I do see it.

Compassion

As I mentioned yesterday, our team is reading Compassion right now. This book is amazing. I have no idea why I haven't read this book before. I've known about it for quite a while, and I've heard plenty of people with good things to say about it. Perhaps it was God's will to save it until now, because it is really hitting me where I'm at right now. It seems like every single page of it hits me. I'm coming to understand better what has made some of my past communities so amazing, as well as gaining insight into all sorts of struggles and failures in my life, both past and present. I guess I'll just end by saying that if you haven't read this book, you really should. I can't think of another book (save the Bible) that so clearly talks about the heart of a Christian life.

Kolkata is Heating Up

Well, that wonderful stretch of cool weather seems to be over. The past few days there hasn't been any rain, and Kolkata has been heating up. According to the paper, yesterday's temperature ranged between 80 and 100 degrees F (It's in degrees C in the paper, but I'm nice enough to do the conversion for you). By itself that wouldn't be too awful, but then there's the humidity that ranged from 55% up to 94%. Fortunately I spent most of the day inside under a ceiling fan, so I did alright with the heat.

Unfortunately things are likely to only get worse. Predictions are that the temperature will be rising over the next few weeks, probably settling down around 110-115 degrees F. Also, I'm not going to just spend every day sitting idle under a fan (although the idea has pretty high appeal to me). This morning at Nabo Jibon I thought I was going to die of heat stroke if I didn't just melt first. I was outside in a semi-shaded area being a little bit active with some of the boys. I was drenched in sweat and the heat felt nearly unbearable. By 9:15am I had to go inside and take a break. I drank a bunch of water and rested for a while until I felt better. After that I tried to take it easier for the rest of the morning. Coming back on the bus today wasn't any fun either. Being crammed up against men you don't know is bad enough, but when it's hot and everyone is sweating like crazy, it gets even worse.

Please pray that God will bring back the rain and cool Kolkata down. I'd prefer wading through sewage to death by heat stroke.

Me and Emotions

I really appreciate your feedback on my post about sensitivity. I haven't been to an internet cafe since my last post, so perhaps some of you have felt a little in the dark about how I've been doing in that area. The issue has actually been even more encompassing of my life than just how I deal with people on the streets. I realized that my emotions have been numbing in just about every area, which definitely wasn't a good thing. I've been stuck there for a few days, but yesterday evening I started to gain some insights into myself.

I took the day off from Nabo Jibon today to spend some extra time with God trying to figure myself out. A lot of my initial triggers came from our current book, Compassion. This is an amazing book, but what really hit me was when he talked about being bombarded with the pain of the world. He says that outside of community this will almost always lead to numbness and anger. That pretty much exactly described me, numb and angry. I realized that as part of this, I was becoming numb and closed off to my team (i.e. community problems), but I assumed it was because of the general numbness to everything else. Then I thought back to LAUP and realized that there was at least one very clear point where I closed off to my team there. When I started thinking about this as a problem of the way I'm plugging into community here in Kolkata, it really changes things.

Anyway, I spent today reading my LAUP journal, and then journaling on my thoughts from that. I am so glad I thought to bring that journal with me to Kolkata. It was so valuable to read through that again. Then I read through my journal thus far from Kolkata and journaled on trends, similarities, and differences between the two. I am very convinced at this point that my problems and their solutions have to do more with community than anything else. I want to make it clear that I'm not trying to say anything bad about our community here. Certainly there are many ways for us to grow as a community, but anything along those lines will be brought up with them and will not end up here except perhaps in hindsight as something we have gone through that I want to share about.

Please keep praying for me and for us. We need a ton of prayer support and I greatly appreciate all of the prayers you have been sending.

Loss of Sensitivity

After being in Asia for over 2.5 months, I've realized that a lot of stuff just isn't affecting me the way it originally did. There are a lot of ways that this is probably a good thing. If I was still freaking out about how dirty and noisy this city was, I probably would have gone crazy by now. If every time I used a squatty potty it seemed like an adventure, it would substantially interfere with my everyday life here.

At the same time, there are ways that I have really lost my sensitivity to the pain and suffering of this city. Every day I see people living on the streets. Every day I see people with deformed bodies. Every day I see people that don't have enough to eat. There are so many other horrible things that I see on a regular basis. When I first arrived in Kolkata, just walking around the city broke my heart for the pain that people are in. The pain of the city isn't any less now than it was then, but the compassion I used to feel seems like it has dried up. I just don't deal with it anymore. I walk down the streets of Kolkata oblivious to the pain around me simply because I can choose to block it out.

I need to let God fill me with His love for the people of this city. I need to feel the pain of it again. I need to have my heart break for the things that break God's heart. Out of that brokenness, and only out of it can I hope to ever love the hurting people around me.

Please keep praying for me. Only God can transform my heart. I need that transformation. Pray for me to experience God's love like I never have before.

Miraculous Weather

As I've mentioned before, May is supposed to be a brutally hot month in Kolkata. As I mentioned before, it was pretty hot when we arrived in Kolkata on Wednesday, but it certainly wasn't unbearable. Every day since then has been wonderful. In the evenings and at night we've been getting heavy rain, which drops the temperature quite a bit, as well as leaving water to absorb heat the following morning. There is the slight downside of having to deal with the rain, but we're usually not out much in the evening so it isn't a big deal. The mud in the morning won't bother me until I slip and fall in it one day. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that we have been very blessed with weather that is better than I thought we could hope for.

I Can Do It!

Last night I finally did something for the first time that I've never been able to do before: A pull up! Actually I did three of them in a row! I have never in my life been in good enough shape physically to manage a pull up. Todd likes working out, so hung a pull up bar on the porch of our apartment. Prior to going to Sri Lanka I tried and couldn't do one. There are a couple factors that I think contributed to this. First, spending time in Sri Lanka doing manual labor probably made me a bit stronger than when I left for Sri Lanka. Second, I'm pretty sure that I've been losing weight since coming to Asia. It isn't that I'm not eating or that I'm trying to lose weight, it's just happening. About half way through our time in Sri Lanka I had to cut a new hole in my belt. Anyway, this may not be all that exciting for the rest of you, but for a guy that's never been able to do even one, it was a pretty big deal.

Scary

Walking down the streets of Kolkata, just a dozen feet before I entered this internet cafe, I witnessed something that kind of scared me. There was a boy (twelve or so maybe?) standing at the street corner in a daze. I'm pretty sure he is mentally handicapped. I get this impression from the way he carried himself, the daze that he was in, and the fact that he wasn't wearing anything more than a shirt, yet didn't seem to care. In all honesty though, nothing about that seems all that out of place for Kolkata. The thing that scared me was that he was carrying a knife that looked pretty sharp. He was just sort of moving it around without seeming to have any real awareness of where it was going. It just seemed like such a danger both to him and to anyone walking by.

Back in Kolkata

Our team is back in Kolkata. It wasn't the greatest train ride, but it could have been a lot worse. God blessed us will amazingly cool weather yesterday, so it wasn't the miserably hot ride that Kristin had prepared us for. It started to get hot, but around noon it started raining heavily. This forced us to close the windows, leaving the train with too little light for reading*. All things considered, I was perfectly happy to be in a nice, cool dimly lit train over a well lit, but miserably hot train.

I'm not sure what to say about getting back into Kolkata. We've only been back for a few hours so far. I'll probably have some more feelings soon. Kolkata still seems really dirty and crowded... even after being in Chennai. I guess it just goes to show why even most Indians don't like Kolkata. It is a lot hotter now than when we left Kolkata a month ago. May is supposed to be a pretty miserable month, and I suspect that we are in for some days even worse than today. It seems like there are a lot less sickly animals in our neighborhood. There were five dogs that usually hung out around the entrance to our apartment building. I haven't seen any of them yet. It is quite possible that the hot weather was more than those animals could handle. It is also possible that the hotter weather drove them to find some shade to hide in during the day. If I don't see them at all within the next few days, I probably won't seem them at all.

You can be praying for all of us as we get re-acclimated to the city. This is going to be a rough six weeks, but I know God still has a lot left to teach each of us.


*Closing the train windows makes it dark for two reasons that may not be obvious if you have never ridden a train in India. First, there are two sets of windows. The inside window is transparent, but leaks badly. The outer window keeps the rain out, but doesn't let water through. You may also wonder about electric lights on the train. The train does in fact have lights, and the lights are bright enough for me to read comfortably. The problem is that they disable the lights during the day. I guess they don't want people wasting electricity while the sun can provide light.

Pre-Travel Travel Update

Kristen and April are both feeling better. April is still exhausted, but that shouldn't be a problem for the train ride. Kristin went down to the train station early this morning to make sure she was first in line (they were out of tickets after the second person!). She got a set of three tickets together and a set of four tickets together. That isn't as great as having seven tickets all together, but it is a huge blessing since I was expecting singletons or maybe pairs. If nothing else goes wrong, we'll be on a train for Kolkata at 9am tomorrow morning, and will arrive in Kolkata around noon on Wednesday.

That Wasn't in the Plan...

So, the plan was for our whole team to catch a train from Chennai to Kolkata this morning. The train would have put us all back in Kolkata around noon on Monday. Since I'm in an internet cafe posting to my blog, you can probably tell that I'm not currently on a train. I'll try to explain this as clearly as possible:

We all went to the train station this morning, the team sat down while Kristin went to figure out which platform our train was on. We were cutting things closer than Kristin would have liked, so as soon as she returned we grabbed our luggage and hurried to our train. We the found train, got on, and found our seats. While we were cramming our luggage under the seats, I realized that I didn't have my backpack. I guess in our hurry I somehow forgot to grab it from where we were sitting earlier. I dashed off to try and find it. I did take enough time to tell Todd where I was going first. I ran (running might be a bit of an exaggeration in a crowded train station) as fast as I could and I found my backpack where we had been seated (thank goodness it was still there!). I pushed my way back through the crowds and saw from a distance that the train was moving! I ignored all standards of decency and cultural appropriateness, shoving my way through the crowds and shouting for people to get out of my way. I wasn't fast enough, I couldn't catch the train. I had a feeling of absolute horror. My team was on a train back to Kolkata while I was still in Chennai. Even worse, my passport (which is required for buying train tickets and checking into hotels) was in my suitcase on the train! I didn't know whether to cry, throw up, or pinch myself to wake up from the dream.

Take a deep breath, I'm only kidding. The only truth to that story is that I am still in Chennai, and that we were supposed to leave this morning. The truth is that all of us are still in Chennai. Last night Kristen (non-leader) and April got really sick. We decided that a 27 hour train ride would be awful for them, so we decided to change our tickets and wait a few days before we head north. Unfortunately at this point the trains for the next while are all full, and we'll have to depend on cancellations. It sounds like there are usually enough that this won't be a problem, but the way the system is set up, we can only purchase those tickets 24-hours prior to departure (I have no clue why that rule is in place). The other downside is that we are very unlikely to find seven seats together. If we are lucky we may get some pairs, but we may just have seven singletons throughout the train. Time will tell.

Please be praying for us. Pray that Kristen and April will recover soon, and that no one else will get sick. Pray that getting new tickets will be a smooth process. Please pray for Kristin too, as a leader, this is the sort of thing that has potential to really stress her out.

AIDS Home

Yesterday evening our team visited one of the two Word Made Flesh children's homes in Chennai. It is a home for children affected by AIDS. Some of the kids have/had (I'm not sure if there are any currently) HIV/AIDS. The larger purpose for the home, however, is to take in children that have lost their parents to AIDS. About half of the kids actually still have a parent, but the parent is near death and unable to care for them. The home is currently run by an Indian couple in their 50's. They have such a clear love for the Lord and for these children. The children were all pretty crazy. I'm not sure exactly how many there were, thirty or so perhaps? The younger kids only spoke Tamil, so playing with them had to be done entirely with non-verbal communication. This makes, "I'm tired, please stop climbing on me!" even harder to get across than it already tends to be with kids. Since we were only there for an evening, I didn't get as good of a feel for the place as at Tammy's. Still, I'm so glad that I got a chance to see a little bit more of what Word Made Flesh does in India.