A Growing Legacy

The first day we were here in India our hosts welcomed us with a formal meeting, songs, and a warm greeting. As the leader of our group, our hosts called me up to the front and had me introduce the rest of our group. They referred to me as “Pastor Michael from Aspen Grove.”

I’m not a pastor, but I didn’t correct our host because I wanted to be kind and culturally sensitive. In front of a group correcting him might be seen as an insult.
But as the week went on I kept getting promoted and my titles began to grow. Later I was introduced as “Pastor Michael, the Lead Pastor of Aspen Grove Community Church.” Then I was “Pastor Michael, who has been the Lead Pastor for five years at Aspen Grove.”

By the end of the week I was called up to give a greeting as, “The Reverend Michael, Lead Pastor of Aspen Grove.” If I stayed another week I’d probably be, “The Dr. Rev. Michael.”

Jon (who is a pastor at Aspen Grove) told me that if I stayed another week they’d start calling me the Pope.

Too bad I have to go home soon and just be Michael. It’s kind of fun to be Rev Michael. I guess he’s my Indian alter ego. Maybe I’ll get to be him again the next time we come back.

-MB

Time to Head Home

Well we made it, almost. We're at the Bangalore airport waiting for our flight to London. It was a wonderful trip, and everyone on our team stayed healthy (mostly) the whole week, which is a miracle in itself.

There is still a lot to think about and I'm sure we'll have more posts in future days as we process all we've seen. Thanks to all of you for following the trip and for your prayers.

The Plans of Man

On Thursday nothing went according to plan. As the leader of our team, I have spent months and hundreds of hours in preparation for this trip. I had many detailed conversations with contacts in India about what we would do and see in our time here. I worked through itineraries and arrangements. And it just didn’t work.

I’m trying hard to lead, but I’m learning that communication is hard and no matter what plans you make they will change. Here is what I mean. I talk to our Indian hosts, make plans, then communicate them to our team, only to have them change. And then change again. And then change again.

Conversations go something like this:

“I’d like to go to a village” “A village?” “Yes, a village.” “Great, we’ll go to a village.”

Then we get in the van and drive for four hours. And the van pulls into a silk factory.

Then we find it out the silk factory isn’t even open. Because the factory says today is a holiday.

You can’t make stuff like this up.

“What about the village?” I ask. “Oh, I thought you would like to go to this silk factory, so we went there instead. But it is closed. Maybe you’d like to see a palace and ride elephants now.”

“Umm, ok. Sure. Let’s ride some elephants.”

So we all get off the van, my team looking at me like I am crazy since I spent the morning prepping them to go to a village. Then we drive four hours back in crazy traffic with everyone exhausted—not having seen a village, a school (the original plan for the day) or a silk factory.

Another time we went to a restaurant. I ordered some food but when the dishes arrived they were all different from what I had ordered. When I asked about it the staff told me that I did not really want what I had ordered so they brought me something else instead.

I know Americans are task oriented and efficiency is king, and I know India is not like that. But man, did India stretch me on Thursday.

I guess God is trying to teach me something here. India is a lot like life. We make our plans and decide what we are going to do and how we are going to do it. Where we’ll live, what careers we’ll have, what our families will look like. We have pictures in our minds of how everything will work out.

But God often has a different plan in store. And in the end, if God wants us to ride elephants, we’ll ride elephants. No matter what we have planned.

--MB

Forty Ways to Wear a Salwar

We needed to let off some steam last night. Here's the result:

A Dream Realized

Yesterday was one of the hardest days I’ve had in years. Today was one of the best. I guess that’s how things work in India. High highs and low lows.

One year ago we stood in Dharmapuri, a town in southern India, and met a man named Tangaraj and his wife Amooda. He was working at a small, humble clinic that helped Dalits with AIDS.

I’m not sure there is a more ostracized group in the world than untouchables with AIDS. I once visited an AIDS hospital in the US and was given a mask to wear to separate myself from the patients there. I remember feeling sorry for the AIDS patients, that even the few visitors who came to see them separated themselves with masks. How much worse would it be to be an untouchable, told you are unclean and lower than an animal from birth, and also have AIDS? Their untouchable relatives also have cast these people out of their families.

One year ago, Tangaraj told us of his dream to build an AIDS hospital and showed us some land and a pile of bricks where he dreamed of a facility that could help the sickest of the sick. His dreams touched my heart.

When we returned and shared this experience, Emily and I met with leaders, made proposals, communicated with reps in India, and spent many, many hours in prayer for this sacred acre in Dharmapuri. We asked our church to give a major financial gift to build the hospital. Our church agreed to send $20,000 to help make this dream a reality.

Today I got to stand with Tangaraj in front of the completed hospital. It was beautiful. To some, it would just look like a building. But to me it was one of the most moving experiences of my life. And I can’t possibly articulate how wonderful it was to be there with Emily, Tangaraj, and our team.

-MB

Some photos

Dharmapurri gathering for patients being treated by the clinic.
Ashley, Austin, Gretchen and Ted handing out monthly nutritional supplements.
We paid the extra 50 rupees.


The Palace in Mysore

A Network Could Not Be Found

Tomorrow morning we go to a remote village - to visit the AIDS clinic we were at one year ago. I'm not confident of any internet access at all. We'll be sure to document our thoughts and post them as soon as we are able.

An Unexpected Holiday and an Elephant

Today we were supposed to visit a school. Instead we rode an elephant. India brings the concept of flexibility and adaptability to a new level. In the end, it was good for us. Our Indian friends really really wanted to show us their history - and we agreed. Mysore doesn’t look that far away from Bangalore on the map, but after more than six hours in the car I noticed the tiny print that read “Not to Scale.”

We walked through an austentacious castle and piled onto a really tired looking elephant. It was fun, but the real gem of our day was the incredible story we heard from a new Indian friend. I’m too tired do this incredible story proper justice, so I’m going to bullet point it for you. (His name either sounded like Submarine or Subaru so I’m going with Submaru for now. I’m really bad at names.)

• Submaru was diagnosed with stage 4 terminal brain cancer at age 15. He was given three months to live. He asked God to give him two years. Duing this storytelling, Submaru whipped out a pink hospital ID card from his briefcase that listed out his diagnosis. (Why do you need an ID card listing your terminal illness on it? That is India for you.)
  
• He went back to the hospital a week later and was cancer free. It was medically inexplainable.
• Mysore is another one of India's hubs for prostitution, and many unwed mothers have babies to use them as money-making beggars. Per Submaru, parents use their young children to beg for money as long as they are cute enough to produce. After the children get older, they are told they will no longer be supported by their parent(s). If the children refuse to leave the house, their eyes are cut out - so passersby will have pity and give them more money because they are blind. (I saw Slumdog Millionaire, and thought this was only shock-value screenwriting.)
• It is nine years later, and Submaru now pastors one of the only christian churches in Mysore. His congregants include over 150 children whose stories are like the one just described, and beyond belief. His prayer is to build a building for a church and for an orphanage, so that these children can be loved and fed. He is literally the only person in their lives who is telling them they have value in this world.
• Submaru is genuinely grateful for every day that he has. His eyes welled up with tears as he told us his story and said that he does not understand why these children have to suffer as they do. He prays that he could take their place - and that they would be set free.

We were blessed to be able to meet Submaru. I'm still processing yesterday, so tonight I'm just reporting the facts. More commentary later.

It wasn't such a bad elephant ride after all.

Teletransport and Really Big Problems

I woke up this morning wishing I were somewhere else. Anywhere else – and preferably by teletransport because I am tired of long car rides. I was sick of India’s stench, exhausted by the constant disorder, and worn down from the enormity of problems that are too big for me to fix.

Yesterday was a hard day. It was emotionally draining and physically uncomfortable. We visited three slums, one of which was home to a young slum pastor, his wife, and their three children. They rented a one-room shack for 300 rupees a month – that is about $6 USD. It was unbelievably cramped – the size of an average office elevator. Five people slept in, lived in, cooked in and stored their belongings in a space the same size as an American closet. Their youngest child was 2 months old and I wondered aloud just how they found the space in this shack to reproduce. Michael, Ted, Ashley, Austin, and I were invited in and left our shoes at the door.

The seven of us were smashed inside this house like a scene from a circus clown car – except it wasn’t funny. Dinner was cooking on the stove and there was no ventilation. My eyes burned as smoke blew directly into my face. Have you ever sat around the wrong side of the campfire with the smoke right at you? You’d just scoot your chair over a few feet - yet none of us could move. We sat still for 20 minutes and listened to this man talk about his wish for a better life for his family; yet he also told us of all the things he was grateful for. He longed for a better job that paid him fairly and allowed him to feed his family. He prayed for a larger home and for good health.

If I wanted to sound like someone with a good heart, I’d tell you that I had a wonderful time of fellowship and that I prayed and loved this man well. But I’d be lying. From the moment I put my bare foot on the dirty, musty floor of his home, I wished it was time to leave. The physical discomfort was easy to identify. I was tired, cramped and my eyes and throat were burning.

I struggle to reconcile my emotional response. My American instinct was to think of this man as a brother – the same as me. All men are created equal, right? Sure, he has the same organs as I do, the same heart. But the differences in our life experiences created a rift that was too big for me to cross.

Too big of a problem for me to make sense of today, anyhow.

Slumdogs

We spent the day visiting three local slums, meeting people in their homes and praying with them. The sheer number of people we saw today and the conditions they live in are difficult to describe.

It was truly a visual and emotional overload. Tonight at our team meeting we tried to process what we saw, but it is hard to wrap our heads and hearts around what we witnessed.

At one point a family invited us into their home and five of us stood in a room only a few feet wide and no more than eight feet long. It was so cramped that we could not stand without touching each other. The room was filled with smoke from cooking dinner on an open fire in the room. There was no ventilation and it was very difficult to breathe. It was hot, cramped, and uncomfortable, even for a few minutes. Then the father told us that five people LIVE in this home.

None of us knew what to say (other than "thank you for inviting us into your home"). The five of us could barely stand in a space that five people live in? In America we'd say this room was too small for one person. College dorm rooms are much larger. But here in India a whole family crams themselves into this space every day.

And this was not just one family. We saw row after row after row of homes like this. Home after home, as if the groups of homes would never stop.

One family asked for prayers for their health because many in their home were sick. With such a small living space and everyone in such close proximity disease spreads quickly. Add to that no clean water or sanitation, and no access to medicine or a clinic, and it is easy to see why everyone gets sick so easily. Here disease kills so many from illnesses that we would consider minor in the US, sicknesses that could easily be prevented or treated. But for the Dalits of India even a cold can be life threatening.

The sheer numbers were overwhelming today. There were SO many hurting, sick, broken people. I've never seen anything like this in my life. We want to do something. We want to help and make a difference. But with so many and such need, it's hard to imagine a solution to this problem. The poverty is simply mindblowing.

Our team is doing well, but we are all exhausted physically and emotionally. I'm now sitting in the dark on battery power because the power just went out where we are staying, which seems like a fitting end to a day that has been so draining.

I'm not quite sure what to do with today. It was overwhelming to say the least. There certainly are no easy answers. But then again, I sure didn't come to India for easy answers.

-MB