In the morning I wake up early to the sound of car horns and
Hindi music and stray dogs; 75 degrees and usually pretty breezy. I walk outside, and talk to my Indian
neighbors in broken English, and then go eat things for breakfast that I can’t
even pronounce. I make my way around the
streets of this third-world city flooded with color and noise and busyness like
it’s my job. I am 100% a minority here,
and just about everywhere I go I could easily count at least 86453948603 big
brown intrigued eyes staring intently at
me. I guess white people don’t come to
Calcutta very often. And not that I have
been here all too long yet I guess, but in it’s own way, something about it all
just seems normal. Well…this morning it
sort of hit me.
I live a very unlikely life.
I was sitting on a side street near our little cement house
with headphones in and a good book, sort of watching the activity going on in
and out. I stopped and really looked at my surroundings for the first time, and
all I could think to myself is, “huh, this is very unlikely.”
I am a young American person living my day-to-day life in a
third-world city in Southeastern Asia. Less
than two months ago, I was doing the same thing in East Africa. Everyday I love on 24 little kids who call me
“Auntie.” I figure that is a little unlikely. What I find more unlikely though is that God called me to
this. Not just to be here, but to lead a team of other college girls in
life and ministry.
We live here in the city.
Now, I have never been one for cities, so I think it is interesting that
not only am I living in one, but in a foreign one. While here in the city, a big part of our
ministry is tutoring the boys at Asha every day after school and helping them
study for exams. Now, I am by no means a
teacher, nor do I have any talent or gifting in this area. Out of all the kids here, most learning basic
English and elementary math, I work with an older boy named Salem…teaching him science and advanced
Algebra. Ask my high school math teacher
– this is very unlikely. There actually
probably aren’t many things that I am less qualified for. I am in India teaching math to a teenage boy
who speaks broken English. Unlikely,
yes. Why did God choose me to do
this? Then it hit me again…
I serve a very unlikely God.
How awesome it is to serve the Lord. How unlikely is it that our God is the God
who created the earth and it’s surrounding galaxies, gave the birds a voice to
sing, pieced together intricate life out of atoms and molecules, and yet, knows
the number of hairs on my head. Not because He has to, but because He chooses
to. How unlikely that He is all-
knowing, all-loving, the ultimate Judge, but also the ultimate Giver of mercy.
things. That He doesn’t call the
qualified, He qualifies the called. I
don’t have to be a born leader or Bible scholar or a mathematician to be
here. I get to follow God’s call, and
let Him take care of the rest.
So here I am. Calcutta, India. Leader, evangelist, math teacher, city slicker…sure, maybe a little odd when you think about it. But then again, we weren’t called to live conventionally. And at this point, it’s hard to see my life any other way than completely unlikely.
