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