icecream anyone?

My team of 4 sat together this week to meet and go over some health care teaching we would be doing for a small group of ladies later on in the day. A small neighborhood of women are interested in learning about health care so the four of us discussed how we explain the basic principles of taking vitals to people who have very little education and lack the ability to communicate in English. It wasn’t the easiest task, but one we were excited to be apart of. Raising up health care workers out of ordinary people. That’s what we are after all. And empowering the locals to work after we are gone is what it will take to see true transformation happen in this city. After going through our lesson we decided to take on an equally challenging task for the day: evangelism.  We decided (partially because it was asked of us by our leadership to include it in our schedule this week) to take an hour and head out into the streets to see who we could talk to. As we left the building we live on and walked down the stairs of the big Cathedral in front of our home we saw the smiling face of Neveena. Neveena’s friendly smile and familiar “hellooooo!!!” to the other girls in my group led us all over to meet her. Apparently a few of the other girls from my class had met her sometime last week and she was so excited to meet foreigners that an instant connection was made. It was no different on this day. She smiled from ear to ear and eagerly waved us over to meet her two little boys and her husband.

            “this.. birthday boy… “ she says as she points to a little bugged eye child starring up at us with amusement.  She continues, “this my husband. He laugh at my English. It is no so good,” she points over to her husband who’s wearing the worker uniform of an attendant at the elementary school.  “You. Be my friend. Come to my home. Anytime,” she continues, enthusiastically.

            Me and the other three girls all gave each other the “go ahead” glance knowing we had the same thing in mind. One spoke up, “We have some time right now we could come over to your house but only for one hour” (making sure to emphasize our time constraint otherwise the great hospitality of an Indian would require we stay for breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner, story time, and the birth of their firstborns second child) Her husband glanced over at her, obviously understanding better English and clarified to her in Telegu that we would not have time to watch her grow old today and we have to return home in an hour.  “Ok, ok. One hour,” she says.  She said something to the shopkeeper standing close by and left the two little boys with her and we were off.  Neveena was filled with joy that we were coming over to her home. On the walk over to her house I thought about how this would probably never happen at home. You don’t just meet someone in the street, have them invite you to come over to their home at some point, tell them you can come now, and then just go with them. It leaves no time to clean up your house and pretend like things are always more in order than they ever actually are.

            “I am poor, very poor,” Neveena said on the way over. As to warn us for what we might see.  “That’s ok Neveena, we do not mind. We are just happy to spend time with you,” we all said in agreement and really meant it.  We walked down the busy streets until we came to a little “neighborhood” for lack of a better word. It was quiet and winding with little roads that led us up to a small blue gate she would unlock. She went before us, and like any mom, picked up the kids shoes and mess that lay before her shoving them into any open space she could find. We stepped into the small home where there were holes in the roof and mats laid on the floor right where the front door is. This is where the kids sleep every night-in the same area where the usually disarray of normal living happens. She rolled the mats up and invited us to sit down.  She turned on the fans (whew, what a relief) and we commented on how beautiful her home is. She had a hard time accepting compliments so instead she pointed up to the holes on the ceiling and said that every time it rains, it floods.  “We are poor,” she reminded us again, as if the house for a family of 6 that’s size of my bedroom at home didn’t signify that in the first place. But she wasn’t telling us so we would pity her. She was coming from a place of embarrassment and she felt like she owed us some kind of explanation.

She began to boil water on a small portable stove and insisted on making us tea. She nervously clattered pans together, spilling things and explaining that her excitement of us being in her home was causing her to be a mess. We asked her about her kids and her husband, about her arranged marriage, and about her life. We looked at pictures from her wedding day 9 years ago and saw photos of her children- such a proud mother. Neevena is a pleasure to spend time with. She’s a true “proverbs 31 woman.”

Neveena opened up to us and told us that her husband makes a salary of 4,800 rupees, which is about 96 US dollars a month. Her rent is 2,500 and she has school fees that must be paid in order for her children to receive an education. Her eyes moistened up as she said she has to hide when she drops the girls off at school because she will be in trouble for not paying their fees. She explained, shamefully, how she would love to feed us today. To have us back over for dinner, perhaps? But she has no food. She had to borrow a small bag of rice from her sister in law to be able to feed her family today. 

Everyday in India I am overwhelmed by the poverty. By the great need for money, for health, for homes. Everyday there are people who approach me who are blind, who are crippled, who are carrying naked children and begging for money. How can I help every person? Giving money isn’t going to solve their problems. I am well aware of that. Earlier this week I had a child cling to my leg literally begging me for money and I had to shake him off from me and walk away. There is so much corruption here and giving this child money may be funding that corruption. Or it may be starving him? I’m still not sure. There are thousands of people who’s home is on the street and who look at us as Westerners and expect us to make their circumstances different.  I don’t know our role in this. I struggle to find the answer because I know that what they need is much more than a dollar. I struggle because I know that even if I gave them money the chances of them being so far stuck in poverty mindset would probably inhibit them from moving forward with their life anyways. I struggle because I don’t have much money to give. I don’t have the resources to help everyone I see everyday. I struggle a lot here.

            But here I am, in the home of a hard working mother of four and I listen to the innocence of her heart. She never once asked us for anything beyond our friendship. We sipped our tea together and she was overwhelmed that we, white people, were sitting in her home and looking at pictures of her family and caring for her. Our time was coming to an end, but my heart felt burdened.

I have to do something, I thought. But if I give her money, it will just feed the lie that all white, western people will always be able to help. The truth this, I have very little money right now. I tried to explain to Neveena what we do does not give us a salary and how we must trust in God to provide for our needs. We told her that we work everyday and we do not get paid but God provides for us. We told her that today we left our homes to be able to meet someone and that God set up a divine appointment to meet her. That today, God was sending her some help. The language barrier was a problem but she understood the gist of what we were offering to her.

            “NO!” She exclaimed. “I am not asking from you, I just want you to be my friend.” We assured her that we would friends no matter what. Thoughts came flooding through my mind of how I could help. I can buy groceries? I can pay for her kids to have an education? I can give her money? But really, at this time in my life I as well, lack the resources to be able to provide in this way for her. I explained to her what living by faith means and I asked if we could pray for her. “No, no. no. no,” she exclaimed once again.  “I am poor,” as if the state of her income would deny her the right to have prayer. Tears filled her eyes. She felt so undeserving.

 “Sit down, Neveena. Relax. And let us pray for you… God loves you.” We assured her, ”Let us pray for you.”

So she did, and we prayed and Neveena allowed the tears to well up into her eyes and roll down her cheeks. The pain she had to carry around. The burden of being poor. The fear of not being able to feed her children. The shame of not being able to be the wife her husband needs her to be. The loneliness of being a mom and having no one to talk.  It all began to melt, and just for a moment I think Neveena was able to feel the freedom that Christ provides when He says,

"Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest."

We came to a temporary agreement of how we could help her in the day. We could celebrate her sons 4^th birthday. Showing the heart of a true mother, denying herself any pleasure but turning away nothing to better the lives of her children- she agreed. We told her to bring the whole family and meet us at an ice-cream shop up the street from where we first met her.

I guess I get frustrated that money is always expected from Westerners but then I have to wonder why it is expected? Well, we have money. We do. We might not think we do, I certainly don’t feel like I have it-but compared to the conditions that most people spend their entire life in we really live in abundance. So often we hear the cliché that “we are the richest country in the world and most the world lives on one dollar a day.” I think we’ve heard it so much that we stopped caring. But here I am, living it and seeing it. And feeling really pretty helpless about it. It's real.

I don’t really have a happy ending to this story. I know a group of girls are committed to a new friendship with this lovely woman. I know that we will come up with ideas and God will help us help her. I know that. I hope that.