Thursday Morning
Good morning from India. It is Thursday morning and we are about to embark on our last day of formal teaching for our pastors' conference. It has been a nicely paced week of teaching and fellowshipping with those here in India. It has also been a week of learning for those of us leading this conference.
Yesterday we went into the inner city of Bangalore and visited one of the slum areas and were given a lesson in poverty that was not spoken with words from a furloughed missionary or read from a Christian magazine describing the plight of those struggling in foreign lands. Instead, we experienced poverty through our sensory perceptions of seeing, smelling, and feeling. We saw beautiful children who without the assistance of donated monies and people willing to give of their time, would never be afforded the opportunity to learn and have the chance at a job that one day may pull them up and out of their present impoverished position in life. We also smelled the stench of open sewers and bodily excrement that line the streets that we walked down. We also felt the hands of children who clamored for our attention and would hold out their hands to be touched. It is very hard not to be changed after experiencing such poverty and near hopelessness through the senses we use to see a sunset, smell a hot baked apple pie, and touch our own precious children with.
Yet, there was hope in the middle of such oppressive heartache and misery in the form of those giving of their time to teach these children, tend to the sick in an open clinic, and minister the lost with a message of hope through Christ Jesus our Lord.
Thank you for the opportunity you have allowed me to be taught again. I hope this message will not fall away as another Christian writing about the plight of those struggling in foreign lands, but will encourage others to give of their time, money, and effort to go themselves and experience not the plight of poverty but the hope in we have in our risen savior Christ Jesus our Lord.
Truett Nimmons
Yesterday we went into the inner city of Bangalore and visited one of the slum areas and were given a lesson in poverty that was not spoken with words from a furloughed missionary or read from a Christian magazine describing the plight of those struggling in foreign lands. Instead, we experienced poverty through our sensory perceptions of seeing, smelling, and feeling. We saw beautiful children who without the assistance of donated monies and people willing to give of their time, would never be afforded the opportunity to learn and have the chance at a job that one day may pull them up and out of their present impoverished position in life. We also smelled the stench of open sewers and bodily excrement that line the streets that we walked down. We also felt the hands of children who clamored for our attention and would hold out their hands to be touched. It is very hard not to be changed after experiencing such poverty and near hopelessness through the senses we use to see a sunset, smell a hot baked apple pie, and touch our own precious children with.
Yet, there was hope in the middle of such oppressive heartache and misery in the form of those giving of their time to teach these children, tend to the sick in an open clinic, and minister the lost with a message of hope through Christ Jesus our Lord.
Thank you for the opportunity you have allowed me to be taught again. I hope this message will not fall away as another Christian writing about the plight of those struggling in foreign lands, but will encourage others to give of their time, money, and effort to go themselves and experience not the plight of poverty but the hope in we have in our risen savior Christ Jesus our Lord.
Truett Nimmons
posted by CUMC Team | 8:15 PM
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