We're wrapping up our time of debrief in Udaipur. Tomorrow night we'll take our overnight sleeper train back to Delhi, arriving Monday morning. Monday night we'll be boarding our flights to Newark --> Atlanta. Please keep us in your prayers as we say goodbye to India, travel so long and far, and hello to home! Thanks for following the journey and God bless.
There has been a change in the return flight from
Newark to Atlanta. The team is now returning to Atlanta
on Flight 1167 and arriving at 10:20 AM instead of 9:20 AM
on Tuesday, Dec. 8.
Today at Asha I helped prepare vegetables for the lunch Ravinder was making instead of doing school with the kids in the church room. Simini, the wife of Victor Sir and co- director (Mommy!) of the children at Asha House was working with Ravinder and I to chop vegetables. I was so blessed to just sit and listen to Simini. She has so many other administrative things to worry about to keep the home running, and still took time to help prepare lunch since Asha House recently lost their main cook, Moni who returned home to take care of her sick mother elsewhere in India. I am continually amazed by the grace, faith and compassion of Victor Sir and Simini. Not only in their care of the children but simply their trust in God, proclaiming His goodness in all and through all circumstances.
Asha House is in deep financial need as you know from the previous blog post. But every Sunday the collection at the Asha worship service is given to others in need; other pastors and other ministries. Just like the widow who gives her two copper coins and "put in more than all the others...out of her poverty put in all she had to live on." (Luke 21:3-4).
Simini talked of the stories of some of the children today while we worked and the only way to explain the weight of it all is to share what I heard:
Punita is a quiet girl who is 12 years old and works for Asha house has a wisdom and sadness in her eyes of a young heart that has seen much more than I can comprehend. Simini told me that her father is an alcoholic and sent her to work in a home that was not safe for her. She hated it there, was treated very badly and her safety endangered; she needed to get out but her father did not want to sacrifice the money he was making from her work. She was brought to Asha House where she works and her pay goes to help support her family now. She is called "Munni-didi" (didi, is the affectionate Hindi term for "sister") by the other children and has opened up so much to us- I love seeing her smile- it lights up her eyes and she gives the sweetest hugs. She works incredibly hard and does not go to school but sometimes sits in when we teach.
Simini also told me to pray for them as they are anticipating the return of Brij, a boy now 16, who grew up at Asha House. He is a true orphan and was living with his grandparents but they cannot provide for him, especially since he has a mental illness that is incredibly costly to treat. Simini said that they are preparing to bring him back to Asha House but she is worried about how they will pay for his living there, let alone medical treatment and the other children's safety. "But he is family and this is his home," she said to me. And as she spoke with such love and compassion for this boy who, when he arrives, will complicate their living immensely but that was not even a concern. The impossibility and helplessness of their situation was impressed upon me with its weight and in the middle of telling me this story, one of our teammates Rebecca brought little Bagwan, his eyes full of tears over to Simini. She stopped talking to me and chopping the vegetables as Rebecca explained he was crying during class completely inconsolable. Simini asked him what happened and focused all her attention on Bagwan. She spoke to him in Hindi so I don't know what all was said but she seemed to tell him it was all right, that he was a brave little boy and then squinted her eyes at him and puckered her lips sending him little kisses. He smiled and she sent him on his way back to class and the sweetness of the moment was overwhelming. Her compassion is endless. She loves tirelessly; the room in her heart is beyond any capacity I can fathom. She has so many issues weighing on her and her husband: where the money will come from, how they will care for Brij, the house itself, the approaching winter, the list goes on and on, but she focused so fully on Bagwan and his need at that moment and gave all her love to him. She then told me how brave he is, that he arrived 6 months ago and never once cried for his mother, when all the children do cry when they first arrive. She had such revereance and respect for this Bagwan and his heart, taking him seriously and his pain seriously and treating him like the precious image-bearer of the Creator that he is. I was reminded simply that God is love, that "the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love." (Galatians 5:6) that without it we are only clanging cymbals. I have again and again come to the end of myself and my strength. My love is weak, tried and worn out and it is only deep abiding reliance on Him that love looks like what I saw in Simini today.
"Remain in me and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you beat fruit unless you remain in me. Apart from me you can do nothing. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love." John 15:4-5, 9
We are writing tonight with a sense of URGENCY. We just found out that
Asha House, the home for about 35 children that we have been working at, is in danger of closing due to lack of funds. As it stands now, if they do not have immediate donations online via www.ashahouse.org, they will have to close the home in December--next month!
Need I quote James 1:26? -- "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to
look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself
from being polluted by the world."
Friends and family, I ask you to make a donation to Asha, no matter if it's big or small, one-time or recurring. If
the orphanage closes, many of the children have a parent to go to (they
are social orphans, and their parents cannot take care of them), but
they go back into homes of known sexual, physical and emotional abuse.
Additionally, if the home closes, many of the children will end up
begging on the streets or victims of human / sexual trafficking. This
is a KNOWN FACT about several of these children's lives.
Asha House is a place of SAFETY, SECURITY and the LOVING ARMS OF
CHRIST to these children! Many come here terrified and shut down from
the trauma they have experienced, and after only a few months at the
House of Hope, they act like normal children again -- eating huge
amounts of rice, laughing, playing, even fighting with one another. The
redeeming love of Christ is POWERFULLY AT WORK in Asha House. Please, I
ask you to make a donation for the sake of these children! They need to
stay safe in this little Kingdom haven.
Here's the list of fundraising needs for Asha House AND all
the other ministries we're working with here. You can see exactly what
the needs are.
Please be a part of becoming the loving arms, hands & feet of Christ to care for these beautiful children of God!
Asha House
Washing Machines: $500
Construction Needs: $1500
Christmas Dinner and Gifts:
$1200
Medical Needs: $500
Total: $3700
Asha House Monthly Expense Needs Through
December:
Education: $650
Rent: $350
Food: $1450
Average Medical: $150
Utilities: $500
Staff Salaries: $600
Total: $3700
Pastor Lalmani Slums Ministry
Church Building Construction:
$500
Electrical Wiring: $350
Gifts for Family: $150
Total: $1000
Leper Colonies
Christmas Dinners: $1200
Blanket Gifts for Christmas:
$2300
Total: $3500
Total for Christmas
and December Needs: $11,900
Please send support
to
Sixty1
PO Box 2046
Boone, NC 28607
Make checks payable to
Sixty1 with "Asha Christmas" in memo line Sixty1 is the fundraising
organization for Asha House and other ministries. It is a registerd
501(c)(3) non-profit and all donations are tax deductible.
For online donations,
please visit www.sixty1.org and choose "Network for Good" and note
"Asha Christmas" in memo line.
So our trip is about two-thirds of the way through. Some things have been what I have expected; some things have been very different from what I was expecting. I came on this trip trying to not have expectations, but I think that is humanly impossible. The thing that most is different from what I was anticipating is actually ministry itself.
How I have seen God move in the US and the type of ministry that happens there is so very different from what goes down here in India. First of all conversion to Christianity is illegal. That makes street evangelism like I am used to very dangerous and impractical, not to mention there is that whole language barrier thing. We have to begin with simply building relationship, at the slums, at the leper colony, at the markets, at coffee shops, in our neighborhood.
The biggest difference between ministry here and ministry in the US is the immediacy of "results." Even with the ministry we do at Asha House, the ministry where we have the most freedom, we still do not see immediate results. We can freely tell the kids about Jesus and can freely show them love but I don't think any of us will be able to see and measure exactly how we impacted these little ones. Even if we return to India someday and return to Asha House there is a huge possibility that many of the kids we have encountered in these three months will not longer be there. Sometimes kids have to be sent back to their families, if they have them.
For a while I was frustrated with our ministry options. I wanted to get out there on the streets and speak bold truth. I wanted to provide for beggars and the poor, but instead we get to sit in the houses of lepers and a struggling pastor and drink chai and eat biscuits. It felt like the opposite of what I came here to do, but then I had to remember that I really came here to do God's will. If that is sitting with lepers and drinking chai and playing with their children, if that is praying for the beggars that come up to our car windows as we drive through Delhi instead of handing them some coins, if that is teaching children addition and the alphabet, I am going to say, "Yes God."
I have started to figure out that I don't have to have any answers for all of the brokenness I encounter. All that I need is a God who hears me, who speaks to me, who is sovereign, and who is supremely good.
This is a poem I wrote about my wrestling with this issue:
Yours and Mine
Like the Universe My understanding of you Is ever expanding. You need neither our words Nor our clever tracts Nor our knowledge Nor our talents. We are worthless dust That is only good When the breath of God Is breathed into us. Our truth is nothing Our joy is nothing Our hope is nothing Our love is nothing Our life is nothing Without you replacing Ours with yours.
An incredible blog written by Brittany DiSalvo. If you're interested in hearing the associated song as you read, scroll to the bottom of the blog and press play before starting to read.
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Welcome to the fallout
While driving to the leper colony last week, I listened to Switchfoot's "Dare You to Move." In my mind I was merely selecting an album I hadn't listened to in a while, but it turned into much more than that.
Welcome to resistance
We came to a stop in traffic. A beggar -- no, a precious and beloved woman came to the window. She was obviously begging. Her red sari and crooked teeth didn't take me by surprise. Her leathered skin and foggy eyes weren't unusual sights. Her persistence in knocking at our window wasn't out of the ordinary.
The tension is here
But the words that hit my ears were ripping me to shreds.
The tension is here
I tried unsuccessfully to avoid making eye contact with windows of pain. This is her life.
Between who you are and who you could be
So unnerving...and I think she and I are different? One begs, another gives. But both die. Neither of us chose to be born. Who breathes without need of Christ?
Between how it is and how it should be
This isn't fair. This isn't fair. This isn't fair.
I have never felt so responsible for poverty: I looked at myself with my headphones through the window to a woman with empty hands and an emptier stomach. Dichotomy, anyone? And what about her soul -- is that empty too?
I dare you to move
Traffic continued as usual.
I dare you to move
I didn't. I couldn't.
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor
What just happened? It had to be about more than food.
I dare you to move
But what will become of her if I ignore her need? And even if I can give to her now, she will be hungry again in a few hours, if that. She needs hope beyond all of this. She needs a Savior. So do I. Constantly.
I dare you to move - like today never happened
My heart won't cease to be raw towards every beggar I see. But as painful and uncomfortable as that is, it is given by the Lord, and I am thankful for it.
"What would Jesus do?" What did He do? He healed the sick and raised the dead. He drove out demons and played with children. But in His human form, He only interacted personally with a very small percentage of humanity. As far as we know, He passed by people that He didn't look at, He didn't get to touch everyone, and there was a lot more that He "could have" done. Or so it would seem...
But His Kingdom is not of this world.
He only did what His Father told Him to do.
And so I say, I can do nothing for these beautiful people. I cannot even do anything for myself. I can only receive and be transformed by His power into an instrument of His grace.
And His grace towards me glorifies Himself because it leaves no room for me to boast.
This is not to say that I am lowly, wretched, and worthless.
Apart from Him I can do nothing. But that is my joy! Did you hear that? The pressure is off for me to be strong enough, wise enough, brave enough, or loving enough. When I am weak, I am strong because His grace is sufficient.
He wired us to depend on Him, to live abundantly only when drinking from the Source of Life -- and that dependence is our rest, Church!
We have been crucified with Christ and we no longer live, but Christ lives in us. The life we live in the Body we live by faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave Himself for us. ~ Galatians 2:20
Praying for you all with love and brokenness and joy,
Brittany
Trust in Him at all times, O people, pour out your hearts to Him, for God is our refuge. ~ Psalm 62:8
Last Saturday was the biggest festival day of Diwali, Festival of Lights, the largest Hindu festival of the year. Wikipedia says:
The word दीपावली literally translates as a row of lamps in Sanskrit. It is traditional for adherents of Diwali-celebrating faiths to light small clay lamps filled with oil to signify victory over the the evil within an individual. ...
While Diwali is popularly known as the "festival of lights", the
most significant spiritual meaning is "the awareness of the inner
light".
Central to Hindu philosophy is the assertion that there is something
beyond the physical body and mind which is pure, infinite, and eternal,
called the Atman.
Just as we celebrate the birth of our physical being, Diwali is the
celebration of this inner light, in particular the knowing of which
outshines all darkness (removes all obstacles and dispels all
ignorance), awakening the individual to one's true nature, not as the
body, but as the unchanging, infinite, imminent and transcendent reality. With the realization of the Atman comes universal compassion,
love, and the awareness of the oneness of all things (higher
knowledge). This brings Ananda (inner joy or peace).
As a follower of Christ, the spiritual parallels I can draw from Diwali to my own faith are obvious. Here is just a sampling of what the Word of God says about who I am as a follower of Christ:
The light of the righteous shines brightly, but the lamp of the wicked is snuffed out. (Prov. 13:8)
(about Christ) In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. (John 1:4-6)
(words of Christ himself) See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness. Therefore,
if your whole body is full of light, and no part of it dark, it will be
completely lighted, as when the light of a lamp shines on you.(Luke 11:35-36)
For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness,"made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. (2 Cor. 4:5-6)
(and about when God establishes His Kingdom on earth) I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it.(Rev. 21:22-24)
Like Hindus believe in the little piece of "Atman" that dwells inside of them as inner light, I believe in the presence of the Almighty God, through the Holy Spirit, born of my belief in Jesus Christ, that dwells inside of me and shines as light in the darkness.
Like Diwali is a celebration of the inner light and the realization of that eternal presence within oneself and awakening the individual to one's true nature, I celebrate daily my new life in Christ and how as I offer up my life as a living sacrifice to Him, He is changing me, making me more like Him and more like the daughter of the King that I was created to be.
My heart is sad that there are so many that believe in something so easily paralleled to the truth. In fact, I believe these Hindu beliefs were probably originally borne out of the truths of God, but have been twisted into a new faith altogether in something other than the one true God. If only those easily connectible truths would lead to the One Truth...but as this verse says:
In putting everything under him, God left nothing that is not
subject to him. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to him. But we see Jesus, who
was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and
honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might
taste death for everyone. In
bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and
through whom everything exists, should make the author of their
salvation perfect through suffering.(Heb. 2:8-10)
I know that the one true God, reaching out to us through sending his son Jesus Christ, and creating relationship with us through his Holy Spirit, will some day establish His Kingdom on earth. It is that day I long for and live for.
The team compiled these goals last night to refocus now that we are mid-trip! Blog written by Brittany DiSalvo.
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Time has come to raise our hearts as one and glorify the God of everything. We live our lives for the renown of Christ. We are children of the Sovereign King!
-MercyMe, "Time Has Come"
Namaste again, Church! He continues to do new things among us. How marvelous it is that the Creator never seems to run dry of creativity :)
I wanted to post something that resulted from an extensive and productive gathering last night. We have reached the midpoint of this trip and took some time to process and evaluate together. A brief yet full list of goals for our team resulted:
1. Openness - Galatians 6:2
2. Love - Romans 12:9, Colossians 3:14-16
3. Remembering the Cross - Hebrews 12:2-3, Mark 8:34
4. Prayer! - Ephesians 6:18
Openness - Pray that we would not fear being open and honest with each other. Community can hurt, but Christ also uses it to heal. Pray that we would trust that all things result in glory for those who love Him, regardless of our "light and momentary" affliction.
--> [Gal. 6:2 - Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.]
Love - Pray that we would each learn and experience His love in fuller extents. Paul wrote to the Corinthians to "do everything in love." He wrote to the Ephesians his prayers for them to "have power together with all the saints to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ." If the King is Love, how Lovely is His Kingdom?
--> [Rom. 12:9 - Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.]
--> [Col. 3:14-16 - And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let
the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one
another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual
songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.]
Remembering the Cross- Pray that we allow our hearts to be still so that we remember why we're here. Pray that we would be aware of and motivated by the hope that we bear. And pray that we would especially remember the Tomb: Our Life and victory and release from the bondage of the power of sin. This is called the Good News for a reason!
--> [Heb. 12:2-3 - Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith,
who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame,
and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.]
--> [Mark 8:34 - Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If
anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross
and follow me.]
Prayer - Pray that we would pray! In every sense of the word: In pouring out our hearts to Him as dearly loved children, in gathering together to contend for this land, in listening for His voice, in petitioning for grace for the moment, in surrounding His people to lift them up...in everything.
--> [Eph. 6:18 - And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and
requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for
all the saints.]
Please pray and continue to do it! Know that we pray for you often, and love you dearly.
With love and hope,
Brit
I have given them the glory that You gave Me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and You in Me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that You sent me and have loved them even as You have loved Me.
The word 
