A little clarification, with some
caveats.
What exactly have you been doing
there?
Primarily, I've been trying to learn the local languages, learn how to live daily life in the slum and be a good example to others as I do so, and teach illiterate children how to read in Hindi. I'm also supporting my wife in her programs with women in the basti and teenage victims of human trafficking. Here and there I've been non-violently intervening in fights between men and beatings of women and children, helping an over-achieving slum resident get into college and succeed there, and trying to be a good example of a man by doing household work, speaking appropriately about women, and defending the weak. Outside of the slum I've been serving on the board of a city-wide (soon to be international) literacy program and trying to help them improve the program, teaching Christians in the city and beyond about the kingdom of God, and trying to help people like me live here in the city. Internationally I'm supporting other people in living this same kind of life among the poor, promoting a more sustainable relationship between people and the environment, and lending assistance to scientific research in India, Bangladesh, and America.
But I am not what I do.
How do you live? Like, what do you have?
My wife and I rent an upstairs room from a large family in the slum. It's a little 8ft by 9ft brick room with a tarp and bamboo roof. A little water gets in through the sides but the roof doesn't leak at all. Our appliances are a gas stove, a ceramic water filter, a light bulb and a fan. We sleep on a foam mattress on the ground under a mosquito net. Our latrine is outside in the shared space with the family, but we are the ones who primarily use it when the next-door room is unoccupied (there's another latrine downstairs). We carry our water upstairs in buckets that we fill at a downstairs tap. Most of our other possessions are quite simple, but I do have a mobile phone, a camera, and a laptop. My wife also has a bicycle.
But I am not what I have.
What do the people say about you?
Primarily, I've been trying to learn the local languages, learn how to live daily life in the slum and be a good example to others as I do so, and teach illiterate children how to read in Hindi. I'm also supporting my wife in her programs with women in the basti and teenage victims of human trafficking. Here and there I've been non-violently intervening in fights between men and beatings of women and children, helping an over-achieving slum resident get into college and succeed there, and trying to be a good example of a man by doing household work, speaking appropriately about women, and defending the weak. Outside of the slum I've been serving on the board of a city-wide (soon to be international) literacy program and trying to help them improve the program, teaching Christians in the city and beyond about the kingdom of God, and trying to help people like me live here in the city. Internationally I'm supporting other people in living this same kind of life among the poor, promoting a more sustainable relationship between people and the environment, and lending assistance to scientific research in India, Bangladesh, and America.
But I am not what I do.
How do you live? Like, what do you have?
My wife and I rent an upstairs room from a large family in the slum. It's a little 8ft by 9ft brick room with a tarp and bamboo roof. A little water gets in through the sides but the roof doesn't leak at all. Our appliances are a gas stove, a ceramic water filter, a light bulb and a fan. We sleep on a foam mattress on the ground under a mosquito net. Our latrine is outside in the shared space with the family, but we are the ones who primarily use it when the next-door room is unoccupied (there's another latrine downstairs). We carry our water upstairs in buckets that we fill at a downstairs tap. Most of our other possessions are quite simple, but I do have a mobile phone, a camera, and a laptop. My wife also has a bicycle.
But I am not what I have.
What do the people say about you?
Initially some people were saying that
maybe I was working for the CIA, or that I was a criminal on the run.
(They didn't tell me that directly, but I found out through the
grapevine.) Generally most people seem to have come to know that we
are here to live with and serve among normal people, and they are
respectful of that. They share it enough that people I've never met before sometimes know my name and what I'm doing here. Our primary mode is “guest”, and we are
treated extremely hospitably by many many people. Some people
consider us saints, or infidels, or crazy for having left a place
like America. Some people have said that I must be pretty stupid because I
can't speak Hindi correctly or even know how to do basic household
work the right way. I think some people think that I'm a little shy,
and others might think I'm lazy because I don't have a “normal”
job yet, but I haven't heard people actually share that. At least
one person says that I'm their best friend.
Outside of the slum, some people say that I'm a role model, a heretic, idealistic, unrealistic, a jerk, a hero, inappropriate, too negative a person, too optimistic a person, a confused liberal, a brainwashed conservative, impatient, loud, aggressive.
But I am not what people say about me.
Outside of the slum, some people say that I'm a role model, a heretic, idealistic, unrealistic, a jerk, a hero, inappropriate, too negative a person, too optimistic a person, a confused liberal, a brainwashed conservative, impatient, loud, aggressive.
But I am not what people say about me.
So what am I then? At the most important core, I identify as a child of God and a disciple of Christ.
I am a child of God before I am anything else.
My personality at the root is that of an idealist (a “1” on the Enneagram if you like that sort of thing). I am a person in process, with a lot of faults and a long way to go. But a child of God, and already loved by God just the way I am.
No matter what I do, what I have, or
what people say about me.
This post inspired by Henri Nouwen's following talk, and the fact that those three questions are the exact three questions that people from the outside always ask me about my life here.
This post inspired by Henri Nouwen's following talk, and the fact that those three questions are the exact three questions that people from the outside always ask me about my life here.
3 comments:
Thanks for this Jon. I have been thinking a lot about this Henri Nouwen talk over the last year and was just thinking about it this week. I appreciated you drawing attention back to the Source.
You are an inspiration to me Jon.
Lee Gilbert
Thanks Andy. And that's incredible to hear that from you Lee. I can't imagine what it's like to think of me now compared to what I was like in high school.
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