Reflection from Beth

Last night walking home after a long day. In between dodging sidewalkobstacles…sleeping dogs, rickety swerving cycle rickshaws, lopsided bricks doublingas a walking path…I tried to remind myself of who I am…tried to wrap my mind aroundthe reality that is my life here. I spent yesterday, just as so many days before,visiting girls who live sprawled along a stretch of road, an area called sonagachi.Red light. Or so the public says. What do they call it? Life? Hell? Deserved? I walk down the road passing women, children, girls dressed in sloppy lipsticks,some of them. Painted eyebrows, some of them. Golden jewelry. Beautiful clothwound around their bodies…attempts, for us all to hide our shame. I walk pastthem, wondering where they’ve already been by the time I see them early in theafternoon. What their nights will hold in store for them. More tricks. More pain.More numb. It ranges each day, from new arrivals who have just moved in months or daysbefore…to the weathered faces of the madams, oppressed women turned oppressor. For revenge? For a living? For what? Some eyes eagerly meet my own, their painted lips parting in welcomingsmiles…others seem to cautiously look away, unsure, unable. Arms pretzeled acrosstheir chests. Closed off. At least from appearances. Others, seem to be somewhereelse. Their village? Their previous night? Their coffin? Staring with eyes ofstone, I wonder how to reach and plant seeds in their hearts. I walk past insecure, wondering what they think of me. Fearing to take the risk ofsaying hi, of reaching out. Of being rejected. Do they fear the same? Do they feel at all. Or do they feel like I do at times walking up the stairs of their brothels.Nothing. Empty. For them, I pray this over the other options… When I see their husbands and their customers, laying relaxed on the bed thatfills the tiny crawl space they call a room, a home, I try to connect the lines ofthis lifestyle, knowing that these men, many of them, are the enslavers of theirwomen, as their property, as their work horses. And I think of these women. Talking with me, smiling and eating, and cooking, andbuying me tea. And I try sometimes to reenact their lives. To captureunderstanding of what might have drug them to this place. Where dirt and blood andgreed and centuries of painful lives paint the walls I walk between. But it’shard. It’s hard to watch a girl switch personalities like I slip off a pair of sandals.Talking with me, attending a customer. Like that. Just like that. Two worlds, sameplace. Sometimes I don’t know what to do with all this…where to store it in my mind, inmy heart, in my prayers. What I want, is to be intentional with every girl I talk with. with everymovement. Every smile. I fear. But I want to shove out the fear with risking in love. For perfect lovedrives out fear. And I want my love to be born out of brokenness…brokenness that happens longbefore I step off the metro at Girish Park and walk the half mile to the road ofgirls who line the streets, standing day in and day out in the same exact place toattract a day’s rent and a belly’s worth of food. Then, when I see my friends,when I touch their hands, and hear their stories…stories void of redemption voidof a savior…in my already broken state, I can offer to be with them. Where theyare, offering the kind of redemption and comfort my Savior offers me. I often have variations of the same vision for this place. For this street stuffedfull with girls, stooped, standing, kneeling, waiting, watching, talking, zoning,knitting, curious and accusative, dying and living…I have this vision…that I’mwalking alone down their street, carrying a single lamp, a single flame, carryingso as not to quench the fragile flame. And lighting the path for them, bringinglight to the darkness. Shining it on their faces, on their lives, shining andrevealing. And the Light brings warmth, and it brings comfort, and it’sattractive. And I walk through, and I offer what I have to them. Ye, though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death…we can fear noevil…for the Light is with us…fear not for you will not be put to shame…and do notfeel humiliated, for you will not be disgraced; but you will forget the shame ofyour youth, and the reproach of your womanhood you will remember no more. For yourhusband is your Maker, whose name is the Lord of hosts, and your Redeemer is theHoly One of Israel”….this is the lamp I dream to carry, this is the lamp already,I quietly carry each time I enter sonagachi. This is the lamp I pray they one daywill clutch as well. So this is me. walking, and clutching, and waiting, fearing and risking andloving. Alongside the daily normal…or not so normal routine I’ve found myselfliving. And I’m praying that you’d also envision this same picture. for yourselves.Because these situations, these needs are not just happening safely thousands ofmiles out of your reach…no, you are needed. You too, are part of this vision.Maybe not for women sold into sexual slavery. But people harboring pain, needingsomeone to take a risk on them, in need to know the Redeemer…a risk to love, totouch, to carry light to them. By us. For us. Light is brought. Christ has brought. And shadows are redeemed. With such carriers…God is pleased to use…ones who fear…and risk…ones who love…andare broken.… For you…for me… May we carry on.