Friends,
It has been almost 8 years since my first visit to India. That visit changed my life, captured my heart, and brought me back to this country which became my home for 3 years.
As I write this, I again find myself in this wonderful nation. My senses are overwhelmed. The colors, vibrant dress, and smiles on the faces of the beautiful children fill my eyes with the glory of South Indian culture. My ears drink in the musical sound of the Tamil language and the laughter of the children. My nose breathes the delicious and pungent smells of some of the best food in the world. But the poverty of this great nation overwhelms my senses with a backdrop of suffering and oppression that can't be ignored and that can't be avoided.
It's been 18 months since Phileena and I were here last. I've only been here in Madras (or Chennai as it's now called) for a few days, but they have been days full of emotion. Reconnecting with friends and family has never been such an experience.
Reconnecting with the children at the WMF children's homes. Children who have known such horrible rejection, pain, and suffering, now are reaching out in love. The children are reaching out to a nation mourning the death of 50,000+ victims of an earthquake by fasting from meat and eggs for 2 weeks so that the earthquake victims can have something to eat. The children are giving up their own clothes to send to children whose homes have been destroyed. It has been moving reconnecting with children whose memories recall times shared over meals, at the beach, and in the home when I had lived here before.
Reconnecting with the Muslim family who took me in and accepted me as one of their own sons. A family with 3 sons my age who were among the residential poor of India, struggling to make ends meet and struggling to survive when we first met. Now the youngest son works for a computer company in Singapore providing the basic needs this family never knew.
Reconnecting with Prabha's family. The Hindu family with 5 daughters that I grew to love as sisters. When we first met they lived in a slum down the road from my apartment. Thatched walls, dirt floors, and no electricity was their reality. Now their home is made of bricks, has a door, running water, and electricity and they are finally in a position to see their oldest daughter married. Prabha was a 7 year old girl, pigtails and a picture perfect smile when we first met, and is now a 13 year old young woman facing a life of poverty and subjugation in a socially stratified Hindu injustice – the caste system.
My emotions have been overwhelmed by seeing so much change in the lives of the WMF children, my Muslim family here, and the way Prabha and her sisters now live. So many of our prayers have been, and are being answered. So many miracles and so much joy now replaces so much suffering and isolation.
In reflecting on these changes I also see the changes in my heart. I see how the WMF children, my Muslim friends, and this simple Hindu family have given me so much. Have shaped my reality in such a way that they've challenged how I live and what I want for my life.
Looking back on the past 8 years I am able to see not how much I've given to my friends and family here in India, but how much they've given to me. How much they've blessed me. How much I'm a reflection of them.
So many prayers have been answered, but so many more need to be answered. Please pray with me for my friends and family here: the Muslim family, the Hindu family, and the children of WMF. Pray that the Lord would arrest their hearts and direct their paths. That their futures would be full of His love. And pray for me. That the Lord would continue to use these beloved ones to bring my heart closer to His.
Peace,
Chris