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