I stand here on the roof looking out over the night of this city in India. There are twinkling lights off in the distance, a flat land filled with beautiful people who have yet to be told of their worth and power. Young men on motorcycles, buzzing past old men walking slowly and silently on the side of the road. Women in saris on the street, climbing into autos with their families. Hindu chants, square buildings with open windows, constant car horns. Temples of idolatry, a god for everything and all, falsehoods rampant in a place so desperately in need of the truth. God’s breeze floating through the street over it all.
Walking the street with skirts past our ankles and baggy shirts sticking to us with sweat, people watch us thinking all different things. “They are blessed, they are promiscuous, they are American.” We drop our gaze before the men out of expectation and necessity, acknowledging our place before them. Sometimes I glare back for longer than I should, trying to tell them with my eyes, “I refuse to move, I am not weak, I will not succumb. You have no authority over me. Your eyes are not my truth.”
Twice a day we walk past “tent city” on the way to work, and twice a day we walk past it again on the way home. The children flood out of their colorful tarp homes and up from their woven mats when they see us coming. We are easily overwhelmed by their numbers, which i love because it’s so Jesus. Their beautiful hands, cracked and cakey with dirt, pull us every which way. They all–every single one–must shake our hands. In broken English they say, “Hello, America! How are you! I love you, darling!” We blow kisses and they catch them on their cheeks. My absolute favorite part is when I spot the child who looks to shy to come up to us, or who maybe feels like we won’t care about them. The one in the back holding a stick, eyes big and brown and curious and sad. So I walk up, kneel down, and the tickling begins. When they smile and wave us goodbye, that is when I feel the love of Jesus.
One story below me are children whose files say abandoned, whose parents decided at 6 hours old and without a name that these lives aren’t worth investment, parenting, love. Children deserted at a train station because with only a few moments under their hands their sickness labeled them as cursed. Precious babies who are deemed untouchable, left in a government bathroom to cry where no one can hear them. Skin and bones and nothing more. A government official who says that these kids are determined by a stamp. Hot tears of anger spring up looking at the newspaper articles they’ve been in, knowing the parents have seen those and still haven’t cared to claim them. Yet even more powerful are the tears of joy which streamed down my face when we found out we’d be filling out adoption papers. Regardless of what the world has told them, these kids are good enough because God created them, every single fiber of who they are, and says forevermore, “You are good.” They smile and you see God. Show me the hands of an orphan and I will show you the open arms of a Father.
I declare that these children will be adopted. I declare that the sick will be healed. I declare that the dead will be raised. I declare that the naked will be clothed. I declare reckless love over this city, over our hands, over the parents who left these children, over the courageous who will adopt them, over the temples, over the alleys, over those who stare. Over every moment and opportunity let there be love. In the breeze there is love, in His sun there is love, in His dirt there is love and we will see that and declare it.
I refuse to grow tired of the heat
of the bugs around my face
of the black dirt deep in my nails
of the constant sweat
of the exhaustion–
for here is when I find the love of Jesus.
“This is the story of the Son of God hanging on a cross for me
But it ends with a bride and groom at a wedding by a glassy sea
Oh, death where is your sting?
For I’ll be there singing holy, holy, holy is The Lord.”
