Untouchable No More: Thoughts from the Classroom

7.25.2008

Thoughts from the Classroom

Day four of my fourth trip to India. Nothing particularly significant in that but I noticed it right away when I began to type. Today we had a short time at the school in the classrooms which basically involves doing anything to interact with kids in English…Ben Jones and I drew animals on the board and had the kids copy them on paper. One little boy thought the paper was a slate so erased everything he drew each time we started a new animal. Or singing an action song. Or playing hangman on the board. Or taking the kids outside to play a game. Then we were loaded onto bullock carts and given an hour jolting, bumpy, sun drenched ride to a tribal village. There, drummers and dancers greeted us to a beautiful performance, drawing us into the circle to join them.

While we have been at the school we have painted classrooms. This has been a new deal for all of us. Really runny paint (the fumes even make you feel a little fuzzy) and soft sponge rollers, the painters perched on rickety homemade ladders or stools stacked on tables, all a little rocky. We also get out into the play yard and use any of the many games we brought with us. You look out and see one of us surrounded by kids as we launch balloons from a launcher. Or another tossing one boy after another into the air. Hand clapping games, or blowing bubbles as the kids try to pop them before they hit the ground. Anything we do seems like the best fun to them. We have decided that they just like being touched and receiving attention from us.

There is no way to find words to clearly describe what it feels like to be here again. Inadequately then I’ll try. I am amazed at this team. Their good humor when it is truly blazing hot and sweating happens. A lot. The servant attitude displayed to each one. The politeness displayed in a culture we don’t totally understand. The ability to just dive into new food, classroom time, and lots of new relationships. I love coming back and being hugged with huge smiles by the friends I made before (and hugging is rare in this culture). Our favorite teacher was married since last year and works at another school. So he comes 3 hours with his wife in order for us to meet her and pray and blessing over them and to share in some wedding sweets. It is an enormous thing to me to travel so far and find friends (in plural!) waiting for me.

Lori

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Prayer

Here is how you can be praying for us.

- Pray for the Freedom of those oppressed by the Hindu caste in India.

- Pray for the continued support of the school. It is growing rapidly and despite all the expansion they've seen in facilities they're quickly outgrowing their facilities. They have big dreams to expand, pray for the support and funding to make it happen. It won't be on their own, they'll need a lot of help, but God has been faithful to provide thus far.

- Pray for the continued advance of the Gospel in an ever increasingly oppressed land.

Praise

Here is what we are praising God for

- We came together as a team. Held together by our Creator, we became a close-knit bunch.

- The school continues to grow! And there is no student in India who is getting a better education. (We may be a little biased but after seeing it first hand, I wouldn't doubt if it were true.) They continue to add students and teachers and have been able to expand the opportunities to teach and educate. And their dreams for the future are big!

- The Gospel is advancing!

much more to come...

Who we are

We are a group of adults and students from Nebraska who have been introduced to the idea that we are involved in an invisible world called the kingdom of God. Jesus Christ invited us to join Him on this narrow road that leads to a greater joy and fruit. Consequently being ruined for 'normal' living!

In 2003 we learned that there were millions of Indian Dalit who were cutting social and religious ties with Hinduism. The Christian Church offered what help they could. 'Educate our children' was the request. 'Even if our world-view is Biblical?' was asked. 'Yes!' was the response. So a group of Christian organizations committed themselves to operating schools for Dalit children. Our group knows a good challenge when we hear one. And this was big. More than 200 high school and college kids raised the money to build a school in 4 months!

The following summer it was decided we should go see where the school would be built and become acquainted with the teachers and students who were studying in a rented cattle barn. Hearing the teachers and leaders tell us that we were the first Americans they had met who 'followed' their money made us see this relationship differently. God had prompted us to send some money, but He was also very interested in us having our own lives change.

Each year we have taken a team of 10 or so to be in the school for a week. We plant ourselves in the classrooms to watch the teachers creatively educate these swarms of beautiful and unruly children with very few props. To watch the children grow and become brilliant and bilingual!

We return from our time there with our value system tweaked. We are more grateful for what we have, less consumer-oriented. We find that we are really impatient with ourselves for being petty or self-absorbed. India haunts us because we find that the same Spirit that is growing us up in Him here is at work there wrestling people away from death and slavery.