i found myself missing my girls more than usual today. especially this one. that smile is one of my most favorite things in this world.

beloved hope

you can't see it here but this girl has a smile that makes me absolutely giddy. her name, it means beloved hope, fits her perfectly. when i see her smile i am reminded of the hope that we have, of love that never fails, of a God who has called us Beloved. She is proof of His unrelenting desire to make us new.

making good on my promise

these men, this scaffolding


all rest on this


i just want to climb up and take a good look at the city

instead, this is where i go


meet the lovely lassi ladies, Patricia and Laura


the last week was spent in the company of some truly wonderful women. a few from the US, the others from every where else in the world. ha. really though, i am abundantly blessed by the wisdom and strength these women possess. this is what i get for asking for kindred spirits.

He loves me

tarp dwellers

you fill our hearts with more than we can hold inside

i spent a week trying to shake the memory from my mind, and for a few days i succeeded in doing just that, but now it seems i'm stuck with it.
she was tiny and round. maybe four and half feet tall. the fat baby she was holding just made her seem smaller. she was smiling though, her cheeks raised as high as they would go. there was a sense of pride in her eyes. but something was missing. something didn't quite fit.
it wasn't the fact that we were on the street, a tarp set up as a sidewalk home in front of us, or that there was a new baby who was forced to call this home. something else.

she showed him off to us, her words were animated without being too loud and i couldn't understand. we all congratulated her, fawned over the new baby boy and told her he was perfect, then proceeded past the gate and onto the path that led us to Monica House. as we walked he started telling me about her, "you know she's got a couple more kids. she just keeps them while they're babies and then hands them off to Shishu. She's just using them." his face was shadowed with disdain, a look i'd never seen from him. i wanted to yell out "i told you so!" to the part of me that had denied the uneasy feelings. but my heart was breaking.

humanity was failing me, again, miserably.

there's a part of me that still cannot make sense of it. we use each other as a means to an end. all of us. we've failed to see our fellow human beings as being just that, fully human. we place a price tag on humanity and value all the wrong things. if Jesus said the kingdom belongs to those we value least then we are fools to believe we can take it with our secrets and keys and steps.

Hebrews says that " we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken"

i cried the day i let the old man pull me in his cart. his thin legs looked so fragile, like they could break at the next push of the bike pedals. the others laughed, my heart broke for them too. it's all they've known. and i cannot say my tears were shed out of love more than pity (i can't know for sure), so i resign.

but it seems Jesus was about handing over the kingdom to the most used rather than selling it to the ones who denied any wrong in their misuse of their fellow man.
so that's what i want to be a part of, investing in the seemingly bankrupt.
and letting the seemingly bankrupt in me be made rich with his love.

sunshine and wine

i'm not sure how to introduce this post and i've wasted too much time with my finger on "delete" so i will forgo any witty statements.

i met a woman during my first two weeks in Kolkata whose name i cannot remember. she's from California. at that point i'd not met many Americans and was still overjoyed when i did find one so i grilled her.
She'd been wanting, for years, to visit Kolkata and work with the Missionaries of Charity, alongside Mother Theresa and the sisters. the only thing keeping her from it was the task of raising her four daughters. Mother Theresa, of course, passed away but her desire to be a part of her work was stronger. last year, with one of her girls away at college and the other three in their teens, she realized that she was depriving not just herself but her daughters too of the experience Kolkata would provide. so she packed them up and made the appropriate arrangements to take them out of school and across the world. that's where i met them, the young, vibrant, blond girls full of joy and love. i saw them love the kids at Daya Dan with unmatched intensity. they took each task and performed it with ease, never once mentioning the difficulty or unpleasantness of what they did. i know i'm still young but something in me wishes that i'd gone there when i had more energy and required less rest, when my knees weren't screwed up and my body felt lighter, when i wasn't so jaded.
I admire that mother more than most because she was unafraid to take her children away from their comforts and show them a different way to live and love. she set down logic and "the norm" and found the beauty of letting go and trusting God with the outcome. and mostly because she loves Jesus and it shows. 

 

fourteenth of December oh-nine

the following is a excerpt from my journal entry dated December 14th...

its 9:56 p.m. and i've just finished sharing a laugh with Gabriel. he always cheers me up, even when he burps, which he just did. ha! and we're talking about Demi and gloves and i want to remember this, the feeling of safety and comfort. we just keep talking even though we both intended to journal. this is the stuff good friends are made of. Sophie's gone. we just realized it. sad, but the pain is eased with talk of how [the boy] is going to show up with his little brother and his guitar, wearing a cape (cause he's a twilight fan, his only flaw in my opinion) and i'm grinning. a big giant grin. because even if i don't ever see [the boy] again, Gabriel humored me and let me talk about him without making me feel like a stupid girl. he's a good friend and i feel so happy that i'm not in Mumbai or Bangalore or elsewhere. happy that i'm here right now. with these people. happy to know my God planned this for me, my Lover prepared this all for me. He thinks of me, that much, that often. i want to think of him more, much more. and i want to love him more and do the small things that make him happy. i still wonder if its possible to surprise him. 

never a dull moment

Happy Thanksgiving my lovely americans!
the americans here and i celebrated the holiday by going shopping and eating too much. there was talk about missing sweet potatoes, turkey and corn but we di enough damage that we didn't need all that. anyhow, i am thankful for all of you and also for indian randomness and the people i've met here. first a picture and then i'll share about one of those peoples...




apparently there is an indian out there who thinks Jesus is a hunk. I'm not about to argue but i would never have said it out loud.


let me tell you about Ben...
Ben is twenty two years old, from So.Africa. He has a beard and gentle voice. I'd worked with him at Daya Dan and found he'd studied economics and had two sisters, one my age and the other twelve. on his last day in Kolkata (he left tuesday), i ran into him and Gabriel at the spanish restaurant waiting for their lunch and nutella's. they invited me to join them so i did. from our conversation i found that Ben like to read, lewis chesterton and macdonald to name a few. he's been studying catholosism and is considering a conversion to it. terrace parties will always bring his face to my mind. he never played a full song for us, on the guitar, but i'll think of him as a musician even if its just by association. Ben has one of those faces, the kind that you see and you think to yourself, "this kid loves Jesus" i miss him, i don't like that i only had two walks with him, one lunch and one terrace party with him. i love that he met me in front of the hotel and talked with me about God and his thoughts, that he invited me along for adoration, that he showed me where the prayer books were kept and that i could see love radiatiating from him. i love that it felt like i'd known him for so much longer than just four short days, that i found it so easy to trust him, that he happened to have a set of speakers in his backpack, that he insited we share the nutty bar because it was the "last supper" i'd like him to move to Denver and be my friend for years. i want to see him get married and have babies and have his cute little family over for dinner on a weeknight just because. i'd share him with you all too cause he's that cool.

i love and miss you all. have a wonderful holiday and give someone a hug from me.

ciao

the Davids and their lovely ladies

today i'd like to tell you about the wonderful australians i've met. they are four siblings and a sibling-in-law, three of them born in Kolkata, all raised in Australia. so i guess they aren't really australians. hmmm. anyhow, Jean, David, Karen, Holly and Holly's David are all here for a cousins wedding. big stuff if you know anything about Indians and their marriage celebrations. their family here has created a very tight itinerary for them (and when i say "tight" i mean packed, not cool. haha) but they insisted their mornings be free for volunteering. they work at Daya Dan like me and being that they have family here they have a driver. so they ask me if i'd like to ride with them. not always but when they do i know it is God's provision. It saves me about 8 or 9 rupees. i'm incredibly grateful for them and how God has placed them in my path. not just because of the rides but they love Jesus and it shows. Jean is an RN but is now working on the management side of Healthcare. David is a firefighter. Holly is Crime Scen investigator in London and her David is in some sort of Ecenomics related field. i think he used to be in the oil trade. not that any of that is important.
its strange to fall in love with people after knowing them only a short while, but i i do love them. they've shown me a side of God that is beautiful and good and i love seeing it as we do laundry or feed the children and even in the car rides.
Our Father is so faithful, even in this His goodness is evident and good thing cause i need it more than ever right now.

love you friends!
ciao