out of india

Most international flights out of India occur in the middle of the night. So Michael and I stood in line at the Delhi Airport for about an hour after midnight waiting for our turn through security and then on to our flight home. The lady standing behind us works for one of the top accounting firms in the U.S. She is returning home after 6 weeks at their India office. She tells us how her company has shuffled a lot of their work to the relatively cheap, yet hungry and educated India talent pool.

She tells us that she has enjoyed India- though she admits she has not seen much of it. Her India hosts partnering with her U.S. company are careful to not expose their American partners to too much of India they may find distasteful. "To tell you the truth, we have really only seen what they what us to see," she tells us. "We only go to the nice restaurants and hotels- they drive us everywhere in nice limos, it is all very staged."

She hasn't seen much of the poverty of India. She is fascinated by our experiences and after hearing about the orphanage in Monipur she hands me her card and asks if I will give her more information saying she would love to contribute to this cause.

"My experience in India is all business and career, I'm afraid, nothing like what you guys have been doing. I would like to do something positive here."

It seemed very odd to me that her company would want to insulate American workers from the harsh reality of poverty in India. How can someone spend six weeks here and not see the horrible poverty?

But then again how can a person spend his whole life in America and not see her poverty?

I think we would all be shocked by the hunger and poverty and deep needs that exists all around us every day. It is there, but like the woman in the limo in India, we are conditioned to not see it.

You don't have to go to India to see poverty.

But in my case, God has used India to help me see Oklahoma City.

1. Christ at work

For a good picture of Jesus at work I will think of the families I have met in Delhi and Luknow and Calcutta who have moved into the slum in order to pull children off the street and into a shelter where they can find food, clothing, protection and the love of Christ. But before these families moved toward the needs, they had to be willing to open their understanding and see it with the eyes of Christ.

2. Hunger and thirst.

"Hunger" has moved into a new category in my consciousness. It will be more difficult to use this word loosely. I have seen not just physical hunger, but genuine spiritual hunger as well. While standing in the registration area at the conference in Bhubeneswar, a young man walked up to me and with great intensity said, "I want to know what you know about prayer."

I asked him to explain further and he said, "I have so many questions for you- like how do you worship?- how do you hear God talking to you? I am a new Christian and I have so much to learn."

He looks tired to me and so I ask how he got to the conference "My friends and I traveled 20 hours on a train" he says.

I hesitate to answer him. I cannot think of a time in my life in which I was so eager to experience a Christian gathering that I was willing to endure 20 hours in confined space and discomfort. I realize in that moment that there is nothing in my context that can identify with this kind of passion. How odd the American church would seem to this young man, I think.

3. Incredible grace.

I have a better idea today of what Jesus meant when he said, "blessed are you when you are poor". Jesus said that our righteousness is like filthy rags. In seeing the worlds unbelievable and desperate needs, I am reminded when I see this poverty that this is what I look like if it were not for the incredible grace of God. There are families in Calcutta who have lived for generations on the same little corner of the street. They eat garbage on the street, they beg on the street, they sleep, take baths and exist on that little piece of real estate their entire lives just as their parents and grandparents before them have lived. It is only by his grace that my life is any different. "Nothing in my hands I bring, only to the cross I cling", has new meaning to me today.

4. Eternal Perspective

I have a new appreciation today for the work of William Carey and Adoniram Judson. Here are two Baptist missionaries who gave their entire lives to spread the gospel in India. There are parts of India today that are almost 100% Christian because of their work. The foundation for the Evangelical Christian church in India that is now beginning to emerge and gather momentum was established over 200 years ago by these incredible men. I learned on this trip that it was Carey who started the first bank in India, the first printing press and the first translations of the Bible into the three top languages of India were all accomplished by a man who had almost no support from his home country. Carey was a brilliant botanist and linguist, but he used his skills and talent for the glory of God to reach the lost at great personal sacrifice. And yet, in his lifetime, Carey saw none of these fruits from his labor. He never served a big church. He did not gain wealth or fame. His wife lost her mind in India. He left the culture and lifestyle of London and endured incredible hardship in a foreign land in order to cultivate the hard soil of a pagan world view for the cause of Christ.

Truly, life that matters is life that is given away.

5. Opportunity

I can see how our church can have a real impact on many lives by supporting the orphanage in Monipur. Very few dollars can pay huge dividends in the Hope Center. I would like to see our church make a longtime commitment to this very important and impactful work. I would like to send future groups to this orphanage to help build and support their mission.

I am somewhat embarrassed to say it, but India has opened my eyes to our own community. I see now with better clarity how important our strategy of LP2C is at home. I have grown even more passiona te toward our initiatives in affecting real change through our community strategy. I will work with more intentionality and purpose now toward what we are emphasizing in these ministries.

When Lars Dunsberg first asked me to come to India, I did not see how I could make it happen. I already had a three week mission trip planned in Jordan, and am committed to several weeks of trustee meetings with the IMB . I couldn't see it happen, and yet, somehow I felt like I needed to go. Now that I am home and reflecting on the experience and lessons learned, I realize that there are some very important reasons I needed to go. I believe God has something for us he wants to accomplish- but he needs our eyes to be open to the needs. Perhaps he needed me to travel half way around the world to shake me out of my insulated comfort to open my eyes to what is so easy to miss and what we are so inclined to ignore.

Jesus power, awesome power- satan power, powerless power

When Pranay Mookerji first told Lars Dunberg that he thought they should think about having a young leaders conference in Bhubaneswar, Lars told him he was crazy.

Bhubaneswar is the capital of the state of Orrisa on the coast of Western India. It has more Hindu idols than all the other states in India combined. In a city of nearly 500,000. Only about .04 percent of the population claim to be Christian. It is home of a very radical Hindu element that at times persecutes the Christian minority. It was here in Orissa that some Evangelical missionaries from Australia were burned alive in their car while traveling on vactation. They were here in India working with AIDS victims.

“Now the ground of Orissa is blessed with the blood of martyrs”, one of the committed Christians of this state told me at dinner one night. Many of the Christians here talk about this event in a kind of reverent voice that changes as they describe the details. It is very meaningful to them that this family gave their lives for the cause of Christ in their country.

It strikes me how our Americanized perspective on an event like this is so different. When we hear about someone being burned alive in a car, our reaction is usually to be horrified and disgusted by the lack of justice. We think in disgust about the instigator of this kind of violence. We want to know how to get even. Our American sensitivities do not immediately go to the eternal perspective. Christian Indians living in Orissa have a much different grasp on the meaning of it. They think of it in very solemn, even sacred terms.

I suppose that when you live in a country where it is against the law to convert someone to Christianity, you are conditioned to believe a certain amount of persecution is a reality that is not too far away. After all, Christ gave only one command at His ascension- and that was to tell others about Christ. There are families here who have been set up by the radical Hindu to look as if they have committed a crime, they are framed, beaten in their own homes, and then when the police come, they put the Christian family in jail for inciting trouble on their town.

So Lars had good reason to believe that Praney was nuts. “You never know till you try” was Praney’s response.

So, they raised the money for the conference, and tried it. They reserved a room in a local hotel, thinking that they may be able to attract about 600. Then a Monsoon destroyed the hotel they had rented, so they moved it to an Anglican school.

It wasn’t long before they had over 600 registrants. And then 1000. And then 1500. The large room in the middle of the school was not big enough. So the Global Action team in place here in Bhubaneswar went to work erecting a huge tent on the grounds of the school. When Praney came in and observed the tent at 11:00 P.M. on Friday, he announces to the team that it is not big enough.

We now have 2100 registrants. The team worked all night extending the tent out another 30%.

When we arrived last Friday morning at the school grounds, there were already 1800 “delegates” at the conference and more flooding in. The conference did not begin until Friday evening, but the place was already packed.. By the time we started the number had swelled to 2300 registered and 200 more standing outside the tent who had no place.

They begin turning people away from the event- to the great disappointment to some who have traveled over 20 hours to Bhubaneswar to be a part of the gathering.

For several months now I have been told that there is a movement of the Spirit in the church in India. Missionaries have told me that there is an opening to the gospel in this part of the world that they have never seen before. I can tell you first hand now that all of the amazing reports we hear of people coming to Christ is certainly confirmed by the incredible young people I met in Bhubaneswar. In the face of persecution, I met literally hundreds of young men and women who told me about their work in their towns and villages. They showed no signs of fear or apprehension. They are young, courageous, and determined. Some of them endured 15, 20, 25 hour train rides to come for the four day conference.

I have no idea how they heard about it. Nor does Global Action.

“Pray for me sir, I am starting my own church in my village” was something that I heard over and over again. There were so many who told me that they had come to Christ and as a result were starting their own churches and Bible Studies I began to think that India is country of pastors with no congregants.

The conferences were amazing. The young people did not want to stop. They arrived in the tent early and left late. They love to worship. They love to dance. They want to sing and sing and sing. “Jesus Power, Awesome Power!” they sing in broken Indian English” “Satan power, powerless power!!” They sing it over and over again with great enthusiasm as if to lay those words at the feet at the endless pantheon of Hindu gods.

“Pray for me, I am going to present the gospel tonight and invite people to come to Christ” Lars tells me as he walks toward the tent the first day. I tell him that I will pray for him, remembering his words of a few days before, “I don’t have enough time to be nice anymore…”

At the end of a very straight forward in your face kind of gospel message, Lars passes out forms with specific details on what kinds of commitment that he wants them to register on that first night. This is not your ordinary commitment card- it is more like a college application process. The registrant is asked to share their testimony and their story, and the exact nature of their commitment.

Over 450 indicate they are making a first time commitment to Christ. It is obvious to all of us that many of these young Christian leaders have brought entire groups of lost people with them to the conference.

The next morning Michael stands to sing one of our familiar worship songs, and it isn’t long before the band comes up and starts to join him, even though they have just heard the song. The crowd begins to sing with him, without his prompting, and then they begin to stand, and then hands of worship start going up. They may not understand a word of the song, but somehow they know what he means when he sings,

O God let us be,
The generation that seeks,
Seeks your face,
O God of Jacob

Michael is very popular here. “You are the Michael W. Smith of India” Sadar Singh Moses teases him.

When I stand to teach I ask the sea of young dark faces staring back at me if they are ready for Bible Study?

Twenty Five hundred hands shoot up instantly as if to say “anytime, anywhere!” I have the impression that a teacher could sit here for hours on end and they would not grow weary of it.

On the last day we ask if anyone wants to stand and tell what the conference has meant to them- the line is so long it curls around the tent. We have to break up their sharing after just a few, as we cannot possibly hear any more stories.

There were stories of former Hindu, who have given their lives to Christ and who have been forsaken by their families and their village, and yet they have boldly made the commitment to carry on the work and to spread the gospel. There is the story of the group that is leading worship for us, who are all new Christians and who because of their new found faith have formed a community in their city in which they volunteer several days a week at an AIDS clinic. What amazing joy and love for worship we see from this group of young people.

The camp is a kind of gated embassy of Christianity in the midst of swarming paganism.


On the outside of the camp is the madness of Hindu Bhubaneswar. Our conference coincides with the Hindu holiday of Diwali, which is a main holiday here in which they honor the goddess Lakshima who they call the “mother god”. Lakshima is supposed to bring them wealth and good fortune. They make their Lakshima idols with their own hands and put her in a temple that they build themselves on the sidewalks and streets around town. On the third day of the celebration they light a huge statue of Ravada Podi, the evil god of darkness who is the alter ego of Lakshima. They shoot off fireworks and beat drums and sacrifice animals in order to scare the dark powers of Ravada Podi away. When we arrive back to our hotel after the second night, which is unfortunately positioned right next to one of the largest makeshift temples in the city, a huge explosion of fireworks erupts at about 11:00 P.M. It sounds like what you might imagine a car bomb might sound like.

The explosions continue until 1:00 A.M. Hindu chants are blasted out on giant loud speakers until late in the night. When do these people sleep?

On the last day they take their mother goddess out of the temple and parade her down the street and throw her into the river, where they believe she (the idol they have made with their own hands) will float upstream to the top of the Himalayas, the revered home of the gods, where she will stay until next year. This is a day of great sadness for Hindus- their mother god has gone away for another year. It is required that everyone be sad tonight. There are signs in our hotel that say, “Because of the immersion of the mother idol, the bar will not be open tonight.”

Michael and I take a stroll down the street in front of our hotel to get a feel for the parade outside. The people look miserable. There is a darkness about this city that I have not felt anywhere in my life- a spiritual bondage and oppression that is so thick you could cut it with a knife.

The newspaper here has stories about terrible pollution in the rivers and the streets. Trash is everywhere. Because of their Hindu beliefs they lift no finger against the filth and stink of cows and pigs and mangy dogs and diseased monkeys. They dump their trash everywhere and pour their plastic idols into the streams. The country is suffering from such desperate poverty and filth- and yet because of their Hinduism they cannot interrupt the karma of the oppressed, therefore it is left to mostly Christian and non-Hindu ministries to care for the poor, the diseased, the orphans and the AIDS victims.

But somehow they don’t connect the dots. They do not draw straight lines form their deprivation on the one hand, and their philosophical and religious beliefs on the other. A minister in their government was killed today at his home in Delhi. He was attacked by Rhesis monkeys on his balcony and fell several stories to his death. The monkeys are a real problem in Delhi, but revered by the Hindu because of their monkey god. So people continue living on the streets, and people continue to fall out of balconies and endure the stench, the trash and dung and disease. But the monkeys stay. We would not want to displease the monkey god.

I told Michael I don’t think I have ever been to a place as lost as this.

Every night we have been here we have endured the sounds of Puja. Screaming and chanting and fireworks and drums and giant megaphones attached to vehicles in which the Hindu priests use to scream out their chants. What a stark contrast this is to what we experience on the inside of the Christian school where 2500 young people are crowded into a camp to hear the word of God and to sing worship songs like “Jesus power, Awesome power, Satan power, powerless power!”

When I stand up to talk on the last day, I tell them that I would love to bring people from my own church here so that they could see for themselves what amazing faith and love for the Lord and enthusiasm for worship and for learning scripture these people have. The crowd erupts into thunderous applause.

We have seen so much of India. We came not really knowing what to expect. We came hoping that some how we might be a blessing to these people. We are leaving now knowing that we are the ones who have received the blessing.

We came to teach and yet we have received lessons that will last a lifetime.

Tonight, our last night, I am thinking about how incredibly spoiled I am. We have seen people who live on the streets of Calcutta who never leave the sidewalk their entire life. I have seen people who have gone their whole life living on dirt floors not knowing where the next meal would come from. I have seen children living in garbage dumps in a country that values the dog on the street or the cow on the road more than they value human life. I have lived almost 47 years now and yet I feel as if I am just now seeing a glimpse of the incredible capacity of God's love for the nations. We are not the center of the universe after all. I have experienced love and compassion that has moved me to tears. I have seen human suffering on a scale I could not imagine. I have seen a new generation of young people who are determined to bring the gospel to India. I have seen darkness. I have seen light.

I have seen Jesus power- and I have seen powerless power.

this is 'global action' not 'global sit on your butt'

The first child you want to adopt when you walk into the Hope Center Home in Monipur, India is Rasheesh. Rahseesh has taken it upon himself to be the official greeter- he runs to stand in front of the other children as the team arrives and with a killer smile bordered by deep dimples he shoots out his hand and says firmly, “Hello!”

“Hello,” I say, “How are you?”

“Very good sir, thank you, how are you!”

I learn later that this is a greeting the children of the Hope Center practice every single morning as a part of their drill. Global Action intends not just to rescue orphans from the street, but to give them every opportunity to be successful in life. In India, that means you learn English. In a country of over a billion people only the strong survive, and the strongest are the ones who can communicate with Americans and Europeans.

“You speak good English” I say.

“Thank you sir.” He says.

“What is your name?”

“My name is Rasheesh, sir, what is your name?”

“My name is Rick, and it is very nice to meet you!

“Very nice to meet you Uncle Reek”.

Before I left Teri told me to bring one home. I told her that was impossible (Global Action does not even want us to talk this way in India, they don’t want to leave the impression that they are an adoption agency for Americans), but here I am after 90 seconds in the orphanage and I am wondering how we can get the paperwork done.

And Rasheesh was just the first one we met.

There were many more children to meet and many more stories to hear. Like the brother and sister of about 5 and 7 who Daniel (The Indian pastor who runs the Orphanage) found on the garbage dump in Delhi. Their mother and father had died and there was no other family to care for them.

They were totally on their own in the slum. Both of them were in the final stages of starvation, with swollen bellies and hollow eyes when by God’s incredible mercy and grace, Daniel found them.

There they stood in front of us. Lars is in shock. In just a few short months they have been restored to full health and are standing in front of him with broad bright smiles and their chest sticking out in pride.
“Hello Sir” They say.

I feel something deep within me begin to well up and move toward the surface. I have to turn away for a couple of minutes to gain my composure. The sight of 100 children, all of them pulled out of the slums and given a new life in this beautiful community of faith where they are loved unconditionally and educated in a Christian environment creates an unexpected emotion in me.

Right here, at the edge of the jungle on the border of Napal, surrounded by millions of Hindus and Muslims is one of the most incredible Christian communities I have ever experienced.
I understand now why Lars wanted so badly for me to see this place, and why he wants us involved. The Hope Center of Monipur has many needs: Land, laborers, Christians from around the world to learn about them and to support them.

They desperately need land. Mostly they need prayer. Pray for God to work in the heart of the one villager who stands in their way. Pray for more land so that new homes can be built and fields can be dug and barns for the 10 oxen that have already been donated can be pastured.

Pray for the four couples who act as house parents and who faithfully work 24-7 to care for these precious children. Pray that God keeps Lars Dunberg healthy to pursue his passion.

At breakfast I ask Lars what is driving him? He works like a man possessed. At 70 he has the energy of someone half his age. “How do you do it?” I asked.

He puts down the fork and says to me, “At fifty I had a heart attack. At the time I was president of the International Bible Society and had many contacts and had worked to distribute Bibles around the world. And now the doctors were telling me I had only about 4 years to live. I thought to myself, ‘Okay, this is it, I don’t have any more time to be nice’. That was when I went to work to utilize all of my contacts with Evangelical churches around the world to do what I could to bring the message and hope of Christ to the most desperately poor parts of the world. But I only work with people of action, I don’t have time to sit around.”

The results over the past 9 years are orphanages or “hope centers”, human trafficking rescue centers, a phenomenal pastor training program that trains thousands of pastors in 7 countries, and youth camps like the one we are attending in Beneshwabber. He has 70 different ministries around the world all under the umbrella of “Global Action.” Truly, Lars Dunberg is a man of action.

Jim Kilgore, former American pastor of the International Church in Islamabad Pakistan (until it was bombed by the Taliban) now Executive Vice President of Global Action looked at me with a smile and said, “That is why this is ‘Global Action’, not ‘Global Sit on Your Butt’”.

rain for the mind

"In India, nothing is as it appears to be" Lars explains to us at orientation.

There is a saying among Westerners here that is so well known it is an abbreviation- T-i-I- “This is India.” It is the brief answer to every mystery that defies what you have always taken for granted and for what you have always understood to be the base line of reason and logic.

Everything in India is an allusion to the Western mind.

As an example- we in the West are trained to think on a linear plane. I will prove it to you by having you finish the following sentence:

“The quickest way from A to B is a ___________ _____________. “

If you are thinking “straight line” right now, it is only because you are not from India.

In India you would fill in those blanks, “circle B”.

The first thing you have to get over here is your linear thinking. Circular thinking affects the very way the nationals go about conversation and philosophy and the way people drive. Streets are lined out in circles, driver’s drive in circles, people think in circles. Even art, poetry, literature and religious expressions are laid out in circular equations.

Lars explains a typical conversation with his Indian staff:

Lars: “How are things going?”
Staff member: “It is very bad.”
Lars: “What does ‘very bad’ mean”
Staff: “Well, it is maybe not so good.”
Lars: “What does ‘not so good’ mean?”

Staff: “It’s not so good… but, it is all good.”
Lars: “So you are saying it is good?”
Staff: “No it is very bad”.

It is a circle. The real answer is found somewhere within it. It all makes perfect sense if you get over your linear thinking and understand that even reason is an allusion here.
I am finding that my mind is succumbing to dizzying circles already complicated by my 72 hours without a decent nights sleep. One learns that you cannot trust your natural instincts and biases. You learn that everything is up for change and recalculation.

One is not always sure here that what you think you are seeing is what you are really seeing.

Did that motorcycle that just came within inches of our side mirror really have a family of four with a baby on the handle bar? Did we just pass a cow? Was that a monkey? Was that a bicycle cart carrying a huge wok with the bread frying in the middle of it as he is dodging traffic? Tell me I didn’t just see our driver avoid a traffic jam by merging into the opposite lanes on a major interstate.

It’s not so good. But it’s good.

Our first full day of travel within India provided amazing examples of circular reasoning. We show up at the airport terminal only to find out that the departure gate had been changed and that we now had to drive another 30 minutes to another terminal (There are three- all set out in a kind of semi-circle a few miles away from one another).

This important information was not relayed to passengers until they arrived at the wrong terminal. So we drive to the other terminal, which of course is like driving in a big circle.

We learn after going through the very strenuous Indian security check and waiting on the plane for 40 minutes that the airline has now decided to change planes. We don’t really know why- but the nationals on board seem perfectly fine with this. So they take us off that airplane, make us go back into the terminal and circle back through security check (Did I mention that every ticketed passenger in India receives a ticket that has fine print, “all passengers subject to frisking”?)

Before going into the check-point again, we are told that we have to have another paper stapled to our already checked boarding passes and to follow an agent to get a new one. The agent walks up to a desk- you know the kind that most ticket agents stand BEHIND, - and instead stands IN FRONT of the desk with his back to us forcing everyone to gather around him in front of the desk so that he can hand out tickets not as he is facing us but instead handing our newly stapled tickets behind his back and to his side. Mind you it is not a line forming behind him, it is a CIRCLE- more like a clump of outstretched hands and bodies pushing and shoving toward the newly formed human apex reaching over his shoulder.

Now that we have our newly stapled tickets we are free to move toward the security checkpoint again. But wait- our bags all have stamps saying they have been checked already by security (Which of course is what we had done just about an hour before when we first started this circle)- this will not due, all of our bags need to have tags without stamps (I’m not making this up). So we have to circle back to get tags we have already filled out and have already been stamped so that they can stamp fresh tags on our already checked and examined bags.
From there back to security, onto a bus that takes us back to the very same plane.

You guessed it – we just did a great big circle in the middle of the Delhi International Airport terminal.

Why? There is a simple explanation- T-i-I. Apparently in India, they don’t just want to catch would be terrorists trying to get through security check points, they want to completely spin their heads around and exasperate them.

Sure enough, it was all just an allusion. We just THOUGHT we were in the right terminal, on the right plane and really had our bags checked and through security. We just THOUGHT that the closest way from point A to B was a straight line. What our Western minds could not embrace was the bliss of circular reasoning.

The India way is a kind of parallel universe. You learn that there is no need to go in a straight line when you can go in a circle. Why would we want to take up more space when we can share the same space? Why have only one air terminal on a scheduled flight when you can make people drive thirty minutes to another? Why would we want to form lines when we can form circles? Why only put two cars in two lanes when you can fit cars and cows and trucks and busses and tuk-tuks and ox carts and dogs all going different directions into those two lanes?

The first few times our driver plays chicken with oncoming busses, Michael and I look at each other in dazed shock. But now after three days of this kind of thing happening over and over again with amazing regularity, we have become numb to it- it seems strangely normal. We have decided that the term “near miss” is relative. In the states, “near misses” are measured in feet and yards. In India they are measured in millemeters.

It’s all good. But maybe not so good. T-i-I.

Sergai, who is himself from a third world country struggled for English as he tried to describe India. He held his hands on either side of his brow as if holding his brain in his hands and said,
“It is like rain for the mind”.

Update: I have just come back from an amazing experience in the village. I can only tell you at this late hour that Sergai was right. My mind has been sufficiently blown by an incredible orphanage at the edge of the jungle.

The mayor of this Muslim village just threw a party for us to celebrate the end of Ramadan. They lavished us with food and sweets and Dezee Chai tea; they sang to us and played instruments and served us and stared at us through bright smiles.

In the end, our Christian brothers from India stood and invited everyone there to join us in prayer. We prayed boldly in the name of the Lord for the peace of the village and the prosperity of a new Christian school and orphanage and medical clinic. The prayer was translated into Hindi and English and Russian.

I thought to myself as we were sitting around the arbor made of bamboo and wire, that here we are, gathered together in a circle of Christians from around the globe encircled again by hundreds of Muslim villagers all gathered around us in fascination as we prayed to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

I would write more tonight, but my linear Western mind is in a downpour.

the smell of india

After a brutal 24 hour journey from OKC to Delhi, we met up with our international team and got a quick nights rest (I use the word “rest” loosely) in our hotel. We arrived in the middle of the night Delhi time, and yet the city was not asleep. The airport was like a beehive of taxi divers, baggage carriers and peddalers crawling around the conglamaration of flight weary travelers. As we rode through the Delhi streets on our way to the hotel, I couldn’t help but wonder why people were out so late. They are just standing around looking out into the dark night. I am learning that this is just India. People everywhere. So many many people.
The smell of smoke is thick. Sergai, one of our Ukranian brothers wants to know “what is that smell? I smelt it as the plane was landing.”

Lars, the founder and leader of Global Action responds, ‘It’s the smell of India. It smells like home.”

In Delhi there is always smoke. I learn today as we drive through the streets that fires are always burning. Fire from cookouts on the street. Fire from car engines and motorcycles and tuk tuks. I see a guy on the side of the road burning car tires. It is the smell of India.
In the 14th century Tamerlame defeated Delhi and their army of Elephants by tethering thousands of camels together and setting them on fire and charging them toward the Indian lines. The elephants, obviously spooked by the sight of stampeding flaming camels turned toward the Indian front and trampled the hapless Indian line. This was how Temur defeated the impenetrable city and subsequently burned it to the ground. How appropriate that the Muslim hoards brought fire to this city 600 years ago. The fires have not gone out.

Sergai is a Ukranian pastor who came to India last year. He looks like a linebacker. When he speaks his jaw juts out and finishes every sentence with a smile and glowing eyes. You can see his passion- even when you can’t understand what he is saying. Lars told me that when Sergai went to the slum for the first time, he stood off to the side of the group and wept. Lars went to him and asked if he was OK. Sergai responded, “I thought that we in the Ukrain were the poor ones. I wasn’t expecting this.”

This year he has brought 6 people from his Ukranian church with him. How cool it is to see Ukranian believers reach out to the lost of India. The gobal church is alive and well.

We have just finished our time in the slum. I have no words to describe what we have seen. On this Sunday morning we have worshipped with the children of the Sangamvihar
Slum. There were over a hundred children packed into a small room. Indian children are very beautiful. The smallest girls paint their rosy cheeks for affect. They danced for us and sang the songs they have learned. It is obvious that this program was prepared for us for weeks. They sang about Zacheaus and about the disciples in the boat and about the Good Shepherd. They quoted scripture and sang many praise songs. Parents, most of them hindu, huddled in the back listening to the children sing and the teachers teach their lesson. The conditions here are very harsh. People are literally living in garbage here. They share the dirty street with cows and dogs and other scavengers. But in this little room the children get a taste of the heavenly city.

blessed are you when you are poor

On October 12 Michael Butler and I will will board a plane in Oklahoma City and embark on a 12 day mission trip to India with a terrific ministry called "Global Action".     Our journey will take us to some of the most desperate slums and most horrific poverty on the planet.  It is here that the excellent teams from Global Action do their work.    They are in the business of reaching into the most desperate regions of the world with the touch of Christ.  We will be visiting the orphanage and school in Lucknow India that our church heard about earlier this year when Lars Dunberg and Sheeba Suhban shared their stories with us.  We will get a first hand look at the relief work that has been done through our various missions efforts.  

We will visit the slum projects in Kolkata and Motipur and visit with the Global Action staff in those places and pray with them and discern how our church can be more directly involved in these efforts in the future.  

We will spend three days in Bhubaneswar where I will help lead a conference for young Christian leaders.  The organizers who were originally hoping for 1,000 registrants emailed me today and said the number has swelled to 1800 and they are trying to think through the logistics of that many people crammed into the facility they have rented.  

I am still a week away from boarding that plane and yet already I can feel a growing conflict developing in my soul.  It is the cognizant dissonance I experience whenever I see the world's poverty on the one hand while living in the abundant material blessing we have in our own country on the other.   It is the disconnect I feel from one reality into another.  It is the disconnect I experience when I worship with believers in other countries who are persecuted for their faith and yet they gather for worship with incredible joy and eagerness to learn and soak up His word and yet they never look at their clock or complain about the music or the color of the carpet.  It is the anxiety I feel when I think about believers who worry about how they will find the next morsel of bread for their children while the average person in America consumes SIXTY POUNDS of bread in one year.  

It is what I see in myself when I think about how many millions of people in the world live with the anxiety of humiliating poverty while my biggest concern this week has been how the Sooners are going to get back on track after getting it handed to them on Saturday.  

If I go to deep into that conflict I will enter into an even graver sense of conviction.  It is the undeniable knowledge that Jesus talked about our responsibility to the poor more than he talked about our responsibility for worship or teaching or evangelism or fellowship.  

In fact, He began His earthly ministry with this very striking pronouncement: 

The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

because He has anointed Me 

to proclaim the good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom 

for the prisoners

and recovery of sight for the blind,

to set the oppressed free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.  

This was just the first of many examples of how Jesus continually calls us to identify with those who are on the fringe of culture.  He even went as far as to say that our very judgment will be tied to how we clothe, feed and care for the poor.  He says "if you have not done it to the least of my children you have not done it to me."  (Matthew 25:35-36)

James, the half brother of Jesus and first pastor of the Jerusalem church stated plainly that if you SAY you believe in Him and yet you don't clothe the hungry or take care of the poor then what you have is not belief in Jesus but dead defiled ugly religion.  (James 2)  

As evangelicals, we have tended to push back against what we call "social" ministries because they remind us of the liberal theology of the early 20th century.  But by doing so I believe we have allowed the enemy to blind us to the very heart of God.   Jesus loved the poor, walked with the poor, healed the poor, welcomed the poor and told us we had to be like the poor.   It was America's most famous and noted Evangelical theologian Jonathan Edward's who said that there is "nothing more clear in God's Holy Writ than the call of the Christian to the poor".  

Do you see what I mean?  I am still 8 days away from my trip and already I can see that there is a growing discontent welling up in me.  I haven't even left yet and already I am devastated by what I see.