Filed under: India
This is our team, with our friend, Deshpande. He’s a part of the Truthseekers team in Delhi. He walked the streets and train stations with us, translated for us, insisted on carrying our luggage, took an ailing team member to see a doctor late at night, and many other things for which we’re grateful.
Deshpande’s desire to serve others is constantly evident. But his love for God and people also expresses itself in a unique, and difficult calling. He is beginning a ministry in Delhi to reach out to India’s eunuch and prostitute community. In India, the eunuchs, or hijras as they are referred to, consider themselves a third gender. Very rarely will someone be born that way . . . all the rest are adopted into the hijra community through an “operation,” which is actually a ritual that I won’t go into here (for the strong-stomached, you can read about the process here – there is also a thorough description of the hijra culture). For the most part, hijras are male homosexuals, who join this community after being rejected by their families for refusing to marry and have children.
The hijras have a recognized (and feared) role in society. They show up at weddings 
and births to pronounce “blessings,” which usually come at a high price. People usually pay up, partly just to get rid of them, and partly to avoid being cursed by them. Hijras are often flamboyant and belligerent, and take advantage of society’s discomfort with them. They are as low as you can get in India.
Deshpande has befriended several of these people, and has worked to express love and grace toward them. Unfortunately, our planned time to go with Deshpande to visit them had to be cancelled due to illness, so we didn’t meet the hijras personally. But one day I was able to spend a couple of hours, just listening to Deshpande’s heart and his stories that communicated compassion. He’s in a difficult place, though, because he needs help. He can’t do this work alone – not only are there too many people for that, but he needs the encouragement of supportive co-workers. If you’re the praying type, I’d ask that you pray for Deshpande today. I’ve encouraged him to continue staying faithful to his work through Truthseekers, and allow God to bring others to work with him in due time.
An architect has just announced plans to build three skyscrapers – one in Dubai, one in Moscow, and one in New York. Each floor moves independently, has wind turbines between each floor that generate enough electricity for the building (and then some), and can be built with fewer workers in just over half the time compared to a normal high rise. This picture is one building, not five. Follow the link below for more pics.
“Paging Mr. Jetson. Mr. George Jetson, your apartment has arrived.”
Filed under: books, conference, culture, denomination, innovation, technology
Even though I’m significantly out of my element, I often stumble through blog posts by Robert Scoble, who is a self-admitted “tech geek.” He’s always got a strong opinion on what’s going on in the high tech world – some people like him, some don’t. Though he’s seems to be a much nicer guy, you might think of him as the Chris Matthews of tech.
He posted an interesting entry today on what he calls “The Silicon Valley VC Disease.” He mentions some current thinking by venture capitalists when it comes to funding startups that make applications for trendy, potentially flavor-of-the-month things like the iPhone and Facebook.
What is the disease? That you must make bucketloads of money (or at least have a shot at doing that) in the first two years of business.
If you have a plan to make just a reasonable amount of money, or if it will take decades to make a big amount of money, don’t come to Silicon Valley.
What interested me in this post was how true his statements are of church planting in North America. The difference being, if you were to swap “venture capital funding” for “denominational church plant funding,” and “money” for “church attendees.” For example, let’s rework the above quote (with apologies to Scoble):
What is the disease? That you must [have boatloads of people in your church] (or at least have a shot at doing that) in the first two years [after the church launches].
If you have a plan to just have a reasonable number of relationships, or if it will take decades to make a big [church], don’t try planting a church.
I remember Hugh Halter saying something pretty close to this recently (I don’t recall if it was at a conference I attended, or if it’s in his excellent book, The Tangible Kingdom). His point was that it often takes the first couple of years for a church planter to develop enough core friendships of depth in order to even think about going public, but by then the denominational (and often, other partner) funding has dried up, and the church planter is in a scramble for what to do. As an added bonus, the church planter is made to feel like a slacker/failure/loser for not having “succeeded” according to a standard he/she didn’t even create.
This is yet another example of Christendom-mentality church mirroring big business in our culture in some pretty unhealthy ways.
Am I off base on this? Let me know what you think.
For the second time in the past three weeks I found myself driving Michelle to the airport this morning for a weekend away. A couple weeks ago, it was a quick trip to San Diego to see family and her new horse. This time it’s a quick trip to Milwaukee for a family funeral. She found out this week that her uncle died, and it’s an uncle that she spent a lot of time with throughout her life, so it’s good for her to be able to go.
So, here I am, a bachelor once again. Last time, I was dead tired, having just barely gotten off the plane myself from three weeks away, so in terms of productivity, I was essentially a waste of space. This time, I’m hoping to be super productive. I really need to get into a momentum groove with my dissertation writing. If I can do a few hours worth of research, a couple hours worth of tight outlining, and about five or six hours writing, I should be in a good spot. Basically, I decided that I need to do some amount of writing every day until I’ve got this thing in the can – it doesn’t have to be more than a page or two per day, and it doesn’t even have to be stellar writing . . . but something that I can at least go back to and work with.
Last week as I walked around Green Lake with my friend Eliacin, he told me about something that the Mustard Seed Associates are brewing up – an alternative calendar. From their website: “We would like to highlight ways to celebrate the ordinary events of life – not putting emphasis on the negative but on the positive; giving them a Christian focus.”
They’ve got some examples, but need some more input. So, get creative and go submit your ideas! I would personally LOVE it if this alternative calendar had fewer Mondays and more Fridays. Of course, I suppose that Tuesdays would become the new Mondays, but you can’t hate on a guy for trying.
This morning, an appliance repair man came to fix our oven, which has been limping along for the past few months. Since he was on the spot anyway, I had him look at our microwave oven, which went on the fritz while I was away for three weeks.
Oven repair? No problem.
Microwave oven? Apparently, this piece of equipment, which was manufactured less than four years ago (according to the serial number info on the back), will cost around $120 to repair. Why? Because the part that needs to be replaced costs $85. I remember purchasing this microwave when we moved to Seattle – we paid $60 or $70 for it. How is it possible to sell a new microwave for less than the cost of the parts?
Any normal American would say, “Well, I guess I’ll just throw the old one away and buy a new one – it’s cheaper.” But this pains me. It’s not even four years old, is still pristine white, and has no business taking up space at a landfill. Having had recent firsthand experience, I can tell you that in other parts of the world, people actually do repair things like this, because they are valued more highly.
This frustration makes me want to do one of the following:
1. Do a web search for the part, and try opening the microwave up myself to fix it. Not a great option for someone who is a total hack at mechanical things.
2. Try to find a nonprofit organization that does vocational rehab/training, and donate it to them. Maybe they can get some training and/or resale value out of it.
3. Put it on Craig’s List. This is likely to yield a bunch of inquiries from people who search the listings for free stuff, repair it themselves (perhaps with used parts they’ve gutted from other throwaways), then sell it in a garage sale.
4. Rant about it on my blog, suck it up, and just go buy a new one for $60-$70.
Filed under: media
. . . but I watched this show last night for the first time. Laughed uncontrollably. It’s totally not the kind of show I’d normally enjoy – not usually into slapstick humor. I need to never watch the show again . . . but I just might get suckered in.
O.k., this post is a quickie. One of the funny, unexpected things about meeting and talking with people in India was their interest in the U.S. presidential election this year. More often than not, when I would meet someone on the street or in a shop or wherever, they would ask, “Where are you from?” Resisting the temptation to say, “Canada,” I would tell them I was from the U.S. Upon hearing this, I would rapidly get peppered with questions like, “Is Obama going to win?” I’d tell them that the polls were close, and we’d have to wait and see, but I’m pretty sure everyone I talked to said they hoped Obama would win. It’s very clear to me that if India could vote in our elections, McCain (known in India as “Who’s that?”) could start his retirement planning early.
Obama seems to be as popular in India as he is in the emerging church.
Filed under: India
About a week and a half into our time in India, we boarded a train for a 13 hour overnight trip to central India. We were in one of the nicer trains – air conditioned, 
sleeper cars. The train cars have multiple sleeper sections, which are shared by eight or nine people – each with it’s own “bed.” Gettin’ cozy with strangers! But having seen the second class cars (no AC, and a heckuva lot cozier with a LOT more strangers), we were quite content with our travel accommodations. The picture to the train station – masses of people crashed out everywhere, waiting to get on board the packed trains.
We got off the train in a city called Indore. Pretty big town, but nothing compared to Delhi. We were there to participate in a two-day seminar for Dalits and OBCs (see my previous post on caste if you don’t know what those terms mean). Our train had arrived late, so we were a bit late arriving at the seminar. When we got there, Sunil said to me, “O.k., so we’re going to start the afternoon part of the seminar now, and you’re on.” Awesome!! Time for a little improv! I’m sorry, the holy man in meant to write, “Time to let the Spirit lead.”
This part of the trip was good in some ways and uncomfortable in other ways. Good in the sense that prior to that point, we had mainly been learning, experiencing, soaking things in, but not really doing anything in terms of giving ourselves away to others or blessing them. It was good to be of some service to people. It was uncomfortable in a couple ways. First, I have some really mixed feelings about being brought in front of anyone to speak or whatever, for the sole reason that I’m white or American or whatever – I had to deal with the fact that whether I’m comfortable with it or not, it is a big deal to people there that we know about the issues they face and that we care about them. We sat at a table in front of a room full of beautiful people (men sitting on one side of the room, and women on the other). It was also uncomfortable in the sense that a couple of our team members are pretty introverted, and having to speak to a room full of people doesn’t exactly come naturally to them. We did our best, and hopefully were and encouragement to people who need to experience real freedom from caste and oppression.
On day two of the seminar, other than once again sitting at a table in front of the audience, we didn’t have a big role until the end. As things were coming to a close, Sunil talked the people through coconut communion, and then offered it to the people. Once again, it was a powerful experience.
After this, Sunil invited several men and women – all Dalits or OBCs to come to the front of the room and be seated in chairs. Our team had the honor of washing their feet. As we poured water over them and rubbed their feet to clean them, we were able to speak blessings into their lives and share our love for them. For some of them, it was a shocking, difficult experience – they’ve been well trained by Brahmanism to know that washing feet is their job, and certainly nothing to even be fathomed as for them, particularly if performed by someone “above” them. A couple of them really resisted, and were in disbelief. Tears flowed.
It was amazing to see the difference in peoples’ demeanor toward us from before the foot washing to afterwards. Before, they would look at us curiously, but for the most part, not approach us. Afterwards, we were swarmed with requests for handshakes and pictures. The warmth and hospitality of these people cannot be overstated.
One of the primary things we went to India to learn about was the caste system, and how to overcome it. It’s difficult to convey to Westerners just how pervasive the caste system is there, and how difficult it is to overcome it. The closest comparison for people in North America is racism . . . except that with caste, it’s racism on major steroids, and it’s much more random, given that you don’t know someone’s caste just by looking at them. You have to learn family names, regions, etc. before being able to label someone.
We met lots of folks from a variety of caste backgrounds. As is typically the case, the people who have the power and privilege will usually downplay the extensiveness of the problem, and live their lives as though the problem doesn’t exist. But you don’t have to scratch very far below the surface to see things amiss. People say “Oh, no, I don’t believe in caste,” but if you ask them if they would ever consider marrying outside of their caste, or how many low-caste homes they’ve spent time in, or how they feel about the reservation system (which is the Indian equivalent to affirmative action), you’ll get a very different response. I met at least three people who had been completely cut off from their families for having married outside of their caste.
There are castes for everything – street sweepers, farmers, cobblers, rodent hunters, c
adaver removers, everything. The picture here is a typical street sweeper.
The so-called “untouchables,” or Dalits, are actually considered outside of the caste system . . . because you have to actually be human in order to be in the caste system. Dalits are considered “talking animals,” and therefore, on the outside. As it turns out, this actually gives them some advantages (if you could call them advantages) over low caste people – because the low caste people are actually locked in. These low castes are known officially in India by the term OBCs. What does OBC stand for? “Other Backward Castes.” That’s right.
The degree to which caste has captured the identity of people is staggering. Dalits and OBCs don’t even conceive that they’re living under oppression. They’ve been well trained to accept their fate (actually, their karma) and hope for a better go ’round in their next lives. Meanwhile the upper caste people (a mere ten to twelve percent of the population in India) go through life happily oblivious, often denying the reality that their comfort costs others dearly.
Lest I come across as judgmental, allow me to out myself. I will freely admit that I would have described American racism in much softer terms prior to Hurricane Katrina than after. Why? Because I’m a white, middle class, male – I don’t have to think about being a power holder if I don’t want to. Katrina woke me up to a different reality than I would have believed before. Again, racism in the West is a far cry from caste, but that’s all I’ve got for now.
Oh, and for the sake of clarity, it’s also important to note that caste is so pervasive that it transcends Hinduism. Sadly, caste is alive and well in Muslim, Sikh, and yes, Christian communities.
I’ll write another time about a very small thing we did that demonstrated how locked into the caste mentality the Dalits and OBCs are.
