Year End

2012 was a good year and I give thanks as I look back.

I'm thankful for health,
for some wonderful experiences and travels,
for faithful friends and family.

I'm thankful I was able to live out some of my dreams...  India, you have stolen my heart!

I'm thankful that as I come to the end of this year my heart feels more content and at peace than it has for a while. Part of that is that I am happy with how my family is doing and I don't feel the worry and anxiety that I have at times in the past. It's a nice place to be.

None of us knows what tomorrow holds, but for now I am relaxing and enjoying the peace that I feel as I move into a new year.



 

Like a Lake

Lake Phewa, Nepal

These last couple of months I have been listening to a song by Sara Groves called 'Like a Lake'. She wrote this song inspired by Lake Kivu and the people of Rwanda, a people who have experienced unspeakable suffering.

so much hurt and preservation like a tendril round my soul so much painful information no clear way on how to hold it       when everything in me is tightening curling in around this ache I will lay my heart wide open like the surface of a lake wide open like a lake standing at this waters edge looking in at God's own heart I've no idea where to begin to swallow up the way things are       everything in me is drawing in closing in around this pain I will lay my heart wide open like the surface of a lake wide open like a lake bring the wind and bring the thunder bring the rain till I am tried when it's over bring me stillness let my face reflect the sky and all the grace and all the wonder of a peace that I can't fake wide open like a lake everything in me is tightening curling in around this ache I am fighting to stay open I am fighting to stay open open open oh wide open open like a lake

I thought of these words many times while I was in India.I love this song because it speaks of God's limitless capacity to hold all the sadness, rage, disgust, worry, uncertainty, confusion, contradiction and pain that I carry.  Especially when I feel powerless in the face of  injustice.

It's the most natural thing in the world for us to want to run away from pain and anything that makes us uncomfortable - both the suffering of others, and that which we face in our own lives. We resist it with everything we've got.  Sometimes, though, we just need to choose to face it head on.  Face it in all its ugliness and desperation, not hold it in and try to manage it, but allow it to affect us and then lay our feelings out honestly before God like the big expanse of a lake..  When we choose to lay our hearts wide open,  that's when we  discover God's own heart, his heart that is so much bigger than ours and that can hold it ALL. His compassion is a force greater than anything within us. It heals us, and it equips us to heal others.

... And peace will come.

'Bring the wind and bring the thunder, bring the rain till i am tried. 
When it's over bring me stillness, let my face reflect the sky...'

 

Reflections

We are in Dubai on our way  home from India and I am spending some time reflecting. My mind is full of images from the last few days. My heart is full of gratitude for all that we could experience as well as anger and sadness for some of the things we have seen.

Yesterday morning - our last morning in Lucknow - Chris, Jacob and I went to visit the slum where we held medical camp on the first day. We first went to one of the 'informal' schools where we did some songs and stories with the kids, and they also sang to us.  They were sitting/standing on a plastic sheet on the floor in a very simple room, incredibly well behaved!

 Most people in the slum don't really value education of their children, as it is considered more important that they go out and earn money for the family. In these little slum schools the children are taught  the very basics, for a couple of hours every day. The lovely teachers are doing an amazing job for very low pay. The manager of the school and his wife, quite newly married, spend their life loving and helping the people in this community. They help with all sorts of social, medical and practical issues and have also founded a church there. They also run another informal school in a different part of the slum. The school was being held under a straw roof, which has now collapsed, and their dream is to erect a proper metal structure so that the children don't have to sit outside. This would take around £800, which at the moment is an impossibility for them.

The school - a collapsed roof and a blackboard

In this particular slum there are 350 houses with an average of 10 people per household. The houses are constructed with any material the people can get their hands on - bamboo, straw, rope, paper, sack cloth, leaves... The people may be ordered to move at any time, and I can't even imagine what it's like to live there during the monsoon season or in December/January when it gets very cold.  I was told there are 800 registered slums in Lucknow - a city of 3 million people. It was lovely to see, as we were walking around, the good relationship that our friend has with the people who live there.

One thing that stood out to me was the large number of eyecatchingly beautiful girls everywhere we went. Like little diamonds shining among the dirt and the squalor. I wanted to tell them all that they were beautiful, created in the image of God, and some of their faces remain imprinted in my mind. We met a girl who is 12 years old as she was looking after her seven younger siblings while their mother was at work. This beautiful child is to be married in three months' time, to a man she has never met... Our friend who knows the family has tried to dissuade them from this but without success. This way there will be one less mouth for the family to feed.  Girls are not considered of any value to the family in these communities.

Here are some facts about the situation for women in India:

• 70% of women live in poverty
• In Uttar Pradesh,, the state where we were, the literacy rate among women is 34%
• More than 2 million female babies are aborted every year just because they are female
• One woman commits suicide every 40 seconds (according to WHO)

OM are reaching out to women across the country through education (the basic tool for empowering women), micro finance schemes, vocational training, medical care, spiritual empowerment, safehouses for trafficked women and in many other ways.

Before I went this time I felt quite overwhelmed by the scale of the problem in India. Looking back now, I have been so encouraged and humbled to meet many people who are giving their lives to serve the poor there in different ways, people who will never be famous but who are my absolute heroes... I feel like our role was to come alongside them and encourage them with our presence and our prayers, contribute some of our expertise and then tell their story to others back home. It takes many of us, together, to make a change and an impact. And each one of us is significant.

Good Shepherd School

... I've worked hard today!!!

Couldn't believe it when we drove up to the school this morning and MY VERSE was on this sign (see two blog posts back)!! Made my heart skip a beat!

This morning was the first time this week that  Chris, Jacob and I have headed off together to work in the same place, which was really nice. The guys were going to do some health and hygiene teaching and sports with the kids while I did the medical camp. I must say by the way that I have been SO impressed with Jacob on this trip. He has maintained a 100% positive attitude even in some trying situations, given himself to every challenge, made new friends and he totally loves the Indian food!

OM have built 105 Good Shepherd Schools across India for the Dalits, with the ultimate goal of building at least 1,000. The school we went to today was built in 2003 and has almost 500 pupils aged 4-16. It is in a rural area, surrounded by sugar beet plantations and fields of sweetcorn. I only had one doctor today - a lovely Indian guy who clearly knew what he was doing and cared about the children even though he is not a Christian and had never done anything like this before (being from a high class Buddhist background himself).
Our objective was to screen as many of them as we could and address any problems. We worked out a bit of a production line where I did height and weight and minor dressings etc before he assessed each of them and handed our multivitamins and any medication required. Overall the children in the Good Shepherd Schools are quite healthy, but often small and undernourished. I love working with these kids and imagining the potential in each of them!

Medical team with the school staff

My lovely helpers/class 8 students

We managed to see more than 400 children before we finished way after the school day was over. It felt good and quite fulfilling. I just wish we could have gone back one more day to see the rest of the kids. I am getting lots of ideas of things I need to learn and skill up on for the NEXT time, so that I can be of better use. Eye testing being one of them, for example. Medical camps is an area OM really want to expand in, as it makes such an impact in the communities, so I am excited about the scope to do this more in the future
Tomorrow is our last day ... our time here has been far too short, but I do feel we have made the most of it and I have learnt so much.

Off for an early night! x

Medical camps

In the last two days I have been working at two mini medical camps. (This is what all my fundraising went towards, so thank you if you were one of the people who contributed to this :)

 Yesterday I thought I was going to work in a school, but it was in fact in a slum near one of the 'informal' schools run by the team here. I had a whole team of people with me including two Indian doctors, translator, people looking after registration and pharmacy etc. It is only the second time they have run a medical camp here but it was superbly organised. We had 400+ people coming throughout the day. There is no other free medical health care available in the area so people had come from surrounding neighbourhoods also to avail of our services.

As a result of the school which is run in this slum area, a church has been planted which now has around 120 people. The pastor, originally from a Muslim background, has been working in this community for 5 years and it is clear to see he is completely accepted, trusted and respected among the population. After a long period of negotiation with the Hindu land owners the church have been able to purchase a plot of land where they are now building their first proper church building, with a vision for women's work and other activities within its walls once completed. I loved meeting this humble man and his beautiful family.

Medical camp in the village

Today's medical camp was held in a village an hour's drive from Lucknow. In this village the camp was also attached to a little church plant - 80 people or so meet outside the pastor's house every week. The village, like most other villages here, was extremely primitive with no running water, electricity or sanitation.

The animals live pretty much alongside the humans  and we erected our camp amidst the cows and the goats. As we were driving up towards the village I even saw a wild baboon walking across the rice field. It was a beautiful and peaceful place, but life is oh so hard for the people who live there. I saw some conditions I have never come across before but thankfully I had three Indian doctors working with me today and could defer any difficult cases to them. Again today we had hundreds of people coming for help. Many really were sick. I was able to pray for some of them.

Village children

From a medical/nursing point of view I have found the last couple of days a little frustrating. We are only able to give out a small amount of medication, and give very short term help in most cases. I was chatting to our trip organiser about this today and he helped me see it from a different perspective. (Maybe when you live in India and you have always been aware of the country's massive problems you see it differently from us in the West.) He said that we will simply never be able to meet all the medical needs of these people as we are not a medical mission. We do this as an act of love and kindness, as part of the holistic outreach of the church there. We offer to pray for people when our own resources run out. We offer to love and help them in any way that we can. We show them the way to spiritual healing. We educate their children. We speak on their behalf to governments in India and abroad (leaders here will be involved in high level human rights meetings in Delhi next month).

Even though rural India is beautiful, and even though in the dirt and noise of the city there is something to catch your interest  everywhere you go, I doubt that I would ever choose to come to India as a tourist. It is the complete contrast to the peaceful serenity I grew with in Sweden! But yet... when I'm here I just feel as if I am right in the middle of God's story! He is championing the cause of the Dalits, bringing justice and restoration to a people who have been oppressed for thousands of years, and it feels so fulfilling to be  a small part of that.

Medical Camp Team

Back in India

It felt so great to roll into Lucknow on the train early this morning, 24  hours after leaving Pokhara, Nepal. Our journey yesterday took us across Nepal's beautiful mountain landscape in a hired jeep, we then crossed the crazy crowded dusty Indian border in cycle rickshaws piled high with our stuff, travelled via minibus through North India to Gorakhpur, and finally took a sleeper on the overnight train to Lucknow.

It's good to be back in India.

Today being Sunday, we had the privilege of spending most of the day at a 'Jesus Celebration' an hour's drive from here. Many of the Good Shepherd churches from the surrounding area come together for this celebration once a year and today around 2,000 people had gathered. Some came from 30 miles away and many had walked to get there. Most of the people are from Dalit background and some may be the only Christian in their village. The meeting lasted from 10am until 3pm, with people coming and going and children wandering around. Afterwards there was a huge pot luck lunch eaten out on the dusty grass. I was so touched by the main message by the Bishop, which explained in simple terms that Jesus understands and cares about those who are poor, fatherless, toiling hard and ridiculed by society - because that is what life was like for him. This is life giving for people who have lived as outcasts all their lives as a result of being born outside or at the bottom of India's caste system.

Driving into Gorakhpur last night (a big polluted crowded city) I felt overwhelmed and depressed looking at the crowds of people everywhere. It's impossible to imagine the mass of humanity that is North India unless you have experienced it for yourself. So many faces, so much poverty, so much hard labour with no apparent reward. Noise everywhere! I kept thinking of the verse in Mark that says Jesus looked at the crowd and 'had compassion'. I now keep thinking of this everywhere I go. To God these people are individuals created in his image, not the mass of faces that I see. Somehow that helps me deal with the scale of it all.

Our work starts tomorrow and I will be heading off to one of the schools in the morning to do a medical camp. My nurse's bag is all packed and ready!

Thoughts on Turning 50 (or Where Did the Last Half Century Go??)

Today I am celebrating my 50th birthday.

Gasp...!

It does feel like a milestone and it does feel different from previous birthdays. A time to think back, and also forward, on my life.

For someone with a melancholic temperament like me, looking back it is easy to instantly remember the times when I haven't done so well, bad decisions I have made and areas where I let myself and others down. There have been many of those, and I could write a book about how NOT to live your first 50 years of life! But today I am choosing not to go down that road. I am becoming better at being kind to myself :)

I am very grateful for my life.

More and more I appreciate the privilege of my childhood in Sweden, growing up in a stable family circle with parents who were hard working, supportive and sacrificial towards me and my brothers.

They never stood in the way of any of my adventurous endeavours (like smuggling Bibles into communist Poland in my suitcase on my own when I was 17). As a family we spent a lot of time outdoors camping, fishing, picking berries, ice skating... my dad's deep love for nature is something which is ingrained in all of us kids, and also in my own children I think. The older I get, the more I see my parents' strengths and weaknesses coming out in my own character.  I am very proud of my heritage and will always be 100% Swedish! :)

After leaving school I had two great years travelling in and
out of Eastern Europe (Bible smuggling again) while being part of  an international team in Vienna. I saw God doing so many miracles during those border crossings and experienced his power in ways I will never forget. These were very formative years.  - -  And despite OM's strict social policy (the dreaded 'SP'...) I did manage to fall in love there, with the Irishman who later made me his wife and brought me all the way to Ireland!

 

Our next big adventure was our years in Turkey, where we drove overland from Ireland (via Sweden) with our kids aged 2 and 4. I still love that beautiful country and its people, and harbour a secret wish to live there again some day... I treasure the friendships I made there which have greatly enriched my life.



Life since Turkey has been about establishing a career, living through the ups and downs of Christian community, bringing up Daniel and Anna and then, when they were 10 and 8,  being blessed quite unexpectedly with Jacob :) I am incredibly proud of all my kids. They are thoughtful and caring and each supremely gifted in their individual ways. Sometimes I feel like I don't deserve them, but then I remind myself that I can actually take some credit for the people they have become :) Frequently I stand in amazement when I see God's hand in their lives in ways I haven't expected.

Not that parenting has always been an easy journey. I have made plenty of mistakes and unwise decisions. Even now there are times when I feel inadequate and simply don't know how to handle situations. And sometimes I have to admit that my kids act much more maturely and adult-like than I do!!


Getting married to Chris was one of my GOOD decisions. I like being married to someone who does not always accept the status quo and who embraces adventure. We have lots of disagreements, and frequently opposing opinions, but that only keeps life interesting! :) Large measures of grace and forgiveness have been required over the years, especially on Chris' part. I think we have given each other a lot of freedom  to pursue individual interests and do things we each enjoy. That might have felt like taking a bit of a risk -  but after all these years (27, to be exact) we still share a lot of common ground and love and respect each other, and are sensing God gently nudging us both the same direction now as we are thinking towards the next stage of our lives.

I think I always imagined that by the time I reached 50 I would pretty much have life - and myself - figured out.  Well, that is not where I find myself. I probably have more questions than answers now. (When I was 20 I had mostly answers!) I realise more than ever that life is not black and white.  There are many shades of gray. There is much brokenness - in all of us. But it is precisely in this brokenness that God is with us and that he wants to make us - and all of his creation - complete. I am totally convinced  of God's greatness and faithfulness, and that living for him is the only thing that makes sense of  life.

There are still so many dreams within me that I feel God has put there. My hope is that I will have many more years of health and energy to live out those dreams :)  I want to always remain open to God surprising me with new opportunities and adventures too. As I know he will!! 

So... I feel ready to celebrate! :)
Thank you for being part of my life journey so far.
x