Mobius

There is poor, and then there is Bihar. None of us can imagine the struggle it is to simply survive here. There is no thriving, simply surviving. I'm not really sure that there is anything I could write that would explain it. I remember my first time, three years ago, witnessing the poverty in Assam. At times it was almost crushing to ones spirit. The second year I was able to keep that steam from coming to a boil. I hadn't gotten hardened to it. I had just learned to accept it as something that simply is. And now, seeing an even deeper poverty, something I couldn't have fathomed even existed............. well, it's just hard. At the end of the day you are emotionally drained from the strain of not breaking down in front of the people you are here to serve.

Today Alicia and I were on a team that visited the home of a man that was suffering badly from tuberculosis. We shared with his family in the humble courtyard of their home. There were about 20 present from the extended family and neighbors and even though we were the big attraction, so to speak, you could feel that the concern for their father was really the only thing on their mind. We prayed over him before we left.

Indian believers have a way of praying that can seem odd to us Americans. It's often their habit for everyone to pray their own individual prayers out loud, everyone at the same time. This is what we did at this mans bedside today. I don't have much Hindi so I can't be sure what my brothers were praying. Besides, I was concentrating on my own prayers.

For whatever reason, I'm always hesitant to pray for a healing. My prayer today was, if it was in God's will, this man be healed, but whatever the outcome, that God would be glorified. I prayed for his family as I know that having the man out of commission, whether due to sickness or due to death, would make life even more of a struggle for this family, as hard as that is to imagine.

By the time we got back to our hotel about three hours later, we found out he had passed away shortly after we left them.

I can't say that I have a lot of spiritual gifts but the one my friend Mark has accused me of is empathy. That has proved helpful a lot of times when I'm trying to negotiate a situation as it helps me to see things from other peoples points of view. Other times, like tonight as I sit late at night in a dark hotel lobby, typing through tears and feeling the pain of a desperately poor and struggling family who has just lost their father, husband, brother, and breadwinner, this gift to feel others pain really sucks.

 

 

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