The Other Side of this Adventure

Well this is my real honest blog about how I’m feeling and what I’m seeing. We are REALLY enjoying ourselves, we are seeing beautiful things, and we are enjoying time with each other in India, BUT… there is another side to this adventure. (That’s just a disclaimer cause what follows is only one side of my thoughts and emotions – I’m really not down or sad – just being honest. Sorry for the lack of pics in this one, just wanted to share thoughts.)

Every day we face things in India (and in Kenya) that make it difficult to be away from home and from what’s familiar. We count this life as a gift from God and count this journey as a great opportunity to see more of the world He created and to learn how it is we are to interact with it. We are open to how we are to grow and learn in relation to what we see and experience. I invite you to know some of the inner dialogue I’m experiencing.

I don’t want to have to live in a place where I smell garbage burning everyday, where I have black boogers from the major pollution, where on my daily walk I have to avoid copious piles of poop. I don’t want to have to see a 4 year old taking care of a 3 months old, a mother begging in a train station so she can feed her 1 week old baby, a child walking around barefoot with ripped dirty clothes snot running down his face matted dirty hair holding out his hand for my muffin. I don’t want to be faced with poverty.

I don’t want to have the same 6 shirts to keep wearing over and over even when they are dirty and smell or have the pollution from the day all over them. I want to walk to my laundry room and pull out a fresh hoodie from the dryer with the wonderful smell of laundry detergent and dryer sheets. I want to put on clean socks. I want to be warm in my room. I don’t want to see kids and adults with a polio effected bodies walking around on there hands on the sides of busy streets because their legs are unusable.  I don’t want to see old ladies and men completely hunched over like a table top using a thin stick to stabilize themselves as they walk. I don’t want to see people carrying heavy propane tanks in bags that lie on their backs and strap over their foreheads as they walk the polluted streets with crazy terrain back to their homes. I don’t want to see people pooping next to the train tracks as I travel by staring out my window. I don't want to see guys peeing on public streets and building. I don’t want to think about kids having no place to go the bathroom or wash their hands. I don't want to see streets covered in trash.

Check out the motorcycle passing by the cow... there's NEVER enough room to get by.

This is a common view - animals eating trash in the road. Sadly, there's more animals than there
is trash to feed them so some animals aren't quite as healthy as this one looks. 

This is not snow, this is pollution in the air. On Christmas night the traffic was crazy
on the way back from our Varanasi - Ganges River ghats visit.

I don’t want to have to negotiate the price for everything because of my skin color. I don’t want to have to avoid getting spit on by camels, kicked or hit by cows, bit by monkeys or dogs, all while I walk down the street. I don’t want to ride on a road that doesn’t have lines marking the lanes, or rules enforced for people who speed, follow to close, don’t have lights, pass when they’re not supposed to – it really is dangerous.

I don’t want to witness all the damage and danger people cause themselves due to their jobs and not having the proper prevention practices in place – like the people who fix the roads who are crouched on the road with no protective eyewear, mask, colored vest, marking cones, nothing – while fast cars swerve past them. Or the man who’s welding with nothing over his eyes. Or the lady making cow patties for fuel sitting alone in the dark by they side of the train tracks with nothing on her hands as she pounds the patties on the side of the city wall to dry. (I don’t care how poor people are in the US, I don’t think we’d ever see someone hand making cow patties to sell for fuel.)

I’m trying to reconcile these feelings – like because of all these things above, I just want to go back to the US, where it isn’t like that.  But is that the response God would want from me. Yes, he’s given me the ability to choose where I want to live, and choose how I want to live - some basic things – a toilet, soap, but some extravagant things (not necessary) dryer for my clothes, hangers for each of my shirts (i.e. not cramming 5 shirts on one hanger), having more than one hoodie, etc.  But is that what I should choose?  Is that how I should live? It’s so sad to me that so many people live without these things – and I mean the basics – that for me to think, “Well, I’ll just go back to a place that does have those things, and not have to think about it.” That's sooooo wrong! It’s pompos and rude and surely not Christ-like at all. I think my thoughts of “Well, when I have a house I want it to have x,y, z.” I mean surely God is happy to hear my wants and desires, but am I really glorifying God with that? Or am I turning a blind eye to the way the people of the world are forced to live.

In a time when I have the ability to teach someone how to build a latrine, why that’s important, how it improves theirs’ and their communities’ health – shouldn’t I? Or should I just give the country my tourist dollars and head back to the US with lots of pictures of the gorgeous things and the pictures of the not so great or “yeah, isn’t that crazy, that’s how they live” kinda stuff. It’s disgusting to me that my heart is so ugly – why would I even want to go back to a place where I don’t have to think about this way of life? A life lived in poverty. If I just go back home, I don’t have to be involved. I don’t have to do anything. I just have to figure out what meal I’ll make for the party I want to have where maybe I’ll show the people some pictures of my trip to India. Gross! I’m gross!! And I’m sorry. I am “on the adventure of a lifetime” as many have told me, but it’s hard to reconcile all the thoughts I have when I see poverty, lack, disease, distress, idol worship, misspent effort and money, hurting families, kids without, parents without, ugh… It’s tough. It’s beautiful don’t get me wrong, in fact we’re about to go on safaris where we’ll surely see amazing animals, but that’s not all that is going on while we travel.

We’re faced everyday with people asking for our money. I don’t want to be targeted by every panhandler on the street because of my skin color. I want to be anonymous and left alone. I don’t want to be asked for my shoes, my clothes, my hat, my glasses, my food, my money. Oh but wait, none of that is mine. It’s all God’s. And what should my response be? I don’t think handouts work in the long run, so what do I do?

We have to constantly check for people who might try to take advantage of us, steal from us, put us in a compromising situation. We have to talk to family and friends over skype – we don’t get the personal connection of real face to face. We miss Christmas, New Years, birthdays, and other memorable events with family and friends. We have the real danger of having a crazy accident anytime we’re on the road (I know that’s the same everywhere – but there are added obstacles and lack of regulations here that make this statement a bit different). We have to juggle thoughts of moving back to the US with thoughts of not “turning a blind eye” to all we’re seeing. We’re responsible ya know? We should be at least. To do something to better the world – to bring more of God’s Kingdom here. And to whom much is given, much is required  (Luke 12:48 "Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more." ESV) We were given 5 weeks in India (and 9 months in Kenya)– what’s required of us? We’re seeking God to know the answer to that. But we ask you to pray with us and for us to know how we are to live out our lives in light of so many living in poverty and need. What is our role?