India!

I am thrilled about my upcoming opportunity to go to India for 3 months, and want to tell you a bit about it!  

   As many of you know, I've had an increasing interest in spending a longer time overseas as well as connecting more substantially with organizations that work with women getting out of the sex trade.  Since my trip in April to Thailand, quite a few opportunities have arisen to learn from people who are seeking to address the roots of poverty and the sex trade, as well as walking alongside people in life and recovery. Bob Ekblad (TN's co-director and founder) is an elder for one of the organizations, Servants, and others in our leadership recognize the importance of this trip for me to learn and share--cross-pollinate as we say. So, during this time, I will be on ‘special assignment’ with Tierra Nueva.  

   For the first part, I will be doing an internship with Servants, who takes being incarnational very seriously, actually moving into houses in the slum and living among the poor. I have a deep respect for these team members who have committed themselves for 3+ years.  

It is a true dying to self, 

laying down everything, 

seeking to love and learn from neighbors, 

and seeking to find Jesus in the slum. 

It is coming with openness to learn from a community of people who are often looked at as having nothing to offer.  

(If interested in more reasons, see this article.)

For me, it will involve a home-stay where I will both be learning from my host family how to survive and from the Servants team as they love their neighbors in a slum community.  I am increasingly aware of how challenging this will be for me, laying down my 'skills', even English & Spanish language skills, to once again be very dependent and need to be taught how to do virtually everything.  I am under no illusion that I will be 'helpful', but am hopeful that I will learn how to love better, be a blessing to those around me, and encountered and be encountered afresh by God in this time. 

    After this first month, I will also be connecting with SariBari, Freeset, and potentially Grandma's, all working with women getting out of the local sex trade.  Each provides alternative work options making beautiful bags and household goods in a holistic environment.  I will get to provide support to some of their social workers.  I also will be sharing with all some of the training I have received on Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Trauma Stewardship, Genesis Process Relapse Prevention, and Tierra Nueva’s trainings on holistic liberation. 

   I’m really grateful to be able to go to India, to learn, discern, and share some of what I have learned with others.  I welcome your prayer covering as I make this journey and pursue God’s kingdom in a beautiful and heart-wrenching land. If you feel led to contribute financially, there are added costs such as the flight, quite a few costly vaccines, and medicine I will be bringing.

Thanks so much for your ongoing support in so many ways!

To watch some videos, about the work of some of the organizations, click on below: Freeset; ConneXions was started by Servants and is now fully run by locals ConneXions India: Fighting Extreme Poverty