Kolkata Bound New Year

“Preparing our mind for action means coming to grips with the true nature of the world into which Christ has cast us, His disciples. It means coming to grips with how the Fall is playing itself out around the world in the present day.” Gary Haugen, Good News About Injustice

(Lord willing) seven weeks from Sunday, I hope to be on my way to Kolkata, India, to work for two weeks alongside some of our dearest friends who are serving with an organization called Word Made Flesh (http://www.wordmadeflesh.org/). I met M. in 1994, when we simultaneously joined the same pediatric rehabilitation team and church, beginning our kindred friendship. A friendship also includes walking together through many inevitable struggles (Acts 14:22).

After multiple visits to India, M. fought great disillusionment and despair over the idolatry and injustice they witnessed. A small group of us began reading Good News About Injustice and prayed about our responsibility for others; finally M. imagined “one good thing” she could do to empower women to leave the slavery of prostitution and find true freedom through the gospel . . . and from the U.S. she became instrumental in the development of Sari Bari, a Word Made Flesh community of Christ-followers called to be in relationship with sexually exploited women in the red-light districts of Kolkata (http://www.saribari.com/). Sari Bari is a business initiative that seeks the freedom and restoration of Kolkata’s red-light areas through dignity-giving employment opportunities for women affected by the sex trade.

My Opportunity to Join In as a “Goer”

My first and only overseas trip was ten years ago to Thailand. For the last five years, I’ve worked with East African refugees, so I’m excited about working among a new, unfamiliar group. A long-time friend and teaching partner will join me to support Word Made Flesh and Sari Bari. We will also use our TESL training (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) to prepare a basic curriculum for weekly English instruction . . . and train our friends in “best practices.”

Thank you for the ways you already love God and your neighbor every day, and for prayerfully supporting this and other causes that point people to the love and transformational freedom found in Christ. I’d also like to challenge you to read at least one of these books during the next three months: Good News About Injustice (Gary Haugen), The City of Joy (Dominique LaPierre), or Ministries of Mercy (Tim Keller).

“ . . . and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away. . . Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of the street. On either side of the river was the tree of life bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.” Revelation 21:3, 4; 22:1, 2