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| last impressionsi sat up in bed, noting how much extra effort it took to do so. my headache started pounding again, and my stomach felt funny, but at least i didn't feel like throwing up anymore.
our last day in india. Lord, give me strength to get through this. mumbai had seemed so vibrant and interesting last time we were there -- with its crazy traffic, masses of people everywhere, smell of diesel fuel, sweltering heat, interesting languages (and body language), and un-understandable organization. now, feeling sick, i couldn't multiplex all that deluge of sensory information at one time; i had to process step by step.
we make it by auto-rikshaw to the government home, where abused & trafficked minor girls begin their rehabilitiation. these are girls are just teenagers -- teenagers who've been through terrible things. some have been sold to prostitution by their parents. so we play a game with them, trying to teach them to trust and help each other. all of them are dealing with a whole range of issues - emotional, physical, spiritual, educational. so we play a game with them, trying to teach them to tackle problems little by little, one at a time. we just pray that our time there is a catalyst to connect some girls with longer-term workers in other "after-care homes", so that they'll know they can have a life after the trauma they've been through. i sit out, too exhausted by sickness to do anything but rest and observe. the girls are smiling and laughing. they're helping each other out and celebrating together when they win. that's a step.
we visit a long-term worker at her home next -- a social worker and excellent evangelist overflowing with the joy of the Lord. selfishly, i'm hoping for some air conditioning to relieve me of the stickiness, and a comfortable place to lie down. instead, she lives in a small, humble apartment in a complex of huge, dirty concrete high-rises. but we begin to reminisce on the wonderful things that God has done at the camp for rescued girls a few days ago, and it's hard to be ungrateful. she gives me a bit of medicine and i do get to lie down under a nice ceiling fan.
fran wakes me up and i feel refreshed... mostly, anyways. it's time to go to the red-light district. do you feel up to it?, they ask. i do not want to miss this. we had met the girls, but we didn't really know where or what they were coming from. this would be another step in understanding.
we arrive. the brothels look like any other shop on the road, except several girls in brightly-colored dress crowd around each door. above them, the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th floor of every storefront is living quarters for all the girls, including the many not on display. nearby, in front of a restaurant or general store, stand a bunch of men -- the pimps. as we drive down the street in our taxi cab, our guide (the social worker) points out the rest of the taxis -- needless to say, they aren't here to pray for the people. they're "delivery" people, taking girls to customers anywhere in the province.
it starts to rain, and our taxi driver has no windshield wipers. so we stop for a minute next to a bunch of pimps. they're watching -- we're not acting like customers. the heat and humidity builds up in our stopped cab, until finally the rain lets up enough for our driver to see.
he turns the key to start the car.
it sputters and dies.
he tries again...
the cab doesn't budge.
he tries again and again... we start getting nervous...
till finally the car starts up. not a big deal from the cab driver's (or our social worker friend's) standpoint. we drive off, out of the red light district. it's that easy -- we're out of there, none of those empty stares or oppressive pimps hanging around. easy for us, impossible for them. a train, a bus, and a flight, and we're out of india, too.
we still don't understand. but we trust God has used us.
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| rehabilitationthings i am surprised about or learning to live with:
- my left hand is much more sensitive than my right (through disuse). that is to say, my left hand fingertips can feel individual fuzz-hairs growing on my chin whereas my right hand can only feel that it's rough.
- my brain tells both arms to (slowly!) raise overhead at the same rate... i look up, and my left arm has only gone up about 7/8ths as far as my right.
- my decision-making capabilities continue to assume that i can do everything i want to as long as i try hard enough... but my body does everything slower.
we're closing on our new condo on friday, and moving on saturday! praise God! have to trust him step by step for all the stuff.
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| excuse my cheesiness life is like grapefruit -- hard to get to the meat but worth the perseverance. and if you had a grandma like mine, sometimes someone else does all the peeling for you and gives you all the meat... and you would either take it for granted or want to do the same for someone else.
(as a side note, i wish someone would do the "peeling" on my written preliminary (phd) exam...)
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| tribute to grandma
My first memory of being alive involved grandma and
death. I was 2 years old, and
great-grandma (grandma’s mother in law) had just passed away. Grandma and I stood facing each other inside
the front door of our house in California.
She asked, “Where is great-grandma?” wanting to comfort me with her
answer. I had no clue as to what grief
she might have been bearing, or how life might at all be different with
great-grandma gone. I just thought the
question was really obvious – everyone
knows the answer to that. So I replied, “In Heaven” with an unsaid “of
course.” Grandma hugged me close,
delighted that I knew.
Matthew 20:27-28 says “and whoever
wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be
served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." Grandma displayed this sacrificial, servant’s
heart – that helps me understand the love that Jesus showed. When she was around, we had to insist and get
right to work doing the dishes or folding the laundry or cleaning the table;
otherwise, it would be done before we knew it.
She would do things we never realized needed doing, give gifts we never
asked for, and it never crossed her mind that we should repay her. This was not mere selflessness, though. Romans 13:8 tells us to “owe no one anything,
except to love each other.” This is the
response and relationship that her servant’s heart prompted from us, and it is
deeply ingrained into my notion of what love is. I look at Jesus’ love for us and mind for him
and think, “It’s like Grandma, only even better.”
At Christmas time in 2005, Grandma had just reinjured her
leg, and was placed in Intensive Care.
Since the nurses didn’t sepak Chinese, we took turns watching her 24
hours around the clock. With no sunlight
or concept of time, and a lot of pain, she became extremely disoriented and
agitated. The night I stayed with her,
she kept talking incoherently. I tried
everything to get her to go to sleep, but nothing worked – until I suggested
that we pray. She stopped fidgeting
immediately. She began praying in her
Mandarin-Fukienese mix, and though I didn’t understand it all, I knew this was
an intimate moment of comfort from her Shepherd in a confusing time.
This is my grandma: loving servant, consistent and faithful,
a life of example pointing to Jesus.
This time, I face death knowing it is the beginning of eternal life for
those who believe in Christ. And having
seen how God has worked in her life, we have a sure hope that she trusted Him
to the end and is at home with the Lord.
So the answer does not change.
“Where is grandma?” “In Heaven. Of course.”
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| i guess life does not sit around and wait for you to catch up. yesterday's 35w bridge collapse -- i drove on that bridge every day, last year. fran would've gone over it around 6:25 (it collapsed at 6:05), if it hadn't fallen and the road been barricaded. you'd think that knowing God is sovereign would mean something about how to react, but i just kinda sat, dumbfounded, watching the news, not even really knowing what to pray for.
that came just a few days after my grandma passed away in houston. my brother and i grew up with her in our house, so loyal and faithful and practical. over the last few years, she'd been in and out of hospitals and i'd watched her there, body rising and falling as she recovered from hip surgery. i looked at her on saturday night, expecting to see that characteristic rise and fall... but there was nothing. drifting through my mind was "we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord"... but when someone offers condolences, i usually just give them an awkward "thanks".
i'd gone to houston 3 days after getting back from kyrgyzstan, with a note for grandma that said "death is imminent". you wouldn't think it's the sort of thing that helps you process a 2-week glimpse into the joys and struggles that could pepper your own future. the number of mental bowties i should have tied, but haven't, skyrockets.
i guess i'm not the one to tie them. God is both sovereign and good. so i quote this reverently:
rest is for the dead.
- randy gwin
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