Thanks for allowing me take a few days before I attempted to put something so indescribable into actual words. I had to ponder the experience in my heart before I could even think about typing. Good thing I had 36 of hours of travel before me, right? Friday was the climactic moment of our trip, the day when Compassion’s child sponsorship program was fully realized and finally personalized for each one of us. We had the incredible opportunity to meet our precious sponsor children in the flesh along with a translator so that we could communicate with them. It was a day filled with laughter and tears. I really had underestimated what this particular day would mean to me. It was an incredible thing to actually see their faces and to touch their skin. All of the sudden everything became so very real. My two India sponsor-kids, Manot and Pramila, along with their two Fathers, had traveled over a day’s journey just to see me.
I have to type it again. They had traveled over twenty-four hours just to see me.
When I learned that the four of them along with translators from their village had traveled such a distance, it really intimidated me and made me feel a little bit insecure. I thought, “Are they annoyed that they had to come all this way just to see me- I am so not worth it?” Since they knew absolutely no English I asked via the translator, “Are they exhausted from the long journey?” The translator then went back and forth with them and with a huge smile on his face, he said, “No, they’re just really excited.” And I took a deep breath, opened my heart, and let it all soak in.
Here is a picture of the five of us:
The four of them were dressed in their Sunday best. It was almost enough to deceive me into thinking that they really weren’t all that poor. I was thinking in my mind, “Why didn’t Compassion give me one of the kids from the slums we visited, they seemed like they needed sponsorship more.” A little bit skeptical, I asked our near-omniscient Compassion India guide Jaiashree if she had been to the village where my children were from.
She answered, “Yes.”
And that was all she said.
And so I pulled the whole persistent widow act and said, “O-kkkaaayyy, so tell me about it. Compare it to some of the villages and slums we’ve already visited. I want a picture in my mind of where my kids actually live.”
And she said, “I can’t compare them.”
I responded, “Jaiashree, what do you mean you can’t compare them?”
And then she said words in her unforgettable accent that will continue to haunt me forever: “They are much poorer, Melissa. Poorer than any of the slums we’ve seen this week. They are very, very poor.”
Ouch. Why did she have to say it like that and why do I always have to ask so many questions?
I wanted to scream at someone but instead I just shook my head and said softly, “Don’t tell me that. Don’t break my heart.”
I came to find out that my kids live in mud-huts. Their village has absolutely no electricity. I have to clarify this because even some of the poorest slums in the city have some electricity simply because of the accessibility that comes with being in close proximity to a city. Their village needs potable water, for they often have to revert to drinking out of filthy water holes. After speaking to one of the Dads through a translator, I discovered that he makes $17 a month. In the very best of circumstances. Since he is a daily laborer, some months he doesn’t get any work at all. He supports a family of five. If you do the math assuming the very best scenario $17 is a little over half of $32, the price I pay each month to sponsor a child though Compassion. Talk about humbling. It is almost double what he makes a month. Again, this is assuming he gets work. I found this terribly discouraging and humbling but also very encouraging. Let me explain. The sobering part of the math breakdown is that $32 is about how much I spend on Starbucks coffee per week. And $32 is less than the price Colin and I pay for dinner on a handful of nights per week. Sometimes we pay less but several times a week we pay more. On the other hand, that my $32 is almost twice what a sole-supporter of a family of five makes per month demonstrates how effective my contribution can really be. In the long run, considering I keep up sponsorship for the years to come, my contribution truly can break the cycle of poverty in a child’s life. Relatively speaking, it is huge.
Now back to our day. If you read my post from last week, then you know that we took the children to a place called “Science City”. The kids had a blast and directly after we got off the seriously disturbing Gondola ride we set off for lunch. We took the entire crew to eat in a food-court at an upscale mall in Calcutta. I hate to use the word “upscale” because the mall itself would have been a very typical mall in the States. This was an enlightening time for me because I was able to ask a number of direct and personal questions through our translator, both to the children and their Fathers. My two kids are from the same village so their Fathers were actually friends, which was really neat. I asked them if they had ever been to Calcutta. One of the Fathers answered, “I am a poor man, I do not have enough money to come to the city.” I was shocked to find out that not even one of them, including the two Fathers in their mid-forties, had ever even been to a city before. It was their very first time and they were like little kids. They were having a blast. Some of my fellow bloggers had different experiences watching their kids eating the food we bought for them. Apparently some of the kids were overwhelmed or maybe even intimidated by the amount of food they were served. *Not mine* They ate for a solid hour. I was done with my pizza in less than ten minutes. But, they just kept eating and eating. I asked them how the food was and they just had these huge beaming smiles stretching across their faces. They absolutely loved the food and were literally the last ones to finish.
When we got back to our hotel, we each went to various corners in the lobby to present our children with gift bags to take back home with them. I had a blast showing them pictures of my home, my friends, and my family. I tried to split up the pictures that I brought between the two families but the Fathers insisted upon putting them in one safe place so as not to lose any of them.
After playing with our children for about an hour or so, I realized that our leaders were signaling some message to us. Our time was coming to an end. We had been so busy anticipating meeting our sponsor children that for some reason we hadn’t even thought about the reality of having to say good-bye to them. As we hugged them good-bye for the last time my heart began to race and I noticed that Manot urgently kept saying something, the same line, over and over again to me. So, I beckoned the translator and I said, “Can you translate what he is trying to tell me?”
He is saying, “Please pray for us.”
Seriously, can one heart take it? That’s what nine-year-old Manot was trying to tell me. After all the gifts I had brought him. After all the food we had served him. After all the fun we had. This was his one urgent request:
“Please pray for us.”
I assured him through my tears that I would never ever stop praying for them.
That was the last verbal exchange we had before we said good-bye with oversized lumps in our throats and then we waved and waved and waved. I can’t count the times they looked back at me. They hung out of the window of the van, and we blew about a million kisses back and forth. As the van started to move, I felt my heart sink.
Will I ever see them again?
Will they make it?
Angie and I both looked at one another, each of us looking to the other for some much-needed consolation. I realized quickly I wasn’t going to get it from her. And she certainly wasn’t going to get it from me. We were both a mess. Both of our eyes were fixed on the van. We just kept watching it. Until the van was no longer in sight. With tears welling up in my eyes, I asked Angie if she thought we would ever see them again. Then we both broke down and lost it. That heartrending moment lingered for what seemed like forever.
And then I knew we needed comic relief so I reverted to my humor defense mechanism and said, “Considering our tolerance for curry, the reality of a return in the near future doesn’t look promising, does it?”
And so we conjured up half a smile through our tears. We just had to.
Here is a picture of the two of us in a moment far less intense than the one I just described.
I can’t tell you how badly I wish my two kids had electricity and wi-fi to go along with it. How bad I wish that they could read this post. I know I can write them but I want them to hear my heart right this very moment. I would say to them, “Manot, I love you. And Pramila, I love you. And I’m not just saying it because you need to hear it or because I know your parents probably don’t say it often. A week ago that might have been the case. But not today. Today I awoke with thoughts of you. Wondering what you are doing this very moment, so many thousands of miles away from me. Hearing the faint pitch of your sweet voices and your quirky laughter. Worrying about what you’re eating. If you drank enough water to be satisfied. Picturing you, Manot, smiling and kicking around a soccer ball in the hot sun and you, Pramila, scribbling on the new drawing pads we bought you. Your project leader told me that you are going to be a great artist. Mostly, I want you to know that I’m praying for you. Praying that you will live to declare how lavishly our God has loved you through the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. Praying that in spite of all that you may endure, that you will know that our God is good and that He loves you with all of His heart. Please pray for your Sponsor-Mom, too… she needs to remember how good God is in spite of all the hardship you’re facing as well.”
Oh, what a deep imprint Manot and Pramila have made on this hard heart of mine. And not just the two of them but all of the people, so deeply loved by God, in Calcutta and India at large who must fight for their survival, each and every day. I could never have prepared myself for all that I saw last week. For example, during one of my visits to a devastating slum, a half-clothed, poverty stricken crippled man with his back hunched over in a ninety-degree angle limped slowly over to me. He had purchased a coconut for me with whatever small amount of money he did have and then proceeded to slice the top open for me to drink so that I could be protected from the heat. And mind you, I was the one going back to the air-conditioned hotel. Not him. What was I supposed to do with that? And that is just one of about several hundred stories I could tell.
Because we each had experiences like this and because I am sure our eyes were about to glaze over, the leaders of our group called for a debriefing in lieu of a corporate lobotomy. During this debriefing they gave us a safe place to talk about what some of us were feeling and thinking. It was great but we really needed another entire week to hash it all out. I’ll never forget the words that Shaun Groves said before we left the debriefing. He asked us this question:
“Now that you know, what will you do?”
He continued by saying, “You’ve spent your words lavishly on the blog, now it’s time to spend your lives.” Talk about messing me up. And so it was to this tune that our re-entry began.
I will confess something about myself. You know that I’m going through an emotionally or spiritually trying time when I bust out one of the movies from “The Lord of the Rings” Trilogy. Other girls may bust out “Sleepless in Seattle” or even “Pride and Prejudice” but I bust out Tolkien. There was one awful season in my life when along with reading the books, I actually watched at least one of the films every night for two months. I wish I were exaggerating. You can ask my Dad because he was so ready for me to get a grip. I was totally hogging the television and he had deer-show watching needs that definitely were not being met. And, yeah, I know…spending three hours a night watching movies wasn’t exactly good stewardship of my time. But it’s the truth. I nearly have the entire Trilogy memorized. And that is saying a lot since most of the proper names sound exactly the same.
Well, yesterday, it happened again. This time my victim was “The Return of the King.” Have you ever seen it? Do you remember the last scene when Frodo unexpectedly boards the ship to sail to the Grey Havens? Throughout their life-threatening journey to Mordor, Frodo and Sam kept dreaming about such things like the taste of the strawberries on the Shire but when Frodo actually does get back to the Shire, for some reason, it is like he can’t fully enjoy the normal comforts that the Shire has to offer. I’ve always speculated about why exactly Frodo has to sail to the Grey Havens. I think that Frodo has just been through too much. His scars run too deep. After years of being back at the Shire they still haven’t healed. In the movie he asks the rhetorical question: “How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on, when in your heart, you begin to understand, there is no going back? And then he explains, “There are some things that time cannot mend. Some hurts that go too deep…they have taken hold.”
But I’m not a hobbit.
And this is real life.
I don’t get to sail off and escape from the white shores into a far green country under a swift sunrise with Gandalf.
Ironically, my life just happens to be deep in the heart of excessive American culture. And I’d by lying to you if I said I don’t enjoy it. The honest truth is that I know myself. I know that quickly normal life will pick back up and the temptation will be to forget all I have seen. To move forward without any change. While others around me may wish for me to hurry up and acclimate to normal life again, my fear is that I will too quickly move ahead. That I will forget all I have seen, heard, touched, smelled, and felt.
I know myself.
I’m just an All-American twenty-six year old girl, consumed with comfort, security, vanity, wealth, and materialism like the “best” of them. In light of who I know I am I feel compelled to ask that the Lord would perform a miracle on my behalf- that he would keep the emotional wounds that were carved during the past few weeks from healing. Now, I know you may think I’m a bit morbid, eccentric, or even just plain weird. But that’s okay, because I’ve been called far worse, I’m sure of it. So this is my prayer today- that time won’t have its typical way with me. That the sharp edge of the sting I feel deep in my soul won’t ever be dulled or alleviated.
With so much love and affection,
Melissa
P.S. Thank you for coming away with me to Calcutta. This blog community has floored me with its willingness to pray for us and also to get on board with what the Lord is doing through Compassion. I want you to know that your generosity has been noted. Those of you who are already sponsors with Compassion and are interested in visiting your sponsor child in the future should click here for more information. I know the trips might be costly and time-consuming but if the Lord paves the way or places it on your heart, then check it out. You are an amazing group of people and I am so honored to “know” you through blogland. Wouldn’t have missed it for the world. By the way, I also want you to head to read a post written by Patricia Jones, one of my new favorite people in the world. In my opinion, it is one of the most powerful posts from the entire trip.
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Melissa,
Thank you for giving More of yourself then you even new you would give and allowing us to ride alone side from here at home. Yes I know the prayer of never let me forget. I to prayed that after God took my son to walk with him on those streets of gold. He has not allowed me to forget that sorrow and he also calls me to use it. The times it hurts so afresh to watch the pain. Thankful he calls us to carry each others burden. He will give us the strength as we are so in need of. After we have walked that path it’s never gets any easier. Yes Lord, I can do all things through Christ.
Celie
I hope I’m not out of line with my questions….but does anyone with Compassion teach the young women about birth control? It breaks my heart to think about all the babies being born in those conditions….not to mention the children already here.
I will pray for you – that God will always keep your memories of India and the children there fresh in your mind and heart. That you will allow God to soften your heart and shape it for His glory.
Thank you for taking us along with you!
Kristy
Thank you for sharing this with us!
Melissa,
I really am without words to say thank you. Pillowing my head in a country far away tonight that has it’s own “slums”, where some of my very favorite people live and survive in a garbage dump, where children are sent out to prostitute themselves…
I read your entries this week with tears pouring down my face because I had forgotten the beauty of the beginning of my brokenness for these people…
You have reminded me of the ever present struggle and yet the absolute compelling truth that there is a glimmer of hope shining that we may one day (only with the help of God’s heart and his miracle working within) learn to live with our eyes and hearts open wide enough that I’ll change the way I live permanently so that someone else can too.
Lord give us kingdom eyes and a kingdom heart…
You humble me and challenge me and I am so incredibly proud of you for choosing to take on someone else’s pain as you walked among them…
may you be FOREVER ruined for ordinary living and may their souls never leave your own…
let’s be friends in Heaven and visit around the Crystal Sea about the little brown faces we grew to love, i have a whole collection of my own…
my prayers are with you as you come home and remain “unsettled” – my only encouragment to any of us is that it’s worth being unsettled about…
love and blessings.
Thank you. It’s all I know to say. And I will pray that the wound stays. I think I understand now what that means. I never did before. Honestly, my MO is to deny, ignore, escape and be as quickly healed as possible from all the bad things in life and now the lightbulb has turned on with your beautiful blog – the pictures, the stories. I never got why it is important for the wound to be there and even argued (if only in my head) with other Christians about it. It is good to remember the wound(s) and even better to remember the cross. And trust me, lightbulbs turning on doesn’t happen often for me. Thank you.
Wow. Thank you. Thank you for taking us with you. Praying for you and those two precious children (and the one I signed up to sponsor this week – Sruthi).
Hey Melissa! Just wanting you to know how powerful it was to read your blogs from India. Thank you for letting us walk through your experience with you. There have been many things that have touched me in what you’ve written that I’m still thinking about and processing. So thank you 🙂
Wow…tears…beautiful and heartbreaking! Thank you for sharing your heart!
Melissa,
Your posts and your heart bless me!
I have loved reading about your trip to India. I can understand how you don’t want to leave behind all that this trip has infused into your heart and mind. I don’t think that you will because God led you there and He has allowed you to experience this trip, the meeting of your Compassion kids, for a purpose. I will pray that you are never the same and that God will enable all who love you to move along with you as best they can. Sometimes when God has touched out lives in a special way,
it takes awhile for those around us to understand what has transpired, but God is good… to strengthen us and to keep us…..and eventually people realize that the change is the “real deal”. I am thankful for your ministry to us. We are praying for your Mom as she leads the nation in prayer. For Amanda as she leaves on vacation. And for you, and Colin.
As I pray so often, “Lord, don’t let me be the same.” He is going to use what you’ve experienced in so many ways. God’s blessing to you! love and blessing – Judy
Melissa, I am a new sponsor and have just a few questions. Looking at the compassion website gives lots of information about sponsoring a child, but really never tells what the money exactly goes for to directly impact the child. I am trusting that it is used wisely, or you guys would not be involved, but am curious…the main expense just says Children Development Program. Does that mean that they go to a day program of some type, are meals provided? If it’s available, please just direct me to the info about what the program actually does to help the children. Thanks so much!!
my email is [email protected]
I have no words.
Thank-you for telling this to us. I needed to hear it.
Melana
I couldn’t wait to come home to see where you went and what you experienced each day on your trip. Through your words and pictures I was there. Thankyou for bringing us with you, and for giving us a glimpse of what we are really here for. Absolutely beautiful and tragic and moved me to tears.
dd santa monica
Melissa, your posts have seriously made my heart so much softer. Really, all of your posts and the other bloggers posts have. And I mean that in the most genuine way!
What a neat experience for you and for us, and I pray too that time with not have it’s way with you or me. I know exactly how that can be too.
I just love your honesty and your sweet heart. It is an inspiration!
I am still waiting on my child’s packet to arrive, but absolutely cannot wait to get it. And, I am seriously considering going on a trip. I was actually considering it last week as I was all obsessed with the compassion website trying to find a child to sponsor. But, we shall see!
Much love to you, sweet friend. Praying for rest and appropriate restoration for you this week!
Your journey to Calcutta has been an amazing one to follow…it is if I am right there experinceing it all right there with you. I received my Compassion packet yeseterday and was so excited to see my child that I will sponser. Her name is Maria, 5 years old from Boliva. God has blessed me sooo much in my life and I am ready to give to Maria!
Melissa,
Thanks so much for sharing. What a beautiful experience you have had. I so totally know what you are talking about in asking God not to let those wounds heal too quickly…
Two years ago I had surgery to remove a benign brain tumor. My kids were 1 & 3. It was terrifying at times, but also a situation where I felt the presence and power of God more closely than any other time in my life. I knew that life would eventually resume a normal rhythm again. But I have prayed over and over and over not too lose the intensity of the connection and relationship I had with Him during that time.
The thing I've discovered is… He doesn't want me (or you) to go back to how we were either. There are some things that just change you that much, that going back isn't actually possible. He wouldn't take you through something like this trip if not to transform you.
Thank you so much for sharing.
Today you have inspired me (along with Patricia’s post)… my husband has been asking me for weeks about what I wanted for Mother’s day… I just could not think of something that would help me remember the mark that I have now been a mommy for 2 years… your post helped me my answer for my husband… I want to be a sponsor mommy… I want to help… I have committed and blogged about it… thank you for sharing your life and your past week with us. Your words, heart, compassion and faith have inspired many… today you are my hero.
I have a lump in my throat right now. I’ve been reading your posts the whole and yet struggled so much with contentment with my situation. I can’t understand how that is possible. Just today I was upset cause I couldn’t afford to get my pictures developed and more scrapbooking supplies. A new hobby of mine that I became addicted to after only doing a few pages yesterday. I loved it and I’m not a crafty person. They make the coolest things for scrapbooking and my mother-in-law sells scrapbooking materials. She had given me some things to get me started a long time ago and I just yesterday for some reason decided to try it. Obviously I loved it much more than I thought I would.
Melissa –
This morning, Hubs said, “Do you want to sponsor a child? How about…†and he named a child he saw on the Compassion website.
I thought we’d sponsor a child whose name started with “S†since that is our theme.
Hubs thought he wanted to sponsor a child with the same birthday as our son Schäfer.
So, he went to Compassion and searched for a child in India with the same birthday as Schäfer.
There was one.
Her name is Shyja.
She’s 8.
We started dating 8 years ago today.
Thank you Melissa for going so that our family could have the blessing of knowing Shyja.
ah Melissa, yes yes yes!
“, my life just happens to be deep in the heart of excessive American culture.”
I struggle with this every day…. and stil have not come to terms with it. With my life and opportunities and blessings and that of so many others without.
My two daughters, one from China and one from Ethiopia…a small piece of my heart was torn, knowing what their lives would have been.
What do we do with this????
The difference to one child, two, sponsoring….. what do we do? What else do we do?
Melissa,
I don’t know what has touched me more–reading your post, or the comments that have followed.
Seeing your pictures with your sponsor children took me back to the first time I held my nephew. I was the first to hold him after he was born, and I remember thinking “Even if I am never blessed with my own child, I have held MY baby”. As the years have passed (he’s a gangly 11-year-old now!), he has taught me more than I would have ever imagined about what a real family looks like. I have since had my own little Noah, and we sponsor Carlos in El Salvador, but Jacob will always hold a special place in my mommy heart. I recognized the look on your face. They are not your sponsor children–they are YOUR babies. You have held them, loved on them, and given them things–material and otherwise–that they will prize for the rest of their lives. Face it, you’re a mommy, girl!
Thank you for your candidness throughout your journey. Even though we sponsor a child, it’s still been hard for me to imagine that we were really helping very much. Thank you for giving me a picture of what so little to me can do for someone else.
Ginny
I have been in tears each post and praying you will keep these promptings near to your mind and heart. We don’t have much, but we are rich relatively and I am hoping to get my boys to look on the compassion site and sponsor a child today.
p.s. 2 weeks ago I sprained my ankle and was put in a huge cast and the first thing I did was start the trilogy again. I too bring it out whenever things get too much
Jodi
Melissa,
I love it when you post. It’s like Melissa only talks when she has something profound to say. And it’s always worth sitting up and reading!
I have always wanted to sponsor a child from another country, but I have been skeptical of the programs out there. There was a silly sitcom a long time ago (I think the 80’s) in which a woman pulled out a picture of a child she was sponsoring and the lady beside her said, “I got that same picture!” I had in my mind these things were scams.
I am so grateful you shared your stories here. I have never in my life felt God so strongly urge me to sponsor one of these children. My daughter picked out a little girl her own age and we can’t wait to write her. You can see her precious picture on my blog.
I just wanted to thank you for helping me let go of some of my selfishness and to give back a little of what God has given us.
Blessings to you as you return to your routine a changed woman,
Traci
Melissa,
I am the child of missionaries and grew up in South America in the middle of the Amazon. So I have especially loved your posts about India. After having a childhood growing up in the atmosphere that you described, as an adult I’m still processing it. And no, you don’t heal from it.
The truth is, the Lord gave you a gift that is beyond expression. The reason you hurt is because he knew you would and he allowed your heart to be carved by his very hand. You have been given the very precious gift of perspective. Yes, this will haunt you for the rest of your life. Haunt you with the very Spirit of the Lord Jesus. We live in a very big world and its hard for us to realize how very big tht world is until the Spirit does a work in us.
Praise God you have received this precious gift. He will direct you how to use it as you live each hour of your life.
You blessed me beyond words.
Heidi In Fayetteville, GA
Melissa, Thanks so much for sharing your trip with us and bor your honesty. I will pray that you never forget this feeling that you have right now!!!
Blessings and Love
Diana
Dearest Melissa,
I have a confession to make.
I, my friend, am a cynic.
The first time I looked at the photo of my Indian sponsor child outside a relatively nice looking building and then read both of his parents worked as day laborers, I thought “Does this child really need my help as much as some other who doesn’t have two parents, lives in a box, etc.?”
You have just utterly shattered the casing around my hard, black heart. I’m always moved by the Compassion Bloggers but I can honestly say this is the very first time I’ve sobbed. However, the tears come from moreso from conviction than anything else. Be assured the parting from your dear children contributed quite a bit as well.
From one LOTR nerd to another, (I think I quote that movie in every class I’ve ever taught and often use this very scene) your chronicling of this trip has marked me deeply and I thank you for taking the time to make these people come alive to us all.
Much love,
Lisa
Thank you so much for sharing your experience. It truly moves my heart. I currently sponsor a missionary through Gosep For Asia which is a wonderful organization our of Dallas and really would like to sponsor a child also. My last child will graduate from High School at the end of the month so it would be fitting to support another child.
Thanks again. God bless.
Melissa,
Your posts from India and now back home have blessed me and moved me. I just read this post during “Drop Everything and Read” time in my classroom…how do I explain these tears to my middle school special needs students!
Thanks for sharing. I will pray along with you that God will keep your heart tender to these wounds of compassion.
You are NOT a typical twentysomething gal, girlie!
I do mission work in Haiti and my heart has been so touched by your blog the last few days. I have heard your mom speak about her time with Life Today outreach in Africa and something she said about returning to our “normal/ privileged life” just resonated with me….she said that she prayed that she would never “GET OVER” all she saw and experienced there. That too has been my prayer returning from mission work in third world countries. And I pray that over you as well… I pray that even though you are exhausted beyond belief and your head is spinning right now, I pray you will never “get over” what you saw and experienced there! Coming back changed forever and sharing your experiences with others is the BEST way to honor and love on those precious children who captured your heart!
I’m a new reader who found you through the other Compassion bloggers. Thank you so much for sharing your experiences of the trip and just reading about it has changed me. How could I read what you all have gone through and seen and not sponsored a child. Impossible! Many blessings to you and your family (sponsored and otherwise).
The necklace and sparkly earrings that adorned your compassion-daughter’s face.. it’s almost too much, girlfriend. Really, it is.
Luke 16:9-11 “I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?”
We’ve been blessed financially, and there is a huge responsibility that comes with it. What a blessing to meet the ones you are supporting! I’m excited about the promise that in eternity we will ALL meet the ones who were touched on earth by our obedience in giving!
Tami in LA
Melissa, thank you so much for sharing your heart and experiences. I am humbled and the tears are flowing freely from a heart that I had begun to believe was hardened forever. Bless you Dear One for allowing God to use you not only in Calcutta and through compassion but to touch the hearts of all of us here in Blogland. I may never get to go in person but I can sponsor a child or two and I have been there with you and seen it through your eyes. Thank you so much.
melissa,
i spent a year living in china sharing jesus with college students. i remember on my plane ride out of my city on to beijing bawling the whole time (a 2 hour flight). the air hostestes didn’t quite know what to do with the foreign girl who couldn’t stop crying. So many of the things you’ve described here my heart has felt…it was good to re-feel it through your words. you will ease back into life as “normal” bc you’re living in atl, not india. i tried for a while to maintain my “china life” in kansas city. you adapt, you change, but i will say that your heart is done for. completely done for. and i’m excited for that. for smells of indian food to trigger a flood of emotions and memories. Smog and sewer smell do it for me (i know it sounds gross, but thats what the huge industrial city i lived in smelled like to me, its oddly comforting). thank you for sharing your heart. it is SO beautiful!!! i’m off to go write a letter to my little guy i sponsor in eithopia through food for the hungry. his name is habibi which means beloved in arabic. absoltely beautiful!!!
Thank you for a first hand glimpse into a world so few of us ever think about, let alone touch. The words of each of the bloggers on the trip “wounded” us listeners too – and may we be challenged to share your prayer that the Lord not heal those kinds of wounds completely. For, indeed, “faithful are the wounds of a friend!”
Welcome back and thank you for being our eyes and ears!
Lisa-Jo
Hi Melissa,
I’ve been a silent follower of your blog the entire time you were in India, praying for you and your group each and every step of the way….but, now, I just can’t stay silent any more. This post pierced my heart. Mainly because I know myself too. And I know that way to often I have travelled as a “missionary,” which is a word I never really feel worthy enough to use, and I come back to my spoiled, selfish American life as a 20-something that thinks she’s owed the world….I always promise myself that the things my eyes see will never be forgotten by my heart, but far too often that just isn’t the case. And it makes me ashamed. Others who haven’t seen what I’ve seen aren’t accountable because they just don’t know. But I have seen. I have heard the cries and cradled the hurting in my arms. I am accountable. So why do I always get back home and do nothing about it? Thank you for your honesty. Thank you for your heart. Thank you for the challenge. I’m leaving to go to Haiti in two weeks, and your words will go with me while I’m there, and they will help me to remember why I’m there. And help me to know that in reality, I will never really leave because I will carry a part of them in my heart wherever I go. From one sister in Christ to another, you are an inspiration!
In Him, with much love, Stacie
Melissa, experiences like this have changed every part of my life. I am sure that it will do the same for you. I praise God that you have been able to experience it at such a young age. Thank you for sharing your experience and reminding me again of each of mine.
Thanks for sharing about your sponsor chidren. We leave for a trip to Catacamas Honduras on July 10th and will get to see our kids again. The way they grab a part of your heart and hold on to it is something else.
i’ve often thought of meeting my compassion son in India, and through all the postings on India, I still want to go, but I never thought about watching them go back to their life and me to mine…i will need dragged back to the plane, pretty sure I would be a wreck, and trying to think of ways to bring him with me. thank you for sharing all this, and praying for you and your family
Thank you so much for this post. It totally pushed us over the edge and we decided to sponsor a child. Then when I went to Compassion’s page, there were two children who took hold of my heart, and I had no choice but to sponsor two. 😉 Your writing was touching, but more importantly, the relationship you demonstrated with your children was beautiful!
Melissa- I have been so blessed by your blog entries during your trip. You are an inspiration- I am convinced that we need to get out of this culture to see reality sometimes. Though I didn’t get to comment, the blog entry that most moved me was the one about the 12 year old girl who showed you her home and then asked “How do you like my house?” Oh my goodness! I could relate with you when you said that there were times you did not asked people over because things weren’t perfect in your house. How many times have I done that? I told my husband that story and he- who NEVER sheds a tear because it is not manly- had tears in his eyes, then started drinking his Coke so I wouldn’t notice! The point is, God used your journey to move us deep within. Thank you for the much needed reality check- Becky, Charlotte NC
Thank you so much for sharing. I know this will be a defining moment in your life and God will be glorified. The picture of you with the children and their fathers is beautiful and to think they come from a village so much poorer than you saw!? I was thinking that you should get some of those cards that you can record your voice and send to them saying that you are praying for them, that you love them and God loves them. Then the translator could write it down in their language and each time they heard it, I bet they would just smile!
Melissa,
I can’t say thank you enough for letting us catch a glimpse of what has happened in your heart because of what happened while in India. You know, I have loved the LPM blog and all the encouragement I have received. There have been any significant “ah-ha” moments over the past couple of years as I’ve read things that challenged me or caused me to remember what I already knew. Emphasis on what I already knew. I think I can speak for many when I say that we come to the LPM to get something..maybe it’s a good laugh over one of your mom’s stories or a clever thing that has been communicated. We all want to be comforted too , in some way, because we all do lack. And we live out of that lack. It’s different for everyone for sure but I think it is largely a lack of belief–you know–the five-fingered Believing God memory device. Somehow God isn’t enough for us sometimes. By telling your story and the story of the poor, you told us His story. And it is a story of love. We were able to capture the heart of it all which is His heart. That it is full and compassionate and not lacking–at all. So I feel like you gave us everything. Everything we need to know.
I could say more but I won’t. The Lord has laid His hand of blessing upon you. So you go and be a blessing.
Much love to you Melissa~
Elaine
Melissa,
“God will never let you hold a spiritual thing for yourself; it has to be given back to Him that He may make it a blessing to others.” Oswald Chambers
Thank you Melissa for giving back to Him and the blessing it has been to me. Your children are beyond beautiful. Your posts…each one.. brought tears and the heart of God to me. I know that God will change the world through you one day at a time one person at a time and He never lets us forget the ways He has revealed himself to us. Thank you for your tender heart and your gift of words…you are your mother’s daughter. May you live this day with Happiness because the Lord has shown Himself to you in ways you are still comprehending. Praise His Holy Name.
I wish my 3 teenagers could have such an experience!! They too are held captive by this “culture”….only an UNDENIABLE manifestaion of God’s presence in their lives will impact them! MELISSA, please pray for our youth they are assualted by our culture!! WE need God to raise-up teenagers and young adults who will be BOLD and will glorify “his” name here and abroad.
THE JOURNEY CONTINUES ~
~ NATIONAL DAY OF PRAYER ~
Here are my prayer’s for our precious Beth and our nation for
Thursday, May 7, 2009
O you who hear prayer,
to you all men will come.
Psalm 65:2
The LORD is far from the wicked but he hears the prayer of the righteous.
Proverbs 15:29
SIESTA’S ~
GET ON YOUR KNEE’S FOR
THE NATIONAL DAY OF PRAYER
SIESTA’S ~
Pray for Beth Moore to be BOLD.
Pray for our Nation.
Pray for our Family’s.
Pray for our World.
Pray, Pray, Pray!!!!
With “Heaven Bound” blessings,
and Prayer for our Nation,
Kim Safina
http://www.kimsafinathejourneycontinues.blogspot.com
Travis~ thanks for twitter info.
Melissa,
Thank you so much for sharing your journey with us. This is the first comment that I have made, but I have read every post with tears streaming down my face. I have sponsored a child through Compassion for almost 14 years now, and with a sponsor’s heart imagined what it would have been like to hold her in my arms, and talk with her like you have had the opportunity! God willing, I will meet her one day, but if not, then in glory we will meet!
Melissa every post you wrote from your trip has torn me up. Thank you so much for sharing so much of yourself and of the trip. (I’m covered in chill bumps but in a good way, and I’ve already been wiping the tears away…again in a good way.)
I pray our Father answers your prayers and allows you to stay tender to all that your senses have experienced. I pray the same for me. May I remember how privileged I am to live here in the US, even when I’m complaining about something too silly.
Much love to you, sweet Melissa.
Dear Sweet Melissa,
Thank you for your willingness to share your experience in such a candid manner. Tears streamed down my cheeks more often than not as I read your posts… I have prayed for you, your group, and the various groups of people you mentioned through the duration of your trip. I will continue to do so as the Holy Spirit brings you and the others to mind.
I was asked to write a Bible Study to undergird my denomination’s engagement to fight human trafficking. On such a SMALLER level than you experienced, I can relate to embracing an aching heart for the oppressed. In fact, that is how the name of this study came to be, Embraching An Aching Heart: A Biblical Approach to the Oppressed. I hope you don’t mind if I share a portion with you that came to mind frequently as I read your blogs:
“When I began to read the personal testimonies of human trafficking survivors, I was beside myself. I could not get the individual testimonies of the victims out of my mind, and I thought about them all the time. My heart actually ached for these dear women and girls as I thought about and prayed for them. I soon came to the conclusion that I just could not read any more of their personal testimonies. They affected me too much (I reasoned) and I just couldn’t take the emotional heaviness this brought. I further convinced myself that I could work more effectively on this study if I put all of this emotional heaviness aside because their graphic and disturbing testimonies were a distraction. So I stopped reading their personal testimonies, I stopped looking into the eyes of the victims when I saw their pictures, and I disengaged myself as I continued to work.
This continued for one week and the Holy Spirit’s conviction came. The Holy Spirit began to show me that this had been a pattern in my life in the way I responded to the oppressed. Whether I was reading about the persecuted church, starving children, or extreme poverty, I often stopped looking at their pictures or reading their stories when confronted with the intense pain and suffering of others. God showed me that this was a form of looking away. He began to impress upon me the reality that Jesus never looked away as a response to the oppressed, and neither should I. He also showed me that at times it is the most appropriate response to allow myself to experience the pain in my heart for the oppressed. This is what I have come to refer to as a “healthy heart-ache.†Choosing not to read their stories or look at their pictures would never change the reality of what these people were experiencing, and it would not change my heart toward them either.
I was so convicted at what God showed me. I began to read their stories again, and my healthy heart-ache returned. Only this time, I embraced the aching heart rather than resist it. This is how the title of this study came to be. I am convinced that Jesus Christ would have us embrace this ache towards the oppressed and not reject it.
I have often prayed and asked God to give me eyes to see other people as He does, and I’ve also asked Him to give me a heart that aches for the things that grieve His heart. I believe the ache I experience for trafficking victims is really an answer to prayer. A gift, when looked at from this perspective. May God keep my heart tender towards the oppressed, along with a sincere love for them. I pray He does the same for you, my friend.”
Sorry this comment was so long, but I felt compelled to share this today.
Praying for you,
Jennifer
WOW Melissa – I can so relate with each of your words. I came back from Africa this past summer and the LOVE I found there is now very much a part of who I am. Lord of the Rings is my favorite and the scene you described is one I can relate to also. And as far as you “getting back to normal” – you will have a new and better normal b/c as someone has said – we can be the hands and feet of Jesus to the poor – but they are the face of Jesus to us. And you had a real encounter with our Living God. Blessings on this journey Melissa – thank you for sharing