"Keeping the Change..."

The concept of "Change" is something that i hear a lot about in my job.  People look at what it costs to actually do Community Development, Church Planting, long-term relationship building and progressive impact in a given community and they ask questions like, "How do you know it even works?" and "How can you really measure the impact or change that you think you're having when you do those things?"  I totally understand the drivers behind those questions, but i also have the privilege of seeing more of the answers to those questions than many people do, and i wanted to give you a quick glimpse into one of them.

This is my friend Rajasuri.  She's not sure how old she is, but we think she's probably about 14.  She is one of the children in the little village of Kalavai, South India, where we have been working for about 4 years doing intensive, local-church based community development.  When i first met Rajasuri, she was a little waif of a thing.  Big tears welled up in my eyes when i greeted her because she reminded me a lot of my daughter Peri, and something of Peri's sweetness was evident in her expressions even before i got to know her.  After first meeting her, i learned that she often goes days between meals (she lives in a single parent home with five other siblings where her mother is often ill and is poorly equipped to provide), that she owns only one outfit (it was ragged and filthy), had never been to school, had little hope for a future, did not have any sense that she matters or that there is a God who loves her, that her orange hair and sunken little features were evident of chronic malnutrition, and honestly, she said little and smiled less.  Over the last four years, however, Rajasuri and i have become buddies.  When i'm in the village, she usually sidles up alongside me, quietly slips her little hand into mine, and follows me around wherever i go.  She still doesn't say much, but her smile (amazing, isn't it?  It's like someone dropped a star onto her little face!) is overwhelming, and i've had the privilege to see her eat better, attend school for the first time in her life, have clean water in her village, proudly show off how she can now count, read her native language and even speak a little English.  Rajasuri is growing in every possible way, and so is her mother (Maliga) who now works more often, is sick less, and has greater support from the community.

In the midst of it all, Rajasuri now knows Jesus and can be found every day huddled alongside the other village kids offering prayers for her family and friends before heading to school.  She eats two to three meals a day, attends church in the little community and not only is mentored by our friends Jeyan and Jency (the local pastors), but is even mentoring children younger than she is in memorizing Scripture and helping them to follow Jesus.   She is shown here alongside the other kids in the village who are attending school for the first time.

If you ever want to know what Change looks like, you can always ask her.  She can tell you that it's not in hidden statistics and faceless data, but in the very smile on her face, the joy in her heart and the faith in her soul.  Rajasuri is now different.  If you know her or meet her, you will be too.  When you ask what it costs to do the kinds of things we have the privilege to do, it's easy for me to just look at this little girl and say, "whatever it takes to keep this kind of Change going is worth it".  

Let It Be Said...

Today, Sami and I were joining some friends for lunch at a local restaurant.  On the tv's overhead while we were talking and laughing, i saw this article pop up on the screen.  Do you see it?  Not the "Going Underground for Love" part, but the part beneath it.  The part about being "Love Commandos".  I laughed for joy out loud and grabbed my phone to snap a quick picture.

The context of the story is about India, where arranged marriages (i.e. where parents and other elder adults select a young person's spouse) have been the traditional way that young people unite for nearly six millennia.  Now, however,  with more exposure to outside ideas, more and more couples are seeking what are called "Love Marriages" rather than the more traditional arranged frameworks (i.e. they meet and select one another without their family's arrangement).  Sometimes, these love-marriages are frowned upon or directly opposed by parents and families, thus these new networks of "Love Commandos" who have surfaced to help such star-struck couples function and thrive anyway.  Honestly, i have mixed emotions about the story.  I work in India a lot and some of the strongest, most committed marriages i've ever had the privilege to experience have been "arranged" marriages where the husband and wife never even met until their wedding day.  I actually think it can be a beautiful way for entire families and support systems to be involved in a young couple's life together, though, as with our own systems of dating and courtship, sure, sometimes that goes south and families choose unions for reasons other than what is best for the young couple (i.e. money, status, etc).  But that's not why the article struck me.

The article struck me because I mused to myself how cool it would be to be called "Love Commandos".  I love Commandos.  I am inspired by them.  I love the fact that they are highly capable, highly motivated individuals who possess a nearly fanatical dedication to doing whatever it takes to accomplish a given mission.  In our current military arsenal here in the US, Commandos are people like US Navy SEALs, US Army Rangers, US Marine Recon Units, US Air Force Pararescue and the like.  They don't mind crawling on their bellies for miles or days behind enemy lines and often through muck and mud and goodness knows what just to have the chance to take down an enemy supply convoy or strategic asset.  They are used to hunger, sleep deprivation, thirst, fatigue and stress, and to facing forces many times their size, and often without any direct support, air cover or artillery from "home base".  They are called by such titles as "Snake Eaters" and "Devil Dogs" for their tenacity and ferocity in battle, and their unwillingness to back down even at the cost of their own lives.  I love those guys!  

But what would it be like for the world to look at those of us who call ourselves by the Name of Jesus and call us "Love Commandos"?  Not people who crawl on our bellies to take down radio towers or communication bunkers, but who are willing to wade into the brokenness of marriages and lives and relationships where people live without Hope or Love or Light.  Not people who can point and shoot, per se, but people who can insightfully pray for and serve one another.  Not people who study demolitions and improvised munitions, but people who know where people are hurting and how to reach them.  Love Commados who refuse to back down, who are willing to crawl through whatever muck is in people's lives in order to have a chance to drag them out of their darkness into the Light and Love of a God who is searching for them.  What would happen if people thought of us like that?  If CNN talked about US like that?

I for one would love it!  In Missional Moves, we talk in a variety of places about our belief that every single follower of Jesus Christ should indeed seek to be a Love Commando.  Such is not a calling for "elite clergy", but rather for every single one of us.  In our book, a Love Commando is someone who possesses a ruthless and relentless passion to infiltrate every domain of darkness in human experience and sabotage whatever exists there to keep people bound and restricted from the Light and Love and Freedom and Hope offered by the God we serve together.  Motivated by Love and inspired by Hope, let it be said of us someday when the systems of Oppression and Darkness in our world fall that we have been found to be Love Commandos ourselves, doing whatever it takes to advance the Kingdom of God. 

Of Poets, Pointed Prayers, Prisoners and Personal Poverty...

If you know me, you know that I believe I am one of those people who was probably born out of time and out of place.  Most of the things i love to read are 400 years old or more, and are probably rooted in cultures or times where love, valor, passion, courage, sacrifice, simplicity and faith were virtues to be courted and cultivated as well as lived out in practical ways every day at all costs.  Not that those things aren't still necessary today (Indeed, what could be more necessary in any culture at any time?), or as valuable, but they were able to be verbalized and pursued with a purity and focus that i think sometimes gets lost in the dizzying whirlwind of complexity, volume and velocity in which most of us live our lives.

At any rate, my prayers of late have had a sense of deep frustration in my soul, a longing that seems to cry out for God in a way that seems in some ways to even be despite myself.  It is as though there is a passion to Know and be Known, but an endless litany of red tape and bars and bodyguards that i don't want that prevent my Beloved from getting to me.  So i cried out today with the borrowed words of an old friend from the 16th century who seems to have had the same problem.  As he is more eloquent than i, i just let my heart cry out with his words even though the sentiment is a nearly perfect match for my own.  What follows is one of John Donne's Holy Sonnets (number 14):

"Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine and seek to mend;
That i may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town to another due,
Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is capitv'd, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov'd fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me."

If you've ever felt that the soul inside you was a captive in some ways to your own life, body, choices or decisions, i urge you to recognize like I am that thankfully, there is a God who can indeed break down our doors, smash our chains (even ones of our own making) and take us back off to belong to Himself, regardless of what enemies or slave-traders we've managed to sell ourselves to along the way may dispute His claim. He is gentle and kind, and will never force that transaction, but make no mistake, He is able to do so if we ask Him.

Sometimes i forget that.  I think it's my job to barter my way out, negotiate with my captors or even fight my way out or overtake them.  But I can't.  So like my friend John Donne, i sat today and simply asked that God would batter the gates I have constructed against Him, and flood my city so as to take it back for Himself.  I think i'm beginning to get a better picture of what Jesus meant when He said in Luke 4:18 at the outset of His ministry, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the Poor.  He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, and to set the oppressed free."  In my life, i have worked hard to construct the belief that i am none of those things.  I'm not Poor.  I am not in Prison.  I am not Blind.  I am not Oppressed.  But I am.  So are you.

In Missional Moves, we talk in chapter five (From Center to Margins) about the fact that "Everyone is Rich, Everyone is Poor".  It is when we allow God to take our own Wealth into places where He is at work that our own Poverty is both exposed, but filled up by the Wealth of others.  If you're going to experience true personal transformation, recognizing your own Wealth and Poverty is the starting point.