I Am Beloved

The Sari Bari ladies gave us "Tiks" or "Bindis"

I can barely believe I've been here over a month. I still feel as foreign as the day I arrived, though my tiny Bengali vocabulary has grown incrementally, and I've gotten used to the crush and rush of everyday life. It's hard to say exactly how much I've changed or stayed the same. I came here expecting my main experience to be one focusing on the people I work with and try to serve well, and while this is a big part of my life here, the journey God has set my feet on has turned out to be far more about me than about those I am here to serve. Things centering around me make me uncomfortable, I am afraid of being selfish and self serving in a time when I am meant to be working for the benefit of others. However, God seems to have other ideas about what I should learn here.
Recently my struggle has been one of accepting God's grace on my imperfections. I know all the facts: that God loves me and forgives my failures and mistakes, and I know the people around me here want to give me His grace and forgiveness also. But neither my heart nor my head quite accept it yet. I still spend every say hearing people say "I don't mind" or "It's ok" or "Don't worry about it", and thinking in response that they are surely lying. I have been lied to like this many times, particularly at jobs where my smallest mistakes were brushed off but secretly being tallied and brought to bear against me later, but also among friends who claimed to accept me as I was but at the first misstep or accidental lack of tact punished me brutally by shunning or spreading rumors. So one can see how I come to be so paranoid toward my own inadequacies. I feel that at any moment, any small mistake I could be dumped like yesterday's garbage, because that is often what I've lived. My parents named me a name that means "beloved", "little loved one"- a name that means value, and beauty, and worth. They never could have imagined how I would struggle with believing in that name.

When I think about it though, the whole theme of Sari Bari (Word Made Flesh's outreach in Kolkata) is based around grace. It starts with women with no social or economic capitol. Women are very low value citizens in Indian society- best for cooking, cleaning and working early morning into late night to keep her father/brothers/husband/sons happy. The women of Kolkata's red light districts often come from rural or urban poor backgrounds where they had no capitol to start a business, were not provided with an education (or not one sufficient to create marketable skills), and no ability to earn more than enough just to subsist with food, rent, and a lot of going without. Until there simply wasn't enough anymore and they were left to fend for themselves- Until their only bargaining ship was their own bodies. (So, when you think about it, did they choose the sex trade, or did it choose them?) And once you enter the trade there is no going back. The percieved shame Indian culture places on a life of prostitution prevents the women from every returning to their families, seeking a respectable marriage to support them, or pursuing a job in another area. Indian culture will never accept them again once they are known to have joined the sex trade.

My FreeSet bag, With words describing women

But Sari Bari chooses to countermand all of that cultural convention, all of the social taboo, and show these women grace. With no expectation of reciprocal gain, they provide these women with education and skills. They employ the undesirables rejected by all other businesses and accept the physical and emotional detriments of trauma that come with them. Most of all, they teach each and every woman that she is loved, valued, precious to God. By the exxample of love and support in that community they demonstrate God's infinite grace poured out over our lives, erasing all iniquity, removing all stain. Slowly these women learned to embrace freedom from the stigma of their former profession and live in the sanctuary of God's acceptance.
If they can overcome such great cultural labeling and negativity, who am I to let my surroundings (infinitely more fair to me, more weighted in my favor) tell me I am inadequate or unworthy? As much as I believe it is a lie to say those women are worthless, I should believe it is a lie to say I am worthless.
And yet, and yet, and yet... in my brokenness I struggle on. When I began to cry, when the greatness of my doubt came crashing down at the oddest and most inopportune time, the women at Sari Bari wiped the tears off my cheeks and crowded around to hug me, telling me they are all there for me- these women who have had lives so much harder than mine, who met me just a month ago- that they all love me and will support me. They remind me that I am beloved, by them, by others, by God. I am beloved. I am beloved. I am beloved. And, Lord willing, I am learning to believe them.

Zephaniah 3:14-20
Sing, O Daughter of Zion; shout aloud, O Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, O Daughter of Jerusalem! The LORD has taken away your punishment, he has turned back your enemy. The LORD, the King of Israel, is with you; never again will you fear any harm. On that day they will say to Jerusalem, "Do not fear, O Zion; do not let your hands hang limp. The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing. The sorrows for the appointed feasts I will remove from you; they are a burden and a reproach to you. At that time I will deal with all who oppressed you; I will rescue the lame and gather those who have been scattered. I will give them praise and honor in every land where they were put to shame. At that time I will gather you; at that time I will bring you home. I will give you honor and praise among all the peoples of the earth when I restore your fortunes before your very eyes," says the LORD. 

All my love- Amalia

Burn It Down

Hello dear friends! I am sorry to say I have been shirking in my resolution to write a blog on a weekly basis! it's now week four, day 27, and I'm ready to update you again on what I've been learning and experiencing here in Kolkata.
First of all I thought I'd share with you a few cultural quirks I discovered that might be of interest. These fall into two categories: things India believes in, and things it doesn't. So, here goes:
Things India Believes In!:

Sarah models the teeny tiny Cha

• Shoving- In many Asian cultures because of the huge number of people you are competing against, if you don't shove, you'll never get anything you want (literally or metaphorically). The Indians adhere to this philosophy with gusto.
• "Cha Time" twice daily- Cha, or black tea with milk and sugar is served twice, morning and evening, at all workplaces, and tiny communion-sized cups of the stuff are available at all times of the day and night on street corners and train platforms throughout the city.
• Using umbrellas for sun, but hiding from rain- this makes sense if you think about the strength of an Indian monsoon shower. Those storms don't play around.
• Having unpronounceable phonetics- You try to figure out the difference between the "gh" consonant and the "kh", I can't.
• Using completely garbled syntax- A sentence from a prayer we learned translated exactly states, "thanks us India bringing for, help do please dear Jesus so that us Bangla quickly learn."
• Non-committal head motions- a dip of the head to one side can mean yes but often morphs into the head "waggle" which can mean both yes or no. 

Things India Doesn't Believe In!:

• Ovens- everyone cooks on one burner stoves I don't know what they have against baked goods.
• In-house Bathing- If you are Indian (or at least 90% of Indians) you wash either in a communal bathroom in your housing complex or a side-of-the-road water spigot where twenty other people are lathering up as buses and cars whiz by.
• Personal Space- Cuz in a country with this many people, I guess they figure "why bother?"
• Utensils- Not a fork in sight. No idea why.
• Toilet Paper- Might be a waste thing? I don't know, but boy had you better carry your own if you want it!
• Giving Change for more than a 100 Rupee Bill- No idea why. Surely someone has a use for the 500s and 1000s

My teammate Nathan modeling our bed

Annie models the bucket-shower

The Jones and Salley Surprise (aka dinner)

It's been a big time of transition for me. The way of life is, as expected, radically different for me here in comparison to the US. I live in a four room flat with five other people. Myself and the four girls live in one large room, sleeping on thin pallets on the floor, and keeping all our belongings in a cubby holes on the far wall. We have two working toilets (praise Jesus), but no showers, we wash by tipping water over our heads from a bucket (see photo demonstration). Our kitchen is tiny, only about 3' by 6', with only a sink and a two burner gas stove- that is JUST a stove, no convection oven, just burners. We take turns cooking and cleaning, and so far things have gone very well among the five of us. I am having to do a lot of internal adjustment though mainly because I am not used to being around people for so much of my day. In the US I spend at least 65% of my day by myself. This is my recharge time, the time I use to process my thoughts and feelings and recoup my energy. I am a fairly outgoing person, but this doesn't mean I'm an extrovert. Just being around people for hours and hours tires me out. I must spend that time worrying about others, their wants, needs, and desires and make an effort to fulfill them to the best of my ability. It's hard to keep that up 24/7. I am, by nature, selfish. In a healthy way sometimes (when selfishness is my time to withdraw and be at peace within myself) but also in a detrimental way (in that I sometimes begin to resent catering to others when I want to just have my way). I think God is teaching me about what servanthood really means when it is lived 24 hours a day 7 days a week. I am being convicted about some of my more blatant selfish inclinations and trying to begin to discipline myself to engage community living for the long haul. It's not going to be easy, but I think in the long run I will have an ability I never knew I was capable of and it will bless my life immensely. I know God has plans to prosper me and not to harm me, so this community living thing has to be good right? Haha, well if not good-feeling at least good for me as a person. I plan to try hard to live well in community with this team and Word Made Flesh overall. Please pray for me to find the balance between nurturing my soul through alone time and meditation, and allowing my selfishness to melt away in favor of a stronger community bond. It's going to be a long road, but I think the journey will bring me joy. The lyrics to a Death Cab for Cutie song have been on my mind as I begin this journey toward a self-effacing, community building lifestyle: 

Burn it down till the embers smoke on the ground

And start new, when your heart is an empty room

With walls of the deepest blue...

The flames and smoke climbed out of every window

And disappeared with everything that you held dear

And you shed not a single tear, for the things that you didn't need

'Cause you knew you were finally free...

I Love you all! Please feel free to leave comments and feedback, I'd love to hear from you! 

Be well friends!