More thoughts

First, a few important notes:

1. My mosquito kill count is up to 42. Now there may have been others. I usually only count them if I can find their bodies after I slay them. I have only been bitten once. I know the count has slowed down massively, but Delhi just doesn't have the same Mosquito population as Chennai. That, plus our hotel room has lizards that I bet eat mosquitos--not to mention a mouse that may or may not eat lizards. I have also been considering calling them "skeeters", which I picked up reading Lonesome Dove.

2. I was able to watch the service at Northeast online the other day. It was so encouraging to hear all that was shared and to know that it was "live". I felt like I really got to participate from afar. I appreciate the people that put so much work into that, and I know that those of you who have been away and gotten to experience that taste of family value it as well. Overall, it was really cool.

3. I didn't really get to finish all my thoughts on the Village of Hope last night because the internet cafe was closing. I was just reading Brad's blog and was thinking about his comments on how easy it is to idealize these poor people. One of the things you see pretty constantly here is people begging. It's easy to walk into a poor area and think that it would be really good to give money to those people. Now we have definitely given plenty away, but we've gotten some pretty consistent advice from the Hope staff and from our travel guides, etc. It's good to give to those who are obviously disabled in some way, but they say that just like in America, many people are begging to support a drug habit or to keep from doing any legitimate work. The travel guide said not to give money to kids in certain areas like downtown Delhi, but to instead give to one of the charities that feed and clothe kids in that area. Basically that's the only guarantee that the money won't be spent on drugs. Other people won't ever stop begging and start working unless they can't make enough money begging. That reminds me of the question that Jesus asked the lame beggar in John 5, "Do you want to get well?" Getting well can be costly, and work was a part of God's plan for us even before sin entered the world. God gave Adam and Eve both a job to do, taking care of creation, and I don't think we can be truly fulfilled or happy without working.

Consequently, and this is completely a tangent and I'm not really sure how it's related, I was listening to a US Military sociologist on NPR a week or two before I left and he was talking about the draft. Now the traditional argument against the army draft in the US is that soldiers who are drafted would be more quick to go AWOL and less willing to fight for their country than people who sign up willingly. Interestingly, he pointed out that historically, looking at each war since the Civil War, that the statistics show just the opposite. He was explaining that the term "volunteer army" which is used in comparison to a drafted army, is a misnomer. He said that "mercenary army" would be a better term. Our soldiers are neither required to serve nor do they volunteer their services--they soldier for pay--mercenaries. He talked about how these type of troops mostly come from the poorer demographics. In times of war, historically, they are much more likely to desert, etc. The draft draws from a much broader spectrum of society. Those soldiers coming from the richer demographics, the more priviledged sections of society, are the most loyal and consistent soldiers, again statistically. He talked about how the culture of those upper classes teaches people that they have been given much by society and have a huge responsibility back to it. The poor on the other hand, tend to have a mentality that society owes them something. It made me question how much my picture of those more privileged people has been shaped by Hollywood rather than by truth.

So now I'm off that tangent. Over here, it seems to me that it's easy to forget how many horribly sinful things go on around all the time. The government is horribly corrupt. Joe got to see a policeman taking a bribe right on the side of the road the other day. I was reading about how the government of Agra, where Taj Mahal is, raised the rate for foreigners to see Taj from 20 rupees to 960 rupees. Right now the price is 25 for Indians and 750 for foreigners. So they raised the price by nearly 50 times, supposedly to raise money to renovate Taj. Yet in the almost seven years since, none of that money has been spent on Taj. Today we visited a community to the north called Sonya Vihar, or something like that. It has about 200,000 people and is next door to the water treatment plant for the whole city of Delhi. But guess whether or not those 200,000 people have clean water in their neighborhood. Nope. They said that before each election politicians come and promise to build those short pipes if elected, but then do nothing after the elections. The news here is right now covering a woman official who has made millions of dollars off of a very poor district. It's really sad and makes the stuff our media screams about seem tame.

The practice of killing baby girls is still common here, especially among the poor. Kids are being sexually and physically abused and not much happens. The orphanages and such run by Hope are full of abandoned kids, most turned over by the police via hospitals, where they are recovering from whatever. The high value that we in the West place on human life, whether we are Christian or not, definitely came historically from Jesus and his followers. It certainly didn't come down from Rome, with its slaves and gladiators. It didn't come from Babylon or Persia. Islam and Hinduism traditionally don't value all human life like we do. This sense that all humans have value came down from Jesus' teachings and continues to shape the West today. We certainly haven't always been consistent with it. And many, many Christians have themselves, both purposefully and unwittingly, not been obedient to Jesus' teachings, but His coming began a process that has been reshaping our world ever since. The way he treated women was radically different from his contemporaries, giving them status and a place alongside the men. The way he treated children was specially noted by his followers. He wasn't impressed by people with money nor was he turned off by people with the worst diseases--Jesus touching the lepers comes to mind. No matter how much violence has been done in His name by despicable people, it is clear that He taught us to turn the other cheek, to give to those who ask, to love even our enemies. And he demonstrated His teaching by his practice. He didn't raise an army. He didn't try to force the government to right the wrongs. He taught people not to judge. And over the centuries men and women have stood up and followed suit. Men like Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. have turned powerful nations by learning from His ways. Countless men and women have gone to countless places to serve and give and love. Mark Templer here was telling us the other day about working with Mother Teresa, and what an amazing woman she was. I am proud when I realize that, for the most part, it is the Christians who have gone out into the world to care for the orphans and widows, the sick and the lame.

Yesterday I was noting that for some reason, God has made it so that my bad choices can hurt you. But I was thinking and realized the opposite is true as well. I can do things that bless and help and heal you as well. It would be hard to have the one without the other, though it's that ability to hurt each other that so many point to as evidence against the existence of God. So we can hurt and we can help. God is a God of relationships and He has made us all interconnected. I think that's why I struggle so much with the concept in some other religions that God is ultimately totally disconnected, that to reach Him we must disconnect from everything. This whole creation is designed down to the smallest point, nothing left out or forgotten. It works as one seamless system making life possible. Our bodies themselves declare the majesty of His plans of relatedness--every system working in harmony, all at once without conscious thought. And when one system breaks down, the others try to find new ways of relating to work around the problem. Even a single cell is a marvelous machine of many related parts. Take away any one of them, and the whole can't function. Which is why I can't buy the argument that the first cell just popped into being, independent of any design. Creating an amino acid in a lab is a far cry from having a living cell with every system functioning properly, simultaneously, and in the right relationships with one another.

So He has called us to relatedness, ideally to bless one another. Just as He made us in His image, Genesis 2, He has called us to be like Him in action, not just in nature, Matthew 5 and Ephesians 5. I think that starts with our family and friends but doesn't end there. He didn't wait for us to come to Him or only relate to His favorite people. He came to us. He went to the sinners and prostitutes, the lepers and blind and lame. He came to the women and children in a world that treated them like property instead of like people. And we have the opportunity to do the same each and every day, with the people we come into contact with, and it does start with those closest to us, with the way we treat them. It doesn't always work out. Many of the people we try to help will hurt us in return. That's not surpirsing considering we consistently hurt those we love the most. But we can tip the balance in our lives. If you try to love people, not everyone will love you back or love someone else in turn. But as my wise father has said to me many times, "If you love enough people, enough people will love you back." And I have found that to be very, very true.