Archive for January, 2010
Reflection
Friday, January 29th, 2010
Reflection
I finally was able to get some rest thanks to the Day Use Room in the Bangkok Airport now for the long journey home via Taipei and Los Angeles yet by the time this is posted I will mostly likely either be in LA already or even home, funny how that works.
The down side of these trips I realize each and every time but for some reason at the outset I think things will be different but they never are in fact they really do take on the same form and often meaning. Intentions are really good especially about blogging and being up to date with such things as keeping facebook current, twittering tweets on twitter, I like that, anyway, if you have been to India with me you know the challenges that are faced and doubly so if you are traveling with me, I can be either macro focused that I miss the micro like where did I put my passport, did I leave my luggage in the lobby because it surely isn’t here at the airport with me, to what day is it and what number of projects have we just completed. You would think this was all rote for me but it isn’t, each trip I hope to be different and yet the same so sorry, you’ll just have to put up with me.
So how was it? Good.
Ok, can I be done? Sorry, back to the trip.
How do you really describe what takes place in these places? In past entries I have described that what takes place on the village level is really that of a celebration and in all truthfulness it is and yet at the same time not every village feels like it. Not having a team with me other than Bob I can even more aware of the responses of people as we would arrive into their village and carry out a dedication. The majority of them were thrilled to have us, especially the children. The look in their eyes, the excitement on their faces, their misbehaving while I am trying to talk and the adults yelling at them to be quiet and some trying to beat them with a stick…it’s really quite comical even the beating part because they rarely hit them and to see them try and miss is like watching a batter try to hit a changeup, rarely do they succeed.
Yet there are some villages where we roll in, jump out, look around and there are only a handful of people, most of them being with our entourage and then slowly thanks to the cell phone more people appear to welcome the foreigners, the people responsible for bringing life to their village through water which leads me to wonder do they really want us and our project? Good questions to ask and yet I don’t think I will really know the answer because the reality is what they tell me is what they know I want to hear. I am not questioning our work in the slightest by this; I’m just being brutally honest with my thoughts when I am there in the moment. Truth be told they need the water, are they grateful, probably, could they survive without it, probably, they would just have to walk a little farther and maybe it wouldn’t be as clean but they will make do.
So why then?
I guess the answer is because these responses aren’t the norm they are the exception and I don’t want them to spoil the gift for others and so I continue to give regardless of the reception. Does this bother me? No, not really, it just makes me go hmmm and within that I try to pray a simple prayer and ask the Lord to use the project in some form to reveal His love to them as individuals.
Notwithstanding the above, most places as I have explained are totally excited to have us and you can really feel the love concerning our work and in those times I get filled up, most likely these are the blessings from Heaven which keeps me going project after project.
What do I make then of this trip in particular?
Ahhh, a nice relaxing one, almost at least. It was true that we carried out 15 project dedications between Trichy and Tuni, affecting thousands of lives with water and more over we were able to also dedicate a church building and a generator that Wells for Life provided to the kids at New Life Children’s Home. We also journeyed out into the Bay of Bengal on a chartered boat and did it covertly by mistake, supposed to go through the port and offer up our passports but chose not too for some reason, luckily a phone call to the Port Authority while at sea yielded no misfortune or undue attention from the Navy.
Anyway, we went by a really slow boat out to a long strip of land they call and island, Hope Island to be exact and the significance here is that these people are really tribal. Tribal in the sense that there couldn’t have been more than 100 of them and they are fishermen by trade and as fisherman they go fish for stretches of time leaving their families to fend for themselves. While the men are out at sea or on the mainland selling their fish the women often find opportunity to make some money through various enterprises on the mainland leaving the older folk and children to fend for themselves. Long story short here, a school was started very recently and taking up by Dr. Premdas and his staff at NASA with cooperative funding from a Canadian NGO and the Indian government. Reason I was there was to address their water situation and so we did.
Oh, the result, well, I looked at the sand, then the sea, and assessed they needed water, clean, unsalted water. Pretty easy huh. Anyone could have ascertained that, so I guess I was there to lend my professional opinion, trying to be funny here but if you’re not laughing then sorry I guess you don’t like my humor, anyway, I think we can do something but it is going to be a little different.
What’s the solution?
Well according to my hydro-geologist/engineer with whom I consulted when we got to Hyderabad we either spend a lot of cash for a desalination system or we drill a shallow well with a small hand pump, 10 feet up to a maximum of 20 feet and outfit it such that it draws out the sweet water which actually exists below the sand and above the salt water which is a tad deeper below the surface of this small island. This solution will last 9 to 12 months then will go dry but the glory of it is you can then dismantle the project and go drill a new well and reuse your components. Your drilling costs are minimal because you would drill this by hand using an auger which you could purchase up front and give to the community and thus enable them to become self sufficient in securing their future water needs.
If you are wondering what they do now, they dig small shallow pits in the sand and after removing about 5 feet of sand you begin to get water seeping up out of the sand. You then bail out this water into a water bucket and then let it sit for about a day for everything to settle then start drinking what’s on top; it’s sweet water and has no salt. Amazing stuff and I actually saw this in widespread practice in Sri Lanka after the tsunami so I know it works and in fact they demonstrated it for us.
So from a water perspective there is hope for Hope Island. With water, a school for the children, slowly hope is being built and after listening to the leaders talk, they are looking forward to doing whatever they can to build a better future for their kids and having a school is the beginning of this process.
Hope Island, like so many places we encounter is filled with individuals who need to know that they matter and that their life has meaning and purpose. One of the things that I enjoyed most about my visit to Hope Island was the opportunity that was afforded to me to talk about Hope and how to get it.
While sharing with these people it became evident how hopeless people really are. On the outside it may appear hope exists but when you talk to them and listen to their dreams you begin to realize it is about life here on earth and it begins to take on a strangely familiar hollow sound to it. How do you tell someone that there is more to life and living that just here on earth but that living really doesn’t start until you live life with a view for the future, for eternity, for Heaven? Heaven becomes the goal but that really isn’t the goal, that’s the place we refer to, the goal is relationship for eternity with the Creator of the Universe, that my friends is the goal.
Any part of our life that we live without a view for the future is really selfish living. Having a view for the future is what should be dictating what all of our actions should be here on earth and in fact is what Jesus had in mind when he was telling his disciples to work for the food that lasts forever. Why is it we spend so much of our energies working for the food that perishes? Great question and one that has been asked for centuries and was relevant enough for Jesus to address it thousands of years ago.
This isn’t the place to jump really deep into this but let me just give a quick answer which I hold onto, for me, it’s not a either or proposition but a both and. You have to work in order to eat; you do the earthly so that you can afford to be active in the spiritual.
It’s about motivation and heart. Look inside, what motivates you? If it’s work for the sake of making money then guess what? You’re working for the wrong master. If it’s work to provide for yourself or your family or loved ones and you aren’t neglecting the gifts, talents and abilities God has given you, you view your life as an emissary for the King, well, and you’re working for the food which doesn’t perish.
It’s really quite simple and here is the question to ask to show you your heart in living – Do you do what you do wholeheartedly because you are doing it as an act of service to God or are you doing it because and you fill in the rest. Anything less, is well, it’s less than what God wants.
Life, one that is filled with Hope and an expectation for the future has one thing in view; God with His arms outstretched to you, beckoning you to come to Him and be with Him. That my friends is Hope that will last an eternity and when that is your view, you can undertake anything here on earth because you know that in everything you engage in your are doing it in service of Him, the King, the Creator, our Father, our Friend, our Lover.
(Pictures will come soon.)
Everywhere I go I’ll see you
Saturday, January 23rd, 2010
Today I embark on a quest, a quest of seeing life in a new light.
You see, most often cool things happen when I am in India and especially when laying in a hotel room bed at 3am and can’t sleep, primarily because my body is thinking “hey lazy butt get up its afternoon time in KS”, how stupid is that, after all I subjected it to 20 some odd hours of travel to the other side of the world and this with little sleep, cramped conditions and not the best of food. (Even the Whopper in Bangkok tasted funny…hopefully it was USDA grade chuck but I suspect it wasn’t.)
Anyway, I decide to do something productive with this sleeplessness, unfortunately I already downed 2 Simply Sleep pills and I didn’t do what my friend Jennifer told me to do before I left on my trip which was to go see a doctor and get a script for some Ambien. So what shall I do? I know, I’ll get up and read, wait, I can’t, Bob is still sleeping and sense he is still fighting a cold, I better not wake him, so the next best thing at 3am is my headphones and mp3 player (I’m too cheap for an IPOD).
Fast forward a few hours and I am now listening to a worship album by Michael W. Smith and one of the songs strikes me to the point of hitting repeat multiple times. In this song, sorry I don’t know the name, one of the lines is “everywhere I go I’ll see you.” I don’t really know why this appealed to me so much unless it was reinforcing a heart cry within me to actually see God at work not only in my personal life and that of my family but also in creation, and more specifically in areas of poverty, oppression, and dehumanization. After all, this is the evil that I encounter when I come to India and I want to do something about it.
Maybe the appeal of the song is this: A day when I can walk the dusty and dirty roads of India’s rural villages and even busy cities for that matter and see the activity of God everywhere, to actually “see” Him at work in people, so thick in the air that there is a buzz about it. Something you may not be able to actually put your finger on but you sense it all around you, that is what I am talking about. A move of God so strong that when you look at the fellow in front of you and smile you notice that it was he who was first smiling at you, and this not because you have a silly turban on your head and you look like a swan but because Jesus is doing something special inside of both people and that is recognized intuitively. That is what I want and it is becoming the thing that I am now going to be praying for!
Peace.
Arrived
Thursday, January 21st, 2010
Around midnight on Thursday we walked out of the International Terminal in Chennai and were greeted by thousands of smiling Indians! Too bad they were’nt there with garlands for us. There was 1 guy however who was anxiously waiting and that was the hotel guy, thank you Jesus for hotel guys and cars with AC, water bottles and cushy seats.
After checking into our digs at the Radisson which is very close to the airport we took our Simply Sleep and lay there waiting for it to take effect, thankfully that happened rather quickly. It is now 8:30am on Friday and if Bob would hurry up and get out of the shower we could go enjoy our buffet breakfast and drink a pot of famous Indian coffee.
Around 11am we will leave for the airport for a flight to Trichy which takes a little over an hour. Once there, we’ll schedule out our time, on tap, 10 water project dedications. I think the hotel has email so I will try and keep people posted on everything, in the interim follow us on Twitter, under Wells for Life, the updates will come most likely while you are sleeping since I am on the other side of the world, but it will be a good way to follow our progress.
Keep Bob and I in your prayers, this trip is going to be fun!
Rejoice
Wednesday, January 13th, 2010
Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:4-7
Just the other night I went to bed wondering what 2010 was going to bring and trying to negotiate some major decisions at home and with Wells for Life; decisions that involved money.
I don’t know about you but when it comes to signing on the dotted line for a big purchase or for undertaking a monumental project I like to have some type of assurance that what I am doing is the right thing to do and even more something that God is ok with. (Sort of sounds funny I know, but don’t we want all of our decisions to be not just ok with God but lead by God thus receiving the blessing of God?)
I think for those who are caught up in a job search with or without a job in this economy are ever increasingly aware of the stress, tension, anxiety and even fear that can take place; after all money has become a place of comfort and stability for most of us unfortunately.
Knowing this to be true, the scripture above becomes ever more important for our daily lives and yet it requires some major thought shifting in our brains. Because what it is telling us to do fly’s in the face of conventional wisdom, it tells us in everything within life to Rejoice, regardless of what we are experiencing and living in our lives are to be marked by rejoicing.
Is this hard and does this make sense to you?
How do you rejoice when you lose your job, when the car breaks down and you have no money to fix it, when you have been diagnosed with cancer, lymphoma or just have been told you and your children have H1N1?
Bluntly put, it sucks.
Worse yet, the news out of Haiti about their earthquake and the death and destruction that has resulted certainly is void of the scripture; or is it? When these words were written could the writer have even imagined earthquakes with this kind of destruction and loss of life?
You might say, “No way” and yet don’t you think God knew and after all scripture is inspired by God so I would have to say, Yes, even in the worst of circumstances where death is all around, the scripture is not just relevant but applicable and true, in fact, it is truth.
I believe this is so true that I am willing to live my life by it and in fact I believe if you want the secret to a successful and prosperous life you can do this one simple thing, maybe I should write a book about this but it would be really short and not worth the expense so here it is…. Live out Philippians 4:4-7. It’s that simple. Here it is again.
Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
I guarantee you that if you live your life daily rejoicing in all of God’s benefits and provision for your life and the salvation He offers you and all of the other good things that result from a surrendered life and even the stuff that He just provides regardless of where we are at in life with Him, there is cause for rejoicing.
Quite simply put, you could be dead and not have an eternity spent in Heaven, which brings up another point all together about eternity, salvation, and what it takes to get there which really isn’t a lot but isn’t as simple as just going to church or being born into a “Christian home” and thus if you have questions or want to explore this further then please contact me and we can discuss this, but back to my original thought without an eternity secured 100% in Heaven there really isn’t a lot to be thankful for or rejoice about in the grand scheme of things.
Why, well think about it, if all you got is 70 or 80 years here on earth and then you become dust and there really is no future then no wonder life is full of anxiety, fear and worry – you haven’t even settled in your mind and heart what your life is about here on earth. (And, it’s not just for your kids, your spouse or to take care of someone or something or even to make a difference in the world by doing good.)
At some point we all need to come to the understanding that we are put here on earth for a reason and this reason can only be fully understood through relationship with God. When this takes place the “light” comes on as to the “why” of life and it is then that we really begin to live.
Unfortunately though life still has a way of snuffing out the truth we have received and a struggle ensues for our life. Our livelihood is really at stake. Just because we have faith in God doesn’t mean the struggle ends; it remains and it can at times intensify. Why? Evil.
Scripture tells us struggle, hardship, persecution will come and yet we are to withstand it, fight against it; endure it knowing that ultimately we will overcome it. Knowing the struggle is against the spiritual forces of darkness and enlisting the help of Heaven itself enables us to enter into this war and fight knowing the ultimate outcome and it is within this struggle that we realize more clearly whose we are and what our purpose is.
Armed then with this knowledge and awareness having a new perspective on life with a view towards the future and in future I am talking eternity, we can rise above all that we are living in, the “stuff” of life and all that it represents because we know and are assured of our ultimate reality, which is life forever with God.
This then is cause for rejoicing. Rejoice that you have a place secured for you and that no matter what you experience here today, tomorrow, next week, month or year it is nothing compared to the incredible worth of knowing your future in heaven for all eternity is secure. Moreover life with God in Heaven will be complete, full, satisfying and beyond our best dreams. There will be complete peace in all of our relationships and within our very selves; also think about it, no H1N1, bird flu, swine flu, global warming, cancer, death, headache, job loss, termination, nothing, no more bad and miserable days.
Something to look forward to and yet those are just the fluff, the real joy will be fellowship and intimacy with the creator of the universe.
In the interim, how to live today.
Rejoice. Regardless of what you are living, rejoice, knowing your future.
Ok…the rest later, its 3:20am and I need some sleep, more or should I say the rest later. Check back. Good night and say a prayer for Haiti, specifically pray for the children life Jamesly who is a World Vision child my sister sponsors and fears is dead. Pray that he is rescued should his life have been spared. If he did die like so many have, pray for God’s peace in all those affected by his untimely death and yet rejoice in the fact that he knew Jesus and is with him now for all eternity. Shalom.