Trekimony

I was recently asked to write up my Trek testimony - in one page. How could I summarize the TREK in one page?? So many stories were cut - how God answered prayers in unbelievable ways, bizarre experiences where I was left powerless and vulnerable, meeting Jesus in the form of a two-year-old with lice and a thirteen-year-old in a dim hut, funny moments where I cried from laughing, not-so-funny moments where I cried for many other reasons. But the exercise of remembering encouraged me to reflect on where I've come from, and where I'm going next. I don't know the answer to the latter, but I've got a feeling that the best is yet to come...the following story may be the most important one I ever tell.




I first traveled to Kolkata, India in the summer of 2007, following a lifelong interest in India and passion for working with the poor. I would be working with the Compassion Service Society of India, teaching children and adolescent women living in a slum community inhabited by the Dalit, or “untouchables” of Indian society. Even after abolishing the caste system, Dalit men and women work in “unclean” jobs, with sanitation and housekeeping, and their children are often unable to attend the regular schooling required to find better jobs.

In the era of Bono and the One Campaign, I think ending poverty has been a bit glamorized. But living and working in Kolkata is anything but glamorous. Trudging through flooded streets, overpowered by the scent of curry, vendors, and human misery of the streets, and plagued by big red sweat pimples, I sometimes wondered what I was doing there. As an American woman with very fair skin, I stood out and was targeted by male passersby. Even with all of my education and training in microfinance and community development, I felt helpless to make a tangible difference in the lives of the kids and teenagers I was working with.

They called me “Miss January,” and eagerly gathered each day for lessons in English and math. One young woman asked to work with me everyday, though she never acted like she liked me very much. Usha acted more like an ornery younger sister, making fun of my butchered Bengali and “tsking” her tongue at my silly dancing and vocabulary lessons. But as I watched her labor over the same simple math problems and copying the same English words, I came to realize that we had a special connection. Right before we left, she took my Bible and wrote her name in the back. I opened to that page every so often, and smiled as I thought of her – wondering if she had even known what Book she had held in her hands.

A few weeks after I returned to the U.S., Usha passed away unexpectedly from a fever. I was crushed by the news, and mourned being so far away from the community in this time. The best I could do was write Shaji, my host father and the leader of CSSI in Kolkata, and try to express to him how much I shared in their sadness. I mentioned the inscription in my Bible as a fond memory of her – almost as an afterthought.

When Shaji responded, he shared with me that after the team had left, Usha had wanted to know more about the Jesus we stood for – why did we, as privileged Americans, choose to come and share in the joys and struggles of their community? What was this Love that we had so often referred to and tried to show through our actions? And within a few weeks, Usha accepted that Love into her heart – as Shaji wrote,“when Usha wrote her name in your Bible, God was writing her name in the Book of Life.”

Usha’s story illuminates the core of the gospel. We are required to fight the injustices of physical and spiritual poverty through the Good News. We cannot share the gospel without bringing opportunities for education, employment, and empowerment, but projects that neglect the reason for the mission are just as empty. Usha was 15-years-old, and her life was ended far too early from a simple, preventable illness caused by poverty. But she has been given eternal life through the love of Jesus Christ, something that was demonstrated through laying down our own American privilege to work in the very lowest of places. It was as simple as that. In the end, it wasn’t my education, my abilities, or my money, but the power of Jesus to transcend linguistic, culture, social, and religious barriers that made the difference. And I experienced Jesus, too, by following Him to walk among the least of these.

“As you go, preach this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven is near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.” (Matt. 10:6-8).

Come join the adventure.

boundaries

It usually goes like this.

Male: "Do you have a boyfriend?" (I also love the variation when they start out, "What does your boyfriend say about that."
Me: "No."
Male: "Why not?"

I am tempted by so many responses...bursting into tears (I'm not a natural crier, but when I DO cry, it's pathetic), telling them great detail about my last relationship, flipping them off, or just ignoring them with a polite shrug. I usually opt for the latter.

A common theme has arisen from conversations and my own experiences in the last few weeks: boundaries between men and women. Let's narrow that down to SINGLE men and women, single at the point in our lives where the S word is also scary and sucky. I've heard from several friends, especially men, actually, only men, that they have self-imposed a time of singleness in order to separate themselves from an unhealthy, unGodly desire for a relationship. Then there's the singleness that results out of a fear of rejection, or a brokenness from past relationships that hasn't had time to heal, or just a lack of compatible members of the opposite sex readily available.

Regardless of the reason for an empty facebook status, we tend to fall victim to finding an emotional substitute for a significant other. We develop friendships, looking for insight from the more mysterious gender. As we spend more time with them one-on-one, intimacy ensues. We divulge our darkest secrets, look for reassurance of our appeal to men/women, and develop an emotional tie that should be reserved for relationships for a reason. Generally, we can't handle this sort of intimacy outside of a committed relationship - we develop expectations of the other person, and vice versa. We may develop feelings for this person, or vice versa. And mismatched expectations and feelings are the stuff of bad tv shows.

It's natural that we're going to create and become entangled in drama at this point in our lives. But maybe, just maybe, we can help avoid putting ourselves through unnecessary pain (because there's so much that's unavoidable out there) by establishing boundaries and voicing our hopes for the friendship/relationship early on. Men, if you like a woman, tell her when you first become friends. Don't wait until months later and make the friendship unrecoverably awkward. Just freaking ask her out on a date. If you ask sooner, you're less invested, and the sting of rejection wanes more quickly. If you don't like her "that way," don't establish patterns that communicate otherwise. Spend a healthy amount of time with her as you would a friend. Avoid late-night conversations, alone, in the dark, when it starts to get cold outdoors as the inside temperature rises...

Women, it's not just up to the men to establish boundaries. We have been guilty of using men to fill the emotional void of a breakup, or not having the guts to voice our concern/confusion when mixed signals are sent. I know that many of us would prefer the man to define the relationship, but that's not always a reasonable expectation. A male perspective here would help round out my observations...

Sigh. Someday, when I'm old and married, I'll laugh about this. But today...

my declaration

forget-

me-nots,

blue like

the rain

that falls

today fresh

with regret

and promise

for renewal

tenuous as

your reality

i let you kiss

me out of hope

for something

more than this

not knowing that i was letting go

of freedom from my worse self, and i wonder

now what mountains i missed while walking

through the valley of the shadow of bad relationships

so each day i take up the fight to reclaim my better self

from what’s left declaring my independence from lies of worth

and compatibility and peter pan fantasies that rule your world,

off the pendulum and on solid ground once again I stand.

and if you ever read this you’ll know that this is

my new beginning

and what do YOU do for a living?

June 13th, 2009. In a surreal fog, I find myself walking down the aisle surrounded by esteemed professors in ridiculous hats that somehow signify their level of education - the smarter they are, the more insane the hat (I've always wondered who thought, hey, let's celebrate graduates by having students wear squares on their head!). As the climactic swell of Pomp and Circumstance fills the auditorium, I march (very carefully) up on stage, where I cannot do anything embarrassing for the next hour and twenty minutes (possibly a new record). In a bizarre moment in my year of rejection, I've been awarded one of the top honors in the college for acing my classes and doing lots of community service. Faculty seem confident that I will go on to do great things.

October 15th, 2009. After months of job hunting and scores of lengthy applications, I'm on my way to my first day of work as a college graduate. I pull up into the free metered parking space, because I can't afford to pay the garage price, and walk quickly over to the K-Street Mall. In the 45 seconds it takes to get from my truck to my place of employment, I get two catcalls. When I get to the building, the blackened windows heighten the suspense of the experience. I walk inside...and am terrified.

The other employees are covered in blood, sores, and boils; there are hatchets and worms coming out of their heads. Skeletons with glowing eye sockets hover in the corner, but I pretend not to notice them. Fog filters through the black sheets that line the way to my station, where it suddenly dawns on me that I've never actually worked a cash register before. A man I've never seen before comes up, and in a booming scary movie voice introduces himself: "Hi, I'm Ghost! Welcome to my home!"

Err, thanks.

I spend the next three hours fumbling with the cash register in the near complete dark, distracted by the incessant screams and calls for "FRESH MEAT!!" that come from the black all around me. The one-eyed hunchback keeps warning me, "I can seeeeeeee youuuuuuu," as I whimper, "I'm just the cashier!" As Ghost teases one of the customers as to how frightened he was, reminiscing of the old days when he used to carry a snake around his neck, someone else comes in from the back. "You mean like THIS ONE??"

I didn't realize it was fake until after I had hurled myself in to the corner, screaming at the same pitch as the man who ran out and probably had to change his pants.

When the end of the night comes, I close out the cash register and ask for security to walk me to my car. The guard mentions that I have managed to park around the corner from the hotel with the most number of registered sex offenders in the city, and suggests an alternate location for my next shift.

Um, done.

On the drive home, I can't help but marvel at God's wonderful sense of humor. In all honesty, I would much rather work in a haunted house that employs such vivid characters who are working hard for a living than wasting away in a stuffy suit at a desk with people who are full of their own credentials and sense of entitlement from the universe. I just hope it's the last I've seen of the snake.

Song for a Cat

The true Jason Mraz fans, those of use who loved him even before his peppier melodies were overplayed on the radio, have his earliest live recording at Java Joe’s. He reveals that one song, entitled “Little You & I,” was, in fact, written for his cat. The tender lyrics were not penned for some fleeting lover, but his loyal feline companion.

Thank you, Mr. Mraz.

As Nathan recently reminded me, Linus IS the man in my life at the moment, and I am glad to have a song that celebrates that special relationship. Because I have become painfully aware in the past months just how many songs are about love, happiness, and other things that I have looked down upon from my snarky, empowered position of a single young woman. Sure, there’s worship music, but that often sounds like a love song if you’re not listening too closely. And you can only listen to so much angry girl rock before you just want to light something on fire.

We need more songs that celebrate the chaos of the twentysomething. Songs about unemployment and living in crappy apartments, navigating the terrible world of dating and finding community after college, frozen yogurt and police raids next door (yes, this happened in Davis), Facebook and watching TV online because we can’t afford cable – upbeat, mournful, sarcastic, lyrical, it doesn’t matter. So, all you composers out there, get on that.