Thoughts in Advent

Today is the first Sunday in Advent. Advent means "arrival'', and we begin the season of waiting, leading up to Christmas when we celebrate the  arrival of Christ into our world. 

As has been my family tradition for generations, today I lit the first Advent candle to mark the beginning of this season. I love doing this every year! I love this annual rhythm which has been part of my life whether I have lived in Sweden, Vienna, Turkey or Northern Ireland. The steady, comforting familiarity of it brings peace and calm to my heart, as I start a period of reflecting more intentionally on what the coming of Jesus into our world means. 

The past year for me has felt like one of the hardest. Sometimes the extent of my  faith has amounted to just holding on, by my fingertips, to the very core basics of it. Some of the things we do and say as church haven't felt very relevant in the place where I have found myself. But Jesus has been present. Always so present, no matter how hopeless things felt and how weak I felt.  

I feel like I have gained a new perspective on who Jesus is in the last few months, as I have spent hours listening to the Gospels on audio during my 30 mile commute to work. Just listening to the stories about him hour after hour has helped me (I imagine) see him the way the people around him must have seen and experienced him when he was walking the earth. I've been struck in a new way by how completely radical and counter cultural he was. Shockingly so! He spoke to women with respect and dignity. He said that in order to be great you have to be a servant. He said that those who want to be first will in fact be last. He raged against the greedy and the hypocrites and judged them harshly. But also I have been overwhelmed by his compassion... he saw and cared for those who were despised by society. He said: "come to me you who are tired and weary, and I will give you rest".  (This invitation made me cry with relief and gratitude.)  If Jesus was only a man, a guru, on this earth I know I would give my life to follow him!! But I believe with my whole heart that this man whose birth we celebrate at Christmas was more - he was God incarnate. God made flesh. He broke into history 2000 years ago and this began a movement of Jesus followers that continues to this day. He is still changing lives, mindsets and whole communities such as I have seen in India. He shows us a different way.  A way of peace, not war. Contentment, not greed. Love, not hatred. Giving, not taking. Justice, not oppression. Security, not fear. 

... How the world needs him this Advent season and always!

A life well lived

I attended the funeral yesterday of a remarkable lady called Barbara. It was the most inspirational thanksgiving service I have ever been at. Hers was a life well lived.

Funerals often cause us to reflect, don't they, on our own lives, and on what things are truly significant. Yesterday did that for me.

I got to know Barbara over the last 15 years through a prayer group which I'm part of. Before I ever met her she was one of the people we prayed for regularly in her work in the Middle East. I learnt at the funeral that she was 69 years old. I never could have guessed this - she was youthful, slim, astute and loved the outdoors. She was gentle, wise, strong, capable, a strategic leader, deeply rooted in her love for Jesus.

She originally trained as a nurse and then a midwife, and in her late 20's moved to Pakistan. She worked there for 15 years, running health care programmes in different locations. This can not have been an easy task for a single girl in such a male-dominated culture and I always felt huge admiration and respect for Barbara for this. She learned to speak fluent Urdu. She was loved and respected by the people and formed bonds that were to last a lifetime  - two of her close Pakistani friends came to Northern Ireland to spend a month with her this Autumn while she was dying of cancer.  After her time in Pakistan she relocated to Cyprus where she became area leader of her organisation, responsible for personnel and strategic planning in North Africa and the Middle East. Eight or so years later she returned to NI due to family needs, updated her nursing qualification, went back to work while continuing to have a key role within her organisation, to the very end.

I was struck yesterday by the fact that even though I knew Barbara I didn't know anything about some of her achievements or how she impacted people around the world. Like flowers growing in the remote beautiful mountains of Pakistan, Barbara blossomed and spread beauty in places where most people will never tread. In obscurity, if you like.

We live in an age where we like to (and are able to) publicize our actions, achievements and opinions on any platform we can. Sometimes the affirmation/feedback we receive from this is what defines our sense of significance and worth.  Yet, my greatest heroes are people (of whom I'm privileged to know a few) who don't seek the limelight but who spend their lives loving and serving others, at great cost to themselves and with little public recognition and with no online presence or promotion. Barbara was one of those people. I do believe some stories need to be told (hence I'm writing this blog). But the example of Barbara's life is also challenging me to take risks, to work faithfully on the things God has called me to do, to invest in the people he has given me, with everything l've got but without seeking recognition. That to me, after all is said and done, would be a life well lived.

The Devadasis

The last few days have brought many new experiences and brought me to some spectacular parts of India where  I have never been before. It's been a great adventure! Heather and I arrived at the OM campus in Hyderabad on Saturday night and spent Sunday here. It is the main  hub of OM India, with a lot of training and other activities going on,  and we met some interesting people. Coming to Hyderabad felt almost like coming back to the West in comparison to North India, with its good roads, less crowds, fancy shops  and bright lights! On Sunday night we took the overnight bus to Belgaum in the state of Karnataka, 4 hours from Goa. The bus journey itself was an experience as this is the time of the Diwali festival (festival of lights) and there are outdoor oil lamps, fireworks and lots of bright coloured lights everywhere.  We arrived in Belgaum ahead of schedule at 5am while it was still  dark, and here is  Heather after we got off the bus,  looking lost and abandoned somewhere in the middle of India...

In Belgaum we worked with a tremendous couple who are real movers and shakers, with compelling compassion underpinning everything that they do. The people they work among  are mainly the devadasis (temple prostitutes). Devadasi means 'servant of God'.  These are women who have been dedicated to the goddess Yellamma (Hindu goddess of fertility), with the purpose of 'serving' the temple and the priests. This means they can not marry a mortal, as they are dedicated/sold to the temple  sometimes as young as  4 and are basically dedicated to a life of sex work in the name of religion. This role is often handed down from one generation of women to another. This age-old  tradition has been illegal for the last 25 years but still exists in southern India. Wheras devadasis used to live a comfortable life as concubines they are now despised and isolated in their communitites and vulnerable to HIV and other serious health problems.

On our first day in Belgaum we did a 5 hour return trip to visit the Yellamma temple. I had wanted to visit the temple because I knew most of the women we would treat at the medical camp the next day were devadasis, I had read so much about them and wanted to understand more about their situation. I don't know what I had expected from the temple - probably something quite grand. But I merely found it a sad and dirty place. There were whole families worshipping there, and the number of temple prostitutes outside it - from young girls to old ragged women, identifiable by their white and red beads - filled me with such sadness. I still cannot get my head around all these girls and how such abuse and bondage can be accepted as an act of worship. An article from the Guardian (21.1.11) explains that this system is seen as a means for poverty stricken parents to unburden themselves of daughters. Just another expression of the disregard and contempt for girls in this society.

Ritual washing in the river before entering the temple

We held our medical camp on the premises of the permanent Good Shepherd clinic, where 80 devadasis from surrounding areas had travelled, along with some regular general patients and others who were HIV +ve but not from the devadasi community. I would so have loved hearing some of their stories... but there was a lot of work and a lot of patients to get through so we needed to keep working as hard as we could while there was still daylight. (Lack of electricity and some equipment called for some improvisation - all part of the fun!) We did vital signs, blood sugar checks, Hepatitis B vaccinations and oral medication for various sexually transmitted infections. The majority of the patients were HIV +ve and for those who didn't know their status we had HIV testing kits.  We also had a doctor for the more general stuff, and Heather was able to carry out the examinations of the women as well as giving a sexual health talk at the end.  These were beautiful women, many with beautiful children in tow, some of whom also had HIV. Seeing these children was the most difficult thing for me...  There was a real sense of community and support among the women. None of them will ever be able to marry, and they really only have each other.

I did ask the question whether anything is being done to encourage the devadasi women to come out of their sex work. The answer is that it is an incredibly complex situation. For most of them it is the only means they have to feed themselves and their children. They live hand to mouth - what they earn today will be spent on today's food, and so it continues tomorrow and the day after. So the emphasis of the work right now is to love them,  keep them as safe and healthy as possible, empower them  through sexual health promotion and give them dignity and worth as daughters of God. I loved the fact that there was a directory already of the devadasiss names and their children, and that our clinic yesterday was part of a continuous commitment to them and they will be followed up regularly.  There ARE plans to have a home/vocational training centre established for this community, and we were shown the land that has been purchased for this purpose. Also there are plans for a dalit school and a small hospital on the same land. This plot is situated in the most beautiful and fertile landscape, with sweetcorn and sugar beet plantations all around - it was so exciting to be able to see it and pray over it and share some of this vision.

Thangaraj sharing  his vision

Devadasi's Saga

By: Zoya Zaidi( She is not a Devadasi)

I could hear the temple bell

ringing in my ears

The day I was born

To an unwedded mother, or rather

my mother was 'married' to the temple!

But,

The Temple was not my father!

I could hear the temple bells

Ringing in my ears.

I cold hear the temple walls,

heaving sighs in the dead of night,

Sighs of satisfaction.

I could hear my mother's sobs,

Intermingled with the sighs,

sighs of dissatisfaction.

As I slept on the cold-rough stone,

My cradle in the darkest chamber,

Where light hardly ever entered,

I missed a father's loving touch,

When I asked my mother,

She said:

The temple was my father!

Then one day, through the

Half shut doors, I saw;

The priest heaving and hawing,

Full of sweat.

The pained surprise in my mother's eyes,

(On being so exposed),

Silently beseeching me

With helpless tearful eyes:

"Go away! You're still too young!"

But one day, I grew up!

I felt the "touch",

A creeping crawling, lustful touch,

The expression in the priest's eyes

Matched the touch,

As he held me in his clutch.

Nausea welled up in my throat:

It was not a father's touch,

I could feel it in my innocent bones.

Then Another, and Another.

Now, I am "My Mother".

Like her, I do not know,

the father of the baby in my womb.

Like my mother, I am going to

Tell my daughter:

"Temple is your father!"

This has gone on for centuries,

And still goes on.

This will go on forever.

I am the Devadasi of the Temple.

Temples may crumble,

But,

I will go on

Forever.

Last day in Lucknow

After a full and satisfying week we have arrived at our last evening in Lucknow. Bags packed, a final meal as a team, many thoughts, reflections and ideas as we shared together.

This morning we travelled to the HTC (Holistic Training Centre) an hour from Lucknow. This is a training centre for pastors where they do a 3 month course. Currently there is the first intake of women doing this course (20 of them) and we had the privilege of spending a few hours with this beautiful giggly group of girls from all over India. The training at the centre consists of bible teaching but also other skills that will be required once they go back to their own communities. There is currently a basic computer course and a tailoring course. The building is being extended, and the plan is to also provide training in mobile phone repairs, carpentry and bicycle repairs, to equip the pastors to become self sufficient. There is a beautiful garden all round the building and it feels like a refreshing oasis. We had a brief meeting where both we and the students sang and shared our stories. It was a special time. After a refreshing chai break (it is getting hot and humid here now and chai always miraculously revives you) we had a fun time with the girls making glass bead jewelry and doing nail painting and hand massage. Some of the girls said they had never experienced this kind of touch before. Dalits are still considered 'untouchable' in most parts of rural India.

This trip so far has completely exceeded all  my expectations.  I have spent this past week with six of the most compassionate and kind women with the biggest hearts! I have learnt so much from each of them. Together we have met many inspirational people who work with passion and faithfulness in dark places, and have been given a great overview of the holistic, wide ranging, transformational work that is going on here. We have also been in the midst of poverty and deprivation like some of us have never seen before. The challenge now is what we do with all that we have seen and experienced. (We are already talking about another team!)

As the rest of the team travel back to Ireland tomorrow Heather and I will be flying south to Hyderabad (4 hour flight) and then on to other places further away. We have another week of medical camp and other activities ahead of us so please continue to keep us in your prayers.

Medical camp in the slum

I am writing this in my hotel room, accompanied by loud Indian dance music outside the window. There is a posh party going on out on the lawn of the hotel (A 'Banker's Night', apparently) with wealthy people arriving in chauffeur driven cars and thousands of bright lights decorating the perimeter of the lawn.

This truly is a land of contrasts.

We spent today back in the slum conducting a medical camp. There has not been a medical camp in this place since last year when I was there and so it was great to be back with a bigger team this time. As most of us are nurses we were in our element! We got started late as we had to set the place up and sort out pharmacy before we could start, but once we got started it was all go. We saw perhaps 200+ patients throughout the day, people from this slum and also neighbouring slums. I absolutely love this work. It is so good to just be right in the middle of the community, among the people, touching them and meeting their needs in a practical way. The place was thronging with people waiting to be seen by us and the Doctor. As usual there was a lot of aches and pains as well as some more serious conditions. Lorna had set up a station for dressings and bandages and ended up being very busy, loving every minute! Sophie ran the Pharmacy like a pro. Marilyn and Maureen , who are not medically trained, prayed for people with particular needs. And so, along with our Indian friends, it was a great day of teamwork and expressing God's love in the best way we knew how by caring for these people and showing them worth and dignity. We travelled home on our bus full of stories, reflections and with happy hearts.

Patients waiting to be seen

Pharmacy

Lorna in her element

Our adventure so far

We are 4 days into our India adventure.
It's been a great few days!

Our journey here to Lucknow took around 24 hours, and everyone was pretty exhausted by the time we arrived. However by now we have all started to feel quite rested and back to normal.

I have realised I won't have much time to blog on this trip, but will try to write a few short updates with photos to update anyone who wants to follow.

On Sunday we went to church in the morning. Straight afterwards we led a women's retreat at the church here at the campus, for 50 or so women from Indian and Nepali backgrounds. It was a great day of ministering to and spending time with them, and praying with them for some sad and difficult situations. There is quite a lot going on here at the campus, with a lot of visitors, and so I had the joy of unexpectedly reuniting with some very old friends who live in a completely different part of the world that just happened to be here at the same time!

The Nepali Choir

On Monday we visited the slum which I visited last year. It was so good to be back and see the wonderful couple who are working there.We visited the little school, then walked around the paths, visited a couple of the homes and prayed for people as we went along. Such desperate poverty and need. We are all incredibly impressed with the people working there. They have a deep compassion and love for the people in the slum and are completely committed to them. They both say there is nowhere else they would rather be. I think I have said this before, but these two are some of my greatest heroes. They work with love and faithfulness, in obscurity and humility, to serve the poor in this community. They have been there for several years and their hearts still break for the people around them. There is much pain and heartache in this slum and we were told that incest, rape and kidnappings of little girls happen frequently.  It was clear to see the trust our friends have gained from the community and also the improvements they have brought over the years, such as the little school and three wells which now provide clean water. 

The well

Pharaoh and Moses in slum school

Tuesday morning we headed off to one of the 107 Good Shepherd Schools. It was an hour out of Lucknow, set in a very beautiful, rural area. This is harvest time and so you see women in their colourful saris working in the fields gathering rice and wheat and carrying all kinds of heavy loads.

Children come to this school from a 10km radius and there are around 400 students. We took assembly (the Moses and Pharaoh drama again, written by our creative directors Heather&Sophie!), did some crafts and sport with the children, and then took a women's meeting in the school for women from the surrounding area.

 On the way back we spent some time visiting a village and praying with the people there. It felt like such an honour to visit their home and get a little bit of an insight into how they live. There is a little church gathering in this village on a regular basis and our friends are also supporting them with material needs.

Drying wheat on the roof

Today we went to visit another of the Good Shepherd Schools. This one was also in a rural area with a beautiful garden. We were treated to the most amazing singing by all the classes and had some nice time talking to the kids about Ireland and what they want to do when they grow up. They are amazing children. The teachers are so committed to them and very encouraging in their attitude.  We also visited the sewing room (part of the Lydia Project) where all the  uniforms are stitched for all the Good Shepherds Schools all over India. More correctly, some are stitched in this sewing room and some are stitched by women in the neighbouring villages (a microfinance project to help the women support themselves).

The School Gardener

On the way home we spent some time visiting another village and then we did what us girls do best... went shopping! Downtown Lucknow is crazier than you could ever believe with people everywhere and complete traffic chaos involving rickshaws, bicycles, cows, cars and scooters and a LOT of noise...but it is a fascinating place and we had so much fun shopping for beautiful Indian clothes. As Marilyn said, "I wouldn't have missed this for the world!"

Sari shopping

I feel so privileged to be here with this team of women. They have given 110% in every situation, shown such love for the people and embraced the food, the noise and every experience with incredible resilience. It feels kind of sad we only have another couple of days until most of the team leaves! Thank you for all who are praying for us, we really sense God's strength.

xx

2013 Year of Love

It's the 1st of January... 

I love new beginnings. The beginning of a new year for me always brings a new sense of hope and a fresh promise. My past year contained both successes and failures (as I imagine is true for most of us) but my hope is that for every year that passes I learn a little bit more, and become better equipped for the next leg of the journey. 

I haven't made any New Year's resolutions as such, but one of my main prayers as I go into 2013 is that I will have the wisdom, discernment and desire to focus on the things that are important. That I will understand God's priorities for my life better and that the way I spend my time will reflect this. I know that for me this will mean saying no to certain things, taking on new challenges that will take me out of my comfort zone, and also taking more time to rest and look after myself.

I have been reading and thinking about the passage on Love in 1 Cor 13. 


" If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.
If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. 
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 
It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

 Love never fails. "

As I think of the year ahead these words seem incredibly relevant. For a dreamer like me it's easy to pursue and imagine all sorts of great things that I would like to see happen this year.  And that's fine... those dreams keep me going and keep my heart alive. But the fact still is that most days of 2013 will be of a more mundane nature: Work. Making money. Looking after my family and my marriage. Working out relationships on a daily basis. Doing the stuff that needs to be done.

I want to try to make the verses above my guiding motto this year. None of the other 'grand' stuff really matters unless this kind of love is real and evident in my day to day life. This is the kind of character that God wants to develop in me, as the basis for everything that I do. It's not about a soft wishy-washy sentimental love. It is about a love that is strong and confident enough to make a choice to put others first, to choose to let go of hurt feelings, to choose to see the good in people, to choose not to get angry but to show kindness.  A love that speaks up against evil and for the truth.