Movies, Mumbai and Malawi

Daniel and I have started our 2009 off right…lots of rest, lots of time together, good eating and time with friends! This afternoon we hung out with our friends Becky and Tony. After catching up over coffee we decided to go to a movie that they recommended called “Slumdog Millionaire”. It was a good movie for sure, but not one that you would expect to start crying in the middle of or expect would make you reflect on a decade of life experiences…but for some reason it did for me.
To give you a preface, the movie was set in the slums of Mumbai, India. I have been to Mumbai, twice in fact, but neither times did my visit have anything to do with the movie that I was watching. It did have to do with orphan boys from the slums, many of which I have crossed paths with before…hence the start of my reflection.

See, it was 11 years ago this week that I found myself a part of a team moving throughout the country of India and falling in love with her people! We landed in Delhi a few minutes before midnight on New Years Eve 1997; little did I know that this trip to India would change me forever as well as my understanding of God’s love and grace for all people.

For the 1st week our group stayed and worked at the orphanage in Kota, Rajasthan (where I would find myself living in 1998-1999). The 2nd week we traveled to southern India to the state of Kerala, and met with Christ-followers there, encouraging them and helping them with different aspects of outreach in their city. It was the last night in India on this trip that impacted me the most. We were resting and relaxing at a hotel in the big city of Mumbai, waiting for our midnight flight to Amsterdam and then back home to the U.S.

It was during this down time that I found myself pacing the hotel roof looking out over the city of Mumbai, watching and listening to the nightlife of the 3rd largest slum in the world! I watched the slum children playing cricket in their bare feet, the ‘holy’ cows roaming the alleys for food, the moms carrying their crying babies on their hips, the rickshaw’s honking as they maneuvered through the crowded streets and then I stood still...my passion for the people below on the streets crowded my thoughts. I stood still and thought about how much God loved these people, and that He loved them just as much as He loved me. I remember so clearly my prayer to God in those very moments. I asked Him (and maybe even pleaded with Him) to allow me to be a part of the way He was working in the world in making Himself known. I remember telling Him that I would go wherever He wanted me to go to usher in His peace, love, hope and grace (a process that I was still figuring out for myself) to those that had never knew it was available. I am sure there were tears in those moments on the roof--the beginning mark of my passion for the people of India and the world.

What a great moment in my life! As we start off 2009, my prayer is the same for this year as it was for 1998 on top the roof in Mumbai. I am humbled that He has used me in many ways these last 11 years and even more humbled that despite all my flaws, insecurities and failures He still is pointing me towards where He is working…this time in Malawi, Africa. 2009 will be a great year!