Slum Community

There is a vast network of slum communities throughout India. The largest in the world is located in Mumbai and was the backdrop for the movie Slumdog Millionaire. We visited a nearby slum community that was within walking distance of our home at the Bible Center. It was located on a busy side street that backed up to a local canal. YWAM operates a school and a health clinic in the slum community. The school provides education for 125 kids in a dimly lit room that was smaller than 300 square feet. The school is broken up into morning and afternoon sessions to accommodate all of the little ones. Here is some video of the children singing us some songs. One of the songs describes how Jesus loves us regardless of our height, weight, skin color, or background. It is hard to put into words what it was like to hear the joy and laughter in their voices when you are standing in the midst of such poverty. Walking through the ally ways where they sleep and play was overwhelming. They survive on so little, yet they are full of such love and life. With faces like these, there is a bright future for India. Let's pray that their joy is not robbed by the harsh circumstances of their environment.

A couple more new friends...

Johyti and Joshua recently joined the House of Hope family. We just wanted to share a little of their story with you. Johyti grew up with two very absent parents, her father drank a lot so her mom became a prostitute in order to pay the bills. Johyti did the kitchen work and cared for the children at the brothel until she was 12. At that time her mom got very sick and was unable to pay off a huge debt she owed. In order to pay the debt Johyti had to go into prostitution. She has since had two abusive husbands. She was able to receive help through an organization (Oasis of India) a few cities over some years back. At that time she delivered her first child, came out of prostitution, and had a good job. After she left the program, she returned to her husband who she says eventually sold her back into the red light district. She gave away her child and started selling herself again in order to live. Johyti recently contacted the organization again saying that she wanted a better future for her second baby. They referred her to House of Hope and she arrived this week. She is very guarded from having had such a hard life. Such a sad story I know, but now she is among family who will love her and Joshua very well. Pray that they will transition well and that she will find the Father’s love. That she will feel safe and realize that He never intended for her to have to sell her body for acceptance, love, or money. Nicole (our host) said it is always hard when they get women who have a history of prostitution because they often return to the streets…it is all they know. Pray that Johyti is not one of those women and that this step is truly a life changing one for her and for Joshua.

Meet some of our new friends...

We wanted to introduce you to some new friends the Father has placed in our path. The first we’ll call Jenny (not her real name). We met Jenny at a local shop a few weeks ago. She is full of energy and excitement and loves meeting new people. She is however very lonely as she lives alone and does not have many close friends. Another teammate and I (Kasey) were able to go out to dinner this week and love on her a bit. We were also able to talk about the difference between her beliefs and ours. She was Hindu as a child, attended a Christian school and “converted”, and now she says she has “converted” to Islam because that is her fiancé’s religion. What she believes is essentially a combination of all three religions. Like all of us, she longs for love and acceptance yet she doesn’t realize that the Father offers her just that. We had great discussions about the fact that Jesus was much more than a messenger, he is God incarnate. We also talked a lot about the fact that our God loves us regardless of our actions. We explained to her that our God isn’t interested in us following a bunch of rules to earn his approval, He wants to have a relationship with us. Please pray for Jenny, that she would see the vast differences between Islam and Christianity and that she would go to the Father for love and not the approval of man.

Kasey, Jess, and a new friend

Our other friend is Art (again, not his actual name). We met him at a bakery on the other side of the city. We noticed something about him the moment we saw him. He was dressed in a maroon robe, people would come up to him and just sit next to him without saying a word and then leave. Kasey tried repeatedly to smile at him, but he would not return the smile. However, as he was walking out, he made it a point to smile and wave at us. Kasey felt like we should talk to him, so we ran out the door to introduce ourselves. He said he had noticed something about us as well, that there was like a spirit around us (which is REALLY cool, because as we were sitting in the coffee shop, we prayed that he would be able to see God in us!). We talked for a bit, got his phone number, and met for coffee a few days later. We found out that he is “enlightened”, that is he is totally separate from this world. He basically believes that he is his own god and that we are all our own gods. We stated that we weren’t gods, but that there is one true God and that He will speak to anyone who calls out to Him. He isn’t a Hindu or a Buddhist, sort of a combination of the two. We had a great conversation, discussing truth, what it means to be holy, and that there is more to the world than seeking pleasure. He had some very interesting ideas about Jesus. Rather than just engage him in intellectual or theological debate (which he loves to do), we stressed the importance of relationships. We explained that there is one God who desires a relationship with all of us. As we were leaving, we challenged Art to talk to our God and to ask Him to reveal Himself to him.

We are hoping to meet with him one more time this weekend. Please pray for that time, that we can share the Fathers love for him, that Art would be bold enough to call out to our Father, that God would speak to Art in a bold and clear way and that he would want to know more about the Spirit that he has seen in us.

Aww rats...

In response to our previous blog about laundry, we have one small update. We left a pair of dirty jeans hanging outside our room for a couple of days (on a drying line on our covered veranda) and paid the consequences. Apparently rats like denim and one (or more) was all to happy to eat his fill. Mind you, the jeans were hanging on a thin nylon chord 8 feet off the ground, so it was an impressive feat. While "holey" jeans are fashionable, for some reason my wife wants to throw these jeans out. I guess I can't blame her. We'll just chalk it up to lesson learned.

That's a normal size DVD, just to give you some perspective on how much the little booger ate:

The culprits have been apprehended and disposed of properly. I'll spare you the pics, you can just trust me that they won't be eating anyone else's jeans.