Commotion

There's a guy in our community who suffers from mental illness.  He sits near a storefront just a few feet from my friends' room.  When he's not doing well, he yells incoherently and makes motions with his head.  It looks like he's suffering.  At times my friend will sit next to him and try to talk.  He does not communicate back, but it does seem to calm him.  We had never seen anyone else try to communicate with him.  Someone cuts his hair on occasion though, and somehow he gets food.

A couple days ago there was a major festival in our community.  I decided to wander out and get some of the unique Eid food that was being sold.  While I was out among the crowds, I noticed a commotion, and then saw our mentally ill friend get up and run.  A gang of children chased him.  My heart sank.  From what I could tell, the children had crowded around him and were purposely taunting him.  I went after them to try to keep them away and give him a little peace, but he managed to outrun them and the children seemed to disperse.  I went back and got some food.

About the time I finished my food, I head a commotion again.  The man was standing on the top of the divider in the middle of the street, screaming in agony.  Children were once again following and taunting him.  I think some were throwing rocks.  I saw that some older youth were involved, and anger got the better of me.  I ran up to them and raised my voice in Hindi/Urdu.  "What are you doing?"  "Why?"

They stopped, looked confused, and tried to explain to me that the guy was crazy.  That didn't placate me.

"I know!"  "So?'  "Would God be happy with what you're doing right now?"  I continued expressing my upsetness at them, sometimes switching into English when my limited Hindi/Urdu vocabulary failed me.  The youth started to explain that they didn't speak English, to which I responded (in Hindi) that I knew they understood me anyway.  Still, they went off a little ways and brought back a guy I'd never seen before who spoke a little English.  He listened to them explain what they wanted to get across to me.

Then he turned to me, said, "They are illiterate fools," and walked away.

I don't know what to do for our mentally ill friend.  The resources to help him don't appear to exist here (heck, the resources to help people like him in America barely even exist).  The children who are taunting him truly don't know any better.  I should try to spend more time with him, but I'm not sure if that will do much, especially as limited as my language is.  I feel for him, a lot.  And I know that there are many others like him, with far more people around willing to taunt what they don't understand rather than there are people willing to stand by someone they love.

Changing the blog name

I haven't posted on this blog in a long time.  That's unfortunate, because I've had much to share and few people to talk to about it.  One step I'm going to take in a better direction is to change the name of the blog (something I've wanted to do for at least a year) and to redirect the purpose a little.

I'm changing the name of the blog to "Servant, Learner, Storyteller."  Too often people who are entering a new culture with the idea of "helping" the people try to come in as the leader, the teacher, and the judge.  That can lead to a negative reception among the people they're trying to help.  And even those who are receptive can then fall into a position of dependency, of continued reliance on the foreigner to lead them, teach them, and tell them what they're doing wrong.  We want our friends here to get the respect they deserve, we want to see something more sustainable happen among them, and so we want to try a different model.  Hence the name of the blog.

From now on the blog is going to focus on stories of our experiences (and eventually our service) here, with occasional lessons that I'm learning.  I am going to move most of my theological reflections and other thoughts to another blog.  I'll post the name and URL when I create it.

I should also note that I have no connection to the organization called "World Servants".  I found out that they use the same motto, but though I'm sure we got the idea from the same source, I hadn't even heard of them until I googled the motto just now.