Kenosis

So I meant to have a post about my title much earlier but time got away from me. So here is the long awaited explanation for my title. :)

Kenosis relates to 

"the doctrine that Christ relinquished His divine attributes so as to experience human suffering." also, 

it's from the "Greek word for emptiness κένωσις (kénōsis)) is the 'self-emptying' of one's own will and becoming entirely receptive to God's divine will."

In India, I was on a journey of emptying myself of the familiar, the comfortable and those that I knew and loved. I  wanted to be receptive to what God would teach me through this experience. It was a difficult one, but one that I am so glad that I went on. It taught me even more about what it meant to leave everything behind ( at least in a sense cause lets face it--social networking and e-mail are still very present today), meet new people, eat new food, trying to understand Indian ways, and wrestle with the understanding of what it means to love "other". 

I've realized that in my"self emptying" in India I have left pieces of my heart there. You will find them in the song of a friend who sings "Great is Thy Faithfulness", in the smile of Susetra (Susie), in the parantha shop, on the bus to Kavundapalayam, in CoffeeDay, in the circled sidewalk and butterflies of the neighborhood, in the tears of one of my dear friends, in the Vasan Eyecare center, and in the twinkle of the old auto driver's eye.

Apart from India, I have realized that self emptying is a process entirely apart from a specific time and place. It is a process. A process that takes ones entire life. It doesn't stop when you come home or when you go to school.
It's also a process I can't do by myself. It takes the love and grace of someone greater than me and a persistent perseverance to run the race. It's the journey, the choices, day by day that shape me, and who I choose to look to as my source of strength.

Wait Money Cures Poverty?

We were walking along side the road after we had gotten off the bus: My friend was directing us on our way back to my apartment after a day spent at our field placement. We were talking about being poor. At one point in the conversation she voiced that she thought the way to cure poverty was to make it so everyone could have more money. However, I  gently told her that I didn't think this was true. For example, I explained that there were even homeless people living in the United States even right in the nations capitol (of all places!). She was astonished to hear this.

This just told me how much she idolized the west. We were the wealthy rich white people, the people of the perfect white Christian Nation the land filled with milk and honey.. How could we possibly have people who do not have homes living in our nation???

It got me thinking about the image of the U.S. We often don't display these images to the world. We don't have Indian or African photographers taking pictures of our homeless or starving children and setting up homeless organizations in the U.S. Nor do we have people adopting poor white american children out of the U.S. so they can take them home to a better life. The U.S. has managed to maintain, at least to some and to the extent that I understand, a sparkling, clean, flashy, rich, aura that fails to show our own material poverty to those who idolize us. 

I understand that in comparison to other nations we are rich. I realize that our poor or homeless may still be better off than the average poor or homeless person in India. I understand this, but this idea of homelessness and poverty is not one country's problem it is a universal problem. 

If we were truly a Christian nation (which in my opinion we never were), wouldn't we allow others to see where are incomplete the most?  Where we also struggle to help the least of these?

We have an image of having it all together when as a nation we really don't.

What has gone wrong?

On another note, people often refer to India and think of India as a place where there is material poverty-- yes it is true. But in India, I was also introduced to the idea of social or relational poverty. This is where one might have all the material gain but have poverty of the soul- where all the riches of the world could still not buy them the good relationships that human beings also need as relational beings.

I would say, that not only do we have material poverty, but we may also have greater relational poverty in the U.S. Despite all our money, we are no more of an example of how to live in love towards one another than our brothers and sisters in India.

Those are my thoughts for tonight... feel free to comment if you feel so inclined. :)

A bit crazy

The last  24 hrs have been a bit crazy. Yesterday we went shopping for all the ingredients needed to do our practical for cuisine. We started right at 10am and were not done cooking until around 12:45.  Needless to say, these dishes all take alot of work. We were able to pull most of the dishes off despite the chappati being a bit dry. I focused on the desert. It consisted of an evaporated milk mixture poured over butter toasted bread triangle with a sprinkling of cashews, pistachios and almonds. All of it goes into a bowl and then is given out individually in bowls with spoons. 

This week and next week consist of finals, projects, papers, buying a last few trinkets, saying goodbye to people in Coimbatore, candlelight ceremony(wearing a sari to it!), and packing.

Oh yeah and sleeping/resting if I can get around to it. :) 

A lot is going on right now and despite it I'm trying to stay positive. It's getting a lot hotter and stickier here; we've been trying to flood our apartment with the one working A/C we have in one of the rooms. It's better than waking up drenched in sweat in the morning so it's been helping. 

Thank for reading this. I know that it's been a while since I updated. Love to all!

The Perils of Help

Every Monday we have to submit a journal entry and this is my entry for today. 

The Perils of “Help”

When I selected to go to India, I knew that not only would I experience new and exciting things but also encounter challenges.

I have been challenged in my way of thinking about helping people. While I had the mindset of coming to India, to learn about the people and then to (in understanding) see in what ways that I might be able to serve, I have realized that this was a quite lofty goal. First, it takes quite a while to get to know the culture of the people you want to help and serve. I have been here for almost four months and I feel like I have just scratched the surface of how people work and think. Someone needs to be very invested and full of humility to truly learn and interact with people in the culture they live. I’ve also heard that even after living here for a while people continue to try to grasp the culture. This has been quite a challenge to my original thought that it was easy or at least easier to learn a people’s culture.

The second amendment I would like to make to my original idea of helping people is that maybe it’s not my place to help. While it may make me feel better about myself, that I’m “helping” it may be better to support the people who are doing good work here than to do it myself. After all, they know the culture, and the Indian way of doing things. Also, I might be more frustrated if I were to do it all myself because of misunderstandings between two cultures.

So, while I tried to not have the idea of this “savior complex” I think in some ways I still hold onto it. I’ve held onto it because it has given me worth as a person to see that I can “do something” that I see as beneficial. However, this may not, nor ever be the case for the people who I am trying to help serve. A question, which I have wrestled with, has been: Is there ever a place or point where an outsider’s help will truly be beneficial to the people? With the exception, that the giving of supplies in a Hurricane, or providing food for people in desperate times of immediate need can be beneficial, in the long run, the people within their own society must confront their own social issues and be the ones to change things.

In light of this, I see that as a person who cares about other people, it can also be a detriment to who I am. If I find my worth in serving the needs of others, then I’m not really finding my identity in Christ. While, Christ tells us to serve others it must be out of a true love for Him and nothing more, for if we depend on our need to serve others and what we can offer, we may fail in light of our own pride as we try to “help”.

Coming from this realization, I resonate with Samuel Johnson when he says, “the evils of dereliction rush upon the thoughts; man is made unwillingly acquainted with his own weakness and meditation show him only how little he can sustain, and how little he can perform”. I have realized my own weakness in thinking that I could change a whole lot and more of my motivation to make change. There is so much more that I still have to learn.

On another note, as Easter nears, I think of how the cherry blossoms must be blooming and I've missed home as I think about not being able to color easter eggs or have Easter dinner with my family and friends. I'm hoping we can figure out a new easter tradition here in India. Perhaps we can have some cake. It's been one of those things that has brought our group together for our birthdays and different holidays so far. :)

A day in my life: Cooking Class

It was 9:20 and class started at 9:30 and we had not left the apartment. Kelli and Kari were both hurriedly trying to copy down the recipe form the document we had received in our e-mail late that weekend. We were gone on a homestay and the printing place would not be open in time for us each ot get copies of the recipe. They finally put it on Kelli’s jump drive and we planned to just plug it into my laptop… we trotted down the stairs walked out past the cars. It takes about 15-20 minutes to walk to school so we all decided to squish into a rickshaw and pay 40 rupees to get to school. (50 rupees is pretty comparable to a dollar so you can see how great something like this can be in a hurry).  We gathered our money together and I was on my way out of the rickshaw when my curta caught something and tore. But there was no time to waste so we walked briskly across the dusty ground through the gate with the watchman, past the ISP office and across the open dusty arena where we went up the stiars to our cuisine class.  We had made it in good time. Giving or taking 5 minutes in Indian culture timewise is usually ok. There we met our teacher who explained the menu to us. After, we each took an item or two to focus on and it was decided that I do the chicken dish. With the help of one of the students I had to get all the fresh ingredients and spices, make a paste with them and then add them to the chicken which was then cooked. Fresh coconut milk and lime juice was then finally poured in to help make the gravy. After all the dishes were done we took a picture of our meal and then ate it ( with our right hands) for lunch. This is always the best part because we don't have to eat mess food which is average at best.

One of the best days :)

Feb. 14.2013

Today I had one of the best days I have ever had during my field placement.  I had the opportunity to visit a children’s school. Father Saby took me there from Karunai Illam  (Home of Compassion) since his brother Francis is the principal there. It is a school that has children spanning the age of two and a half to 6^th standard. They hope to expand to 12^th standard (age 17) in the coming years. There is currently construction of another building for them to expand. When I arrived in the first of their two buildings I was greeted by the students. One building holds the younger students (two and a half to four or so) and another separate building holds students from 1^st standard to 6^th standard.  I was given a formal welcome in the building which held the younger students. Two were selected to come up to the front and welcome me with a little memorized speech on behalf of the community. They also handed me a bouquet of flowers. Afterwards I taught them the action songs  “Jesus Loves Me” and “Father Abraham”. During this assembly prizes were also given to one boy in particular who had done well in a certain competition. Competitions no matter what year of schooling are HUGE here.

After this greeting ceremony, I went with Francis to the other building where the children start around first standard and go through sixth standard. I was ushered into his office where I sat and wrote out the lyrics to the songs I had taught the children in the other school for the teachers. (They had asked for the lyrics in particular to “Father Abraham”) There I met the dance teacher who comes on Thursdays to teach dance to some of the students. Her name was Sherin and we talked for a while about her family, education in dance, and her life. She went to dance school after her original schooling and proceeded to get her degree in dance. After talking with her I got the chance to have lunch with her the rest of the teachers. I ate their Indian food and it was probably some of the spiciest food I have ever tasted since I came here. One woman joked that I was drinking more water than actually eating the food.

After lunch I visited my first classroom where I introduced myself and taught them some songs. The teacher had her students call me Mamam. I taught the song “Jesus Loves Me” to them and “Every Move I Make”. In later classes I taught “The Princess Pat”. They really liked doing the “rigabamboo” part in the princess pat song and found it funny. Sometimes I would start with that part of the song to get them “loosened up” they giggled and smiled as they felt funny when first doing the motions. Also in the song “Every Move I Make” I did the Pharaoh motion for the na,na,na part back and forth across the room which they also really enjoyed. They also enjoyed when I turned around when I sang “ oh my God this love, how can it be?!”

I also gave them the opportunity to ask me questions about the U.S. and myself. The second class I visited was so eager to ask me questions. I had to take a moment to explain that I would answer all of them, but they had to ask me each one at a time. In later classes, I would ask if the children had pets (dogs, cats etc.) and they would each then raise their hands if they had one. They were eager to make a connection with me in similar interests. At times students would volunteer to sing songs for me. Among the songs sung for me were Jingle Bells, O Come All Ye Faithful and a version of Let It Shine. Before I left each classroom I made sure that I had a picture of the students in each classroom. The last classroom I visited some of the girls really showed their interest in me. They asked me if I was going to come back and I told them I didn’t know. They gave me a picture they had colored in and an origami box made from a scrap piece of paper. I was touched.

After meeting the students I was ushered over to Francis’ office and was given tea and snacks. I drink lots and lots of tea here! It’s so good. It’s a mixture of quite a bit of milk, tea and lot and lots of sugar. J I don’t think I go a day without drinking some sort of tea or coffee here. Indians like to have mid-afternoon tea and snacks. Not all of the Indian students get them in their classes but because we are guests we are often given tea in our classes.

The snacks included the fried rosette like cookies and some fruit bread like balls of sweets that originate in Kerala. I appreciated the gesture and through our conversation I learned more about the school and how it works. It seemed similar to that of the idea of Rivendell. Where students are taught to build character as well as do well in school. Teachers care for the students and are invested in their learning as well as work the parents to help their kids. It’s in it’s 3^rd year of running and is slowly yet gradually trying to expand. Teachers at the end of the day get together to talk about what went wrong and how the school can be improved. Francis was gracious enough to drop me off near my apartment.  On the way there he asked me about what I saw they could improve. I told him perhaps he could use more color on the walls and maybe use a buddy system in the classroom.

I really enjoyed my time there and I began to think about what it would be like if I became a teacher—even perhaps a teacher in India. I’m sure that would be very difficult. I’ll leave that in God’s hands for now.

I think this was the class that asked a lot of questions. :)

The girls in this picture gave me the gifts.

Also please note the polka dot red curta I'm wearing. Since it was Valentines Day I just had to wear red. I thought it would remind the kids of a ladybug. In middle school our devotions group with Mrs. King was also called ladybug devotions. Finally, the polka dots remind me of my mom. :)

Quick Update

Hey! So I haven't  had internet for the past few days here. I am writing via an internet cafe. I had a wonderful time yesterday at my placement where I got to meet and teach "action songs" as they call them here to the kids. I taught  them, Jesus love me, Every move I make and the princess patt which they all really enjoyed. I had a lot of fun and if I can get a chance to go back I will. On Ash Wednesday I went to an Indian Ash Wednesday service and took Indian communion for the first time. On valentines day  we ate home-made cake that Abby baked and watched She's The Man. Well, I g2g but just wanted to give you a quick update on my life. I hope everyone is well back home. Love, Prov.