A follow up to two posts ago: wrestling with the fact there's so much to do.

We've been home now almost a week longer than we were gone. Both lengths of time have gone by in a flash. The questions get easier to answer. The answers get harder to wrestle with. Life moves on at a dizzying pace and the questions stay. They never leave. They hound your every waking moment. Your way of life, they way you view things is different. The focus (as a photographer speaking) shifts from a nice, clean American image to ... something completely not American in every sense. Well not every sense because so many of them want to be like us. And that's what's really scary. I want to be more like the people I visited. But the people I saw and didn't interact with wanted to be more like me. We don't need more of me.

How do we wrestle with these questions? These expectations? What questions are we wrestling with? Well, for those of us who have gone before it's what's next? What do we do with what we saw, experienced? There's so much more to do. There's so much being done. And we've had a hand in it. No matter how insignificant we may feel it is. The reality is though, it isn't insignificant. It means so much to them.

Picture this with 5 times as many students.

And this four stories tall.








And 10 school buses (they have 2 now)








It was asked of me, and I'm sure several others as well: "What can you really do over there?" Well, frankly, we can change the direction of an entire country. And I don't think I'm being overly dramatic. We've been graced by God with an incredible privilege of joining with this little school in this little town in remote India (and by the way, it's the flagship school, the one every school after it will be modeled) and bring them something that they haven't had in literally 3,000 years. Let that sink in. Just 7 years ago, these children would have had no opportunity for an education. Many of them would have been sold into forced labor or worse by now. Nearly all of them. Their families are sacrificing to send them to school for the hope of a better future, a hope that is largely foreign to them. Many of them may not understand much of what this opportunity is, but they know it's better than what they've had and that's what they want. And this is also opening doors for the gospel. Wide, wide open. It's spreading, powerfully.

I don't know what my role is beyond the past two weeks. But I know that I will be involved. Many of you have been involved too. And hopefully you will continue to be. We can't stop now. We can't slow down. They have no more room for any more students. And more students are coming. Some of us will go back and teach. Some of us will go back in a similar capacity that we just returned from. Others will go back and take others with them. Some of you may come with us. Some of us have given money. We'll all continue to do that. There's so, so much to do.