July 2009 Prayer Letter: Names

On the day of our birth we a given a name. It is our “good name”, as our friends in India call it. The name is given by our parents who probably spent 9 months thoughtfully, even prayerfully, considering what name would ours for the duration our lifetime. Our names have weight and meaning in defining us, our spoken and written identity to friends, family and even our governments. Our names have deeper meanings. My name, Sarah, which means Princess or daughter of the King. My middle name is a family name, Lucinda, and it means, bringer of light. If you read my blog, you know that the web address is www.princesslightbringer.blospot.com, a name that I have identified with in part and hope to live into every day.

We live in a world that loves to name and not all those names are good. Working with women in the sex trade I see the burden and weight of many who bear false names given to them by culture and society. They are whores, hookers, prostitutes, and husband stealers. Many, when you meet them, will not give you their “good name” but instead give another name that they have chosen to hide their true identity and protect them from the false names chosen for them by society. When they leave the red light area to visit family, they leave their false name behind and again take on their “good name”, leaving behind the other names that plague them and dehumanize them.

Naming has profound importance at Sari Bari. Each woman chooses her name and that name is the name that you will find marking each blanket. When the time comes to choose their name, they will most often choose their “good name”, the name given by their parents to identify them. They want to be identified with their good name, as good women, leaving the false names, the red light name behind.

There is a re-naming that happens at Sari Bari as the women take steps down the road of Exodus into freedom. The renaming happens as the women begin to understand that the false names and the awful names that society has given them do not need to hold power in their lives or in their identity as human beings. We process with them the false names and give them new names. We use names that bring dignity. Instead of prostitute, they are Sari Bari business women, seamstress’, and artists. Instead of a whore, they are friends. Instead of hooker, they are sisters. Their new names come in relationship, in a safe place of welcome and respite from society, and in the warm cleansing embrace of Jesus. The re-naming is a process. First comes the giving a new names and them comes the part where each woman must choose to live into her new names. Living into the new names is the hardest part. Living into being one who is now called accepted, loved, cherished, daughter, friend, sister, mother, beloved, cleansed, healed and beautiful is no easy path. Especially when the burden of false names like rejected, despised, dirty, worthless and powerless has been ascribed and those are the names that you have been living into for more years that you can count.

The “good names” must be embraced. We embrace the women, each one, and call them by name. Just as Jesus has embraced us and called us by name. We are compelled by our friends and their lives to continue the pursuit of women who do not yet know their names. It is the names that move us, compel us toward reconciliation, restoration and healing for the red light areas where these beautiful women live. Bringing freedom to the red light areas is not about a cause. It is about a human being with a name. Ending human trafficking, sexual slavery and the exploitation of persons are truly noble and important causes. But it is the one woman living into her “good name”, into the new names given, which compels our action, our advocacy, and our hearts. The causes must have the names of persons and be framed by the human persons who compel the causes. I do not know any prostitutes or whores or hookers. I only know women, friends, sisters and daughters of the King. And they have beautiful names: Minu, Shopna, Putul, Shakina, Arotun, Josna, Bharoti, Chaya, Rohima and Champa.

Coming in the mail in the next month, you will receive a personal letter from me and you will find some the names of Sari Bari women. These are the name tags we use to label each and every blanket. I have enclosed three names. I hope you take these lengths of labels and put them in your bibles, or on your fridge, and even share one with a friend and then when you see their name, pray for these women by name. Let their name speak to your heart. Speak the name out loud making it real. Look up their name on the website blog and find out a little bit more. Come and meet them in Kolkata and you too may find a new name.

Blessed be the name of Jesus!

With love,

Sarah

not my people

I am frustrated and concerned when I hear things like "not my people." makes me sad. yeah, we disagree. so what? we have different beliefs, politics, ideas about how life should be live, how faith should be experienced and practiced. So what? isn't everyone welcome at the table in the relationship. if we are believers in jesus, doesn't that make us apart of the same body. certainly, we do not reflect christ perfectly as the body. it is a broken body.

i have many concerns about the church body here in k-town. honestly, when i hear things like you are not a believer if you do not attend such and such a church, i cringe. I want to see welcome and inclusion of all members of the body regardless of church attendance. but my stance is to be welcoming when others are not, to include people who may judge me as well as those who agree with me. does one group and one group only have the corner on truth. We have central beliefs that we agree on, some periferals that we do not, and some kind of important stuff that we just not have the answers for, even if we say that we do. Where is the grace for each other in all of this...

i am just as weary of liberal bigots as i am of conservative ones. Bigotry no matter where you derive it from, is ugly. love covers a multitude of sins, so why can't it cover a multitude of varying ideas, belief systems and politics. we are still human, imperfect, broken, frail and created. we can take no credit for our presence on earth nor can we assume that it ours to take for granted, full of entitlement.

i admit to having been a bigot, especially in my idealist 20's, to not welcoming others because for their beliefs or politics, but age, the knowledge of my own failed humanity has brought some humility. learning to offer grace before i expect it to be offered to me. the God of the universe is the only one who loved first, gave grace first. should we not follow the leader on this one? Jesus did not like the religous leaders but certainly he loved them. He spoke truth to them but did not reject them. they rejected him. as humans we need to offer grace if we expect to receive it. it seems more appropriate the we welcome the rejection that is sent our way than that we reject and condemn those who disagree with becoming like them in the process. God forgive me for not embracing your body and all it parts, for rejecting when i have been rejected, for not offering grace to my fellow journeyman and women as we travel this road together.

You are all welcome at my table. I may not agree with you and sometimes i may not even like what you choose to do but you are welcome to share life with me. just so know, you are all my people!

insider...outsider: HUMAN

There is loneliness sometimes in being different but also a beauty in the places that different takes me.

In Kolkata, i stand out, a shining beacon of foriegness, tall, a bit heavy, jeans and big earring wearing different. People stare, sometimes they cheat. it feels heavy, wearisome to not be welcomed because I look different and maybe act different.

the beauty of different is the places i can go with no shame, no fear of cultural reprisal. I am an outsider, not fully in-culturated, though i do try to submit to many cultural standards, still able to do what many here cannot without reprisals. No one judges me for entering a red light area--if they do, i have the freedom of not caring because there is no cultural reprisal for me. and i have several hundred, maybe even several thousand people in the states who support what i do and cheer me on.

Our indian partners do not have the difficulties of different but they do not the luxuries of it either. They face cultural reprisal for entering the red light areas. They face rejection from the church itself in many cases. They give something up to do what they do...inspite of what they might lose, they lay down their lives for the freedom of our friends. they lay down their reputations so the women can regain theirs, they lay down their own preconceptions about red light areas so they can have the eyes of God and the heart of the Father and love our friends into freedom and something better.

There is reconciliation of insider and outside in relationship. We each have something to offer that the other does not...we are a partnership reflecting the body. our reconciliation to each other in all the ways we are different happens when we partner together for something beyond what either an insider or an outside could reach without the others help. that's it really, loving partnership, working together in community to accomplish the kingdom for the glory of God.

And for me being an outsider does not matter when i sit and share chai with a friend in their brothel room. I only feel like a friend, a sister, a fellow human being. It is gift when different falls away and there is no insider or outsider. There is only us in the moment. And it does not matter in staff meeting where we, insiders and outsiders, together dream for the future and imagine what God might do for our friends in the red light areas. We are only believers, believing for more than we can ask or imagine.

I had an afternoon without being on the outside yesterday. I was invited in to just be with the Sari Bari women in their homes. not really even their boss for those few hours, just their friend and their guest. only strange in my unmarried state but really not that strange for many are alone there. it was a gift. it is always a gift when we can see that regardless of color or class or cultural indentity, there is welcome and beauty in our shared humanity. We are welcome to the kingdom, for the glory of God as we pursue each other, becoming one in jesus.

no answers

I walked down the street yesterday morning on the way to sari bari, after filling my belly with the best Puri (fried bread with potato curry) in Kolkata, I saw two little boys had a very large piece of cardboard and had made themselves a little fort right on the sidewalk in the midst of rush hour chaos. they made me smile and turn my head to see them better. And i thought to myself, there is not enough cardboard in the world for the forts that must be in the imaginations of these boys.

I visited one of my friends at the AIDS hospice yesterday. Seeing her breaks my heart and i could barely restrain my tears last night as i thought of her. I fear to lose her even though death might be a release. Selfishly, i do not want to endure the pain of what will be a deep and profound loss to our community and a deep and profound loss for me personally.

And thinking of my friend struggling to survive with HIV and the little boys building forts, i began to think about what needs to be righted about the wrongs I see everyday. And i thought if AIDS can not be cured, which is obviously the best solution, then when are't AIDS hospices palaces of comfort. Why isn't there fair distribution of resources so that those imaginiative little boys could have 4 walls to their fort instead of just one. There are enough toys in the world for all its children i am pretty sure, yet some have more than they will ever play with and some have one piece of cardboard and their imaginations. These are my questions.

I have no answers. Only faces in memory to mark moments of joy and despair, open ended, unresolved feeling with no answers.

This is the story of so many of our friends....

From The Sunday Times
May 17, 2009

A Life in the Day: Mariam Laskar, s*x worker
Mariam Laskar, 42, a s*x worker in Kalighat, the poorest r*d-light district in Calcutta

I wake up around 5am so I can use the latrine early, while it’s still quiet.

I share it with nine other households. Each has one room about 8ft square. Although Kalighat is a red-light district, families live here too, street vendors and stall workers, but most prostitutes live alone like me.

My room doesn’t smell so good because it’s next to rotting rubbish and the latrine, but it is away from the street.

I go back to sleep until 8. My bed is a thin mattress on a board lifted off the ground by red bricks at each corner. Under the bed are the pots I use for cooking and washing.

My saris and underclothes are strung on a wire across the small window. I have electricity, a light bulb, a fan, a black-and-white television and a suitcase.

If I’m on my own, as I mostly am, I make tea, heating the water on a kerosene stove in my doorway. If my babu — he’s like a special client, a temporary husband, you could say — is with me, I give him naan bread and sweets. Calcutta is famous for its sweets: all colours and varieties you can buy here.

Then I go to the vegetable stalls outside and buy ladies’ fingers, brinjal, potatoes, tomatoes and garlic to cook later.

I put on eyeliner, a bindi on my forehead, my jewelled earrings and gold bangles, and I am working the street by 10am. There are three of us who mostly go together — Arati, my best friend, and I watch for each other. I work a little strip just outside the slum beside the Mohambagam football club.

There is a disused pitch and that’s where I go with my clients. Mostly they are strangers, rickshaw drivers or hawkers.

Kalighat is the cheapest red-light district, but I have to work here because I’m old now. I need to make 250 rupees a day [about £3.50]; my rent is 45 rupees a day and I am paying off a loan to my landlord for hospital treatment. My clients don’t have much money — maybe I get 50 rupees a time. I try to make them wear a condom but mostly they don’t. I have been very lucky: I don’t think I have any sexual diseases. There is a clinic in Kalighat run by the Hope Foundation for us. I go a few times each year.

When I was young I worked on a jetty on the Ganges — they call it Babughat. I would go with men on boats they rent. Then I would have 10 or 12 clients a day easily, shopkeepers or truck drivers, and each would pay me 250 rupees.

My own family in Bangladesh has no idea if I am alive or dead. I grew up in a small village with three older brothers and a baby sister.

I was trafficked here when I was 14 by a man who married me. His real wife and children were here in Calcutta, and he brought me here. He sold me to a brothel. I was terrified, but he was my husband and I thought I had to do what he said. I did not have the guts to tell my family what had happened to me, so I never contacted them again.

If I‘m lucky I finish around 9.30. There is a lot of waiting around now, so we drink Bangla liquor, a strong illegal drink they sell on the streets. I drink it quite a lot — it helps. If I have made enough money I go home with Arati, and maybe we go to my room or her room and share some food. But if business is slow I stay out all night.

Even if I finish early, I can’t sleep until 2 in the morning. I worry about so many things. I have had six pregnancies, but I only have one child, Sheila Khatoon. She’s 14 now and she lives in a girls’ home run by the Hope Foundation. I visit her on the last Saturday of every month. I tell her I sweep in a hospital, and I wish I did, but no one would employ me now. She lived with me until she was seven.

She didn’t go to school and I couldn’t really look after her, but I didn’t bring men back to the room with her there. Then the Hope Foundation found her on the street. I wanted them to take her. If my daughter was to take up this trade, I would want to die. No mother can imagine such a thing as this. But she would have had no choice if she’d stayed here.

At night I think of my parents and my daughter. I think of what would happen to her if I died suddenly. I worry about how I got myself into this situation and what will happen to me in the future when I cannot make money any more. Around 2am I fall asleep, and then I don’t dream.

Andrea Catherwood is the UK ambassador for the Hope Foundation

Interview: Andrea Catherwood.

There are many important aspects to the story below:

1) This pr*stituting woman, like so many adult women in pr*stitution, was trafficked as a child;

2) Those pr*stituting women who don't die young from brutality and disease do grow old, and as a result their "marketability" declines making their lives all the more precarious due to their decreasing income;

3) Like so many women in pr*stitution, in order to survive they must have sex without condoms and thus risk HIV infection. Of course, there is great risk for a variety of other STDs as well;

4) Note too how she has lost so many pregnancies. This could be the result of health complications from her s*x industry involvement;

5) In the last paragraph, you can see evidence of Mariam's self-blaming despite the fact that she was trafficked by her "husband";

6) Mariam comments on her alcohol use as a "coping mechanism" -- this is very typical coping strategy among women in the s*x industry;

7) Mariam had to sacrifice bringing up her only daughter, in order that her daughter might have an opportunity to be educated and/or have another means of livelihood;

8) And of course, this article brings to the fore the grinding poverty that flourishes the world over;

9) Lastly let’s not forget demand. The authors of a study centered in Sonagachi (another Calcutta r*d-light district) report that the district’s 4,000 pr*stituting persons serve approximately 20,000 men a day (Rao, Gupta, Lokshin, & Jana, 2003).


Such clear, bright light withers the supposed “glamour” of the s*x industry. So much for sexual agency – this is a brutal, lonely fight for survival plain and simple.


http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/article6282309.ece


Taken from:

The Initiative Against Sexual Trafficking
c/o The Salvation Army USA
National Headquarters
http://www.iast.net/

Sari Bari Second Location: The Before Photos

We just finalized the 5 year rental of the space for our second location. This space will be able to provide for at least 40 women to work for Sari Bari and a small daycare for their kids. We hope to open the doors our friends in August for the first training. Until then keep us in your prayers!

FREEDOM PEOPLE FREEDOM!!

Donate $1 to WMF just by visiting Catalyst website

We have a great opportunity for you to give to WMF, just by filling out a form!

Catalyst Conference will donate $1 to Word Made Flesh on your behalf when you enter their giveaway for a free Flip Camcorder. Just go here to sign up for the giveaway. Just be sure to choose Word Made Flesh from the drop down list of organizations (it’s the very last entry box).

In the last two days I have...

Watched 6 episodes of LOST.

Made Honey mustard chicken over a bed of garlic mashed potatoes with sauteed zuccini for Beth and Kyle.

Got a massage...worked out those chronic shoulder knots!

Made sun tea.

Made lime and mint water.

Ate a whole loaf of french bread.

Drank a little bit of Starbucks Christmas Blend both cold(iced) and hot brewed in my press pot.

Went veggie shopping.

Bought a pitcher for the sun tea and a kettle.

Read The Lost language of Lament by Michael Card.

Wrote in my journal lots and lots.

Ate a bar of dark chocolate.

Showered three times in the middle of the night because i was so hot.

Reorganized some house stuff.

Hand washed my towels.

Slept late.

Had maybe 20 minutes of work related conversation but that is pretty good for me on my days off.

Got a bad haircut for the equivalent of 2 dollars and i am okay with it.

rest

I am talking a extended weekend...resting. Rest heals and fills up when I have been poured out. I am always thankful for rest and its restoration.

My rest is not perfect, some friend's are having a family crises, i am in an unresolved conflict with someone, work comes into my home even when i do not seek it. But still this weekend for many reasons, i feel like i have had to choose powerlessness in these situations and let rest heal me. I can not solve the family crisis or resolve the conflict without the other person or avoid the work that comes to my doorstep. But i am choosing not to let it destroy my rest...i let these things come and let them go. It still takes practice...i still have to choose to sit and wait instead of running after solutions. I admit I have failed this weekend a couple of times...but I can see that when i have just sat and waited, Jesus has met me and rest and restoration has done its work.

Lost Language

Our inability or refusal to enter into lament betrays the fact that you do not recognize the depths of our sin. We stubbornly refuse to have our hearts broken by it. The only result is that our sins continue to break the heart of God. It is only after lamenting our sin that our eyes can be truly open to the glorious truth that we stand forgiven, with the righteousness of Christ, and realize that we are in the Presence of the One who has heard our cries with tender and sympathetic ears.

Apart from lament, you and I are robbed of our true identity in God. We remain unaware of the depth of our fallen identities as sinners and blind to the reality an depth of our fallen identities as sinners and blind to Jesus Christ. Confession is lament for the sin that began in the Garden. The painful honesty confession demands is the fabric of all lament, as is the deep need for forgiveness and restoration to God's Presence. it is as if worship and confession are on holy fabric held together by the strands of lament.

The Lost Language of Lament, Michael Card

The old woman on my back

This old "woman" keeps following me around. Showing up when I least expect "her". I have thrown her off many times, sought to leave her behind but when i am most stressed, most vulnerable, she comes back...maybe i let her come back. She jumps on my back again and holds on tight. Makes me feel like i do not know myself, like no matter how hard I try i may never be finished with her. She got her hold on me this week and I have fought to pull her off my back, some days i succeeded, some days i did not. The last couple weeks have left me empty, a lot poured out, not much poured in...that's why I let her jump back on my back, maybe it was easier to let it happen than to fight her off. My choice, my weakness really. It was easier to be angry than alone. It was easier to blame than give it to Jesus. I do not want to be the "old woman", i want to be the new one. The one that forgives easily, pours out unreservedly, does not run from the master's grasp but runs into His embrace. My emptiness is my fault...I poured out but did not find the places i need to receive, to be filled up again. I feel like i am stumbling forward or being pulled backward. That's the way it is I guess. The day we stop growing we die. I have to keep pressing into the embrace even when i am tired and empty...its the only place to be filled up. i have been reading "the lost language of lament" by Michael Card for the second time. It has been a good reminder to press in rather than run away. I can press in with my anger, my fear, my insecurity and trust that God can handle it. When i run away, i only find myself in the arms of the "old woman", the woman i do not want to be, the woman that i cast off, the woman does not walk in her healing and does not live in grace but condemnation, fear and anger. My prayer today is that I will be able to pull the "old woman" off my back and walk forward and free as the new woman that God has called and created me to be...My prayer today and everyday is "lord have mercy, christ have mercy, lord have mercy."

How rich are you?

I was looking at my friend Faye's blog and she had posted this link. It is super interesting. I looked at the disparity between my potential salary, if I raised the full amount each month, and the salary that the production manager at Sari Bari makes. There is a huge disparity between our annual incomes but we both end up in the top 15% of the worlds population. With so much of the world living on less than a dollar a day, it really puts everything in perspective. Check out this link and find out where you stand. Be prepared for a shock!

Human Beings

I just read a couple of articles on CNN about a high class sex ring being busted and i need to ask can we please stop using the following words:

Hooker
Prostitute
Whore

These words demean and denigrate human beings. Of the women and girls who work in the sex trade, selling their bodies, 95 percent have been sexually abused prior to entering the trade (this may include men too but i do not know). I have never met a women who at the age of 7, 10 or 19 wanted to enter the sex trade. We live in a world of sexual brokenness and distortions, why would we presume that these human beings choose something that destroys identity and dignity by its very nature and that now they lack humanity because of it. Whether a woman has entered the sex trade due to addiction, poverty, trafficking, trickery, or even choice (as someone will surely say, if do not--however, i do not believe it is a choice when you have no other options), they remain human beings who by their very nature should be given dignity and value. When those words are used, women lose humanity, my friends lose humanity, i lose humanity, the men and women who use these words to describe others lose humanity. The words we use to describe one another can destroy dignity or restore it. Let's restore and give dignity to other human beings, rather than stealing value with our careless names for those we do not understand or care to know. there are other words that we can use to describe professions or lines of work with out making the person their job. None of us are the job that we do...at least i hope not. All of us are human beings...at least i hope so.

neverending exodus

My heart breaks with every loss, every stumble, every pain that my dear friends suffer on their road to freedom. It is such a long, long road to walk. I have said before that just like the israelites, many may not see the promised land of wholistic freedom. But still I live and work and hope like they will. I was remembering tonight how and why we started Sari Bari...the dream for freedom. We started and began to dream for the impossible, for thing we may never see. We claimed romans 5: suffering produces perseverance, perservrance character and charter hope and HOPE will not disappoint us. We wanted to live like Isaiah 58 was possible...we dream of well water gardens, of places of hope and restoration, we dream of streets and dwellings restored. The dreams glimmer in reality some days and some days it is hard to remember the dreams.

This morning we talked of faith, we HOPE in faith, even though we can not see, we can trust that God IS. These words are begining to answer the question for me of: Where is God drawing you? My sense is that He is drawing me to trust more deeply, not with my eyes but with faith knowing and trusting that what i can not see now will someday be revealed. Maybe that, the dreams I dream for my friends, will be realized, completed. Maybe that the dreams and hope that these beautiful women look toward would become reality. I want to believe it but some days everything tells me all is lost. As I shared my heart this morning about my own journey of faith and I could see in my dear friends eyes that my struggle held true for them too. We talked of our losses and our struggle to trust that God hears us. We named names, we named losses, we named fears, we named hopes...all things that we can not now understand, all the things that we can not see. we dwell in darkness but for the HOPE that in faith what we now can not see will someday be revealed.

So until then we will proclaim with faith that freedom, healing and restoration is possible! May the Exodus one day end and the promised land be revealed underneath the rubble of now!

Never make eye contact with a Kolkata Street dog

Never make eye contact with a street dog in kolkata. Not because they will attack you but because they will think you actually care for them and follow you where ever you go. I have a standard practice of petting while not actually petting the dogs here. I just make stupid human noises that sound kind, while moving my hand 6 inches above the dog. They act like i am actually petting them. They wiggle and wag all over. I do not have much compassion for the dogs...too much human suffering always out weighs their plight. Sometimes i wonder how it is that they can appear so content with so little, they eat trash, they get stoned and run over, yet that does not stop them from lying in the street, taking long naps, playing with each other and looking for eye contact from humans. They are eternally hopeful and amazing survivors. I try not to resent their contented behavior, i mean seriously, they eat trash, but sometimes after a long day I wonder how it is that they can be content with so little and I who have so much still am not content most of the time. I am embarrassed to have written this blog about the dogs...but apparently even they have something to teach me in Kolkata.

A few pics...

Yes, I am stealing Chris' Blog posts because they are just so good...

Vulnerability means to be hurt over and over again without seeking to love less, but more. Divine love is sheer vulnerability—sheer openness to giving…Being vulnerable means loving one another as Christ loved us. If we did not have to forgive people, we would have no way of manifesting God’s forgiveness toward us. People who injure us are doing us a great favor because they are providing us with the opportunity of passing on the mercy that we have received. By showing mercy, we increase the mercy we receive. The best way to receive divine love is to give it away, and the more we pass on, the more we increase our capacity to receive.

— Thomas Keating’s, The Heart of the World: An Introduction to Contemplative Christianity, page 15.

Grace of Brokeness

good questions

i love meeting cool people who ask good questions. questions that they have wrestled with themselves. questions that have a sincerety in wanting to know the answers to the questions. questions like what is the difference between Word Made Flesh and Servants? How does the incarnational commitment look different for these two communities? how is simplicity lived out, as singles, as marrieds, a families? why is there on man for every two women in these post modern "incarnational" communities? why do some organizations fail to empower local leadership? Why does community provide a more sustainable model than the single, i can do everything, warrior model? We had really great conversation today based on these questions.

I am particulary interested to understanding how families in incarnational groups make it work...does simplicity have to be lost? or does simplicity even matter? I know one family who has lived in slum for 10 years in single room with their two kids. They are the exception not the rule. they are fairly extreme but truly hold my respect for their longevity and commitment to those they love in their neighborhood. Most families, need or want more for their families, really for survival and sustainability. There is a conflict between wanting the best for their kids and living in poverty contexts where, though people want the best for their kids, they do not have the ability or choice to provide the best. so there is always a conflict...I have no answers really, my love for the families i know far outweighs most thoughts. I just wonder what incarnation looks like for families...i am sure there is no one way but many. I know my parents at one point considered a move to a innercity ministry in the states but decided for us kids that it would be better not to go. they feared we would lose something. when they told me, i actually felt a loss that they had not gone and moved our family to chicago (who knows if i would say that if we had gone but it interesting to think about it).

Incarnation implies presence in the places where Jesus may not be present in the physical sense. So relationship really means more than the things that you have or hold in your hand. But the things you hold in your hand can prevent relationship, stall it or even act as a barrier. I have been wrestling with the issue of simplicity alot lately. Wanting to maintain or even lower my standard of living but also knowing that simplicity is really more an issue of the heart. And my heart is really the issue. i accumulate because i am lonely, or unsatisfied, or trying to fill some hole in my heart. I sway between legalism and grace. fear of outside judgement and a care-less what you think posture. love for my neighbors who are poor sometimes comes into my decision making but more often then not, my attitude of entitlement governs my choices. i am not sure if resolution is possible really, maybe i will continue to wrestle for year to come. this is also something that we do not really talk about, even a community that celebrates simplicity as a lifestyle celebration. We may judge one another but fail to speak into each others life for fear of having others speak into our lives. We do not submit our purchases, we hide them. We do not ask if someone else might be served by the time or money that use, we use it for ourselves. I know i have not submitted in this area. i want to talk about it more. beth and i have been talking, wrestling a bit. but i wonder how we can be more open in submitting our lifestyles to one another. in the context of international partnership, this is an essential aspect. can i not only submit my lifestyle choices to my north american community but can i submit them to the indian staff. can i and will i allow them to speak into my life in this way. I want to...i just need make that choice. in the states, finances are personal, but in india finances are for the family, everything is shared. so i am asking myself, if my community here is my family, can my finances be submitted to them? can we share everything is common? i hope so...i want to continue to move in that direction.

when to say when

We had the Sari Bari Retreat yesterday. It was A M A Z I N G! I talked with one of the newer ladies and she was so so open. She was so encouraged to finally be able to see freedom and new life as something that was in within her reach. She never thought that she would be able to have a good job in a good place and be treated with dignity and respect. Those are her words not mine. She just confirmed for me that there is nothing i would not do for these beautiful women. Conversations like those move me forward, remind why i do what i do, why i put up with false friends, nasty landlords, and verbal beatings. Their freedom, the people who they are and will be and the Savior who compels it, is sometimes the only thing that makes sense to me.

But yesterday, even in the midst of the resolve, I was thinking of past hurts, recent hurts and wondering, when do i say, when. Do i get to say when? Or is there a point at which i just say that's enough, no more false friends, no more arbitrary rules, no more verbal abuse, no more lying landlords. Or do I never say when and keep accepting the hurts as they come, regardless of humiliation. practicing forgiveness, remembering that i am not the only one who has been hurt, i can identify more deeply with those whom i love through these hard hurts and i can practice forgiveness everyday until even that hurts. I do not know the answer, i know what Jesus did, but that still is not giving me peace at the moment. I just feel a little weary and wounded. Jesus help me.