So I landed in India only to spend most of my first day at the airport waiting for friends to arrive. Around 11:00pm, as I stood waiting at the arrivals for my friends Olivia, Chelsea and Katy, I heard someone yell “Olivvvv…” at a girl coming out, I too thought could have been Olivia. I overheard this young girl talking to her male friend, and I went over to her and said, “Are you hear picking up three Americans?” She said, “I’m picking up four.” And I said, “I’m the fourth.” We laughed about it and I introduced myself to Erica and David, two young Indians with “anglo-names”, as they put it.

Finally, the girls came out and we went to our first of many fine American establishments that have found their way onto Indian soil—McDonald’s. I don’t know why I find myself in a McDonald’s after landing in these foreign countries, but I do. And more than once, it seems. After word they took us to our hotel in Northern Mumbai and we got some rest for the next day.

The next day, we met up with Jonathan, one of two brothers whose mother runs a school that teaches slum children. They teach the kids basics so that they can have a way to enter into the Indian school system, as there is no other way they would know the basics while living in the slums. This school is Christian and the parents know this, so we went in and I was asked to teach a Bible story. I told the kids about David and Goliath and got to act it out with one of the little boys. He was David with a slingshot and he knocked me down and killed me! Afterwards, the students sang a song in Hindi about David and Goliath. We then got to hear them sing a song to us, and then one of the girls later taught us the song. It was a great time hearing from the Joshua’s mom how they have been doing this school for 14 years now. Some of the kids have come back to thank them after they have graduated from school. It’s an amazing to hear that there are lives be changed, one by one, through education and Jesus.

You can see some of the photos of the kids in my other post.

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations–these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit–immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of the kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously–no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinners–no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat, the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.

— C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

January declared U.S. anti-trafficking month
U.S. President Barack Obama has declared January 2012 as National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month.

Nigeria Christians hit by fresh Islamist attacks
Nigeria has been hit by a fresh wave of violence apparently targeting the country’s Christian communities.

Why is the US marriage rate falling sharply?
For the first time in memory, unmarried Americans will soon outnumber those who are married, according to the latest research. So is this a watershed moment?

Afghanistan’s poor face difficult decisions amid winter cold
Seasonal hardship is nothing new for Afghans, but a combination of factors is making this winter harder to bear as the number of displaced soars in Kabul.

I just landed in Mumbai, a city known as The City of Dreams. I write this 2012 post from the airport, waiting for the rest of the team, but this city is also known for its Extreme Poverty. It is India’s largest city, but that also means that many come here to work or looking for work, but where few find this kind of stability.

As we flew into the city, I remembered the Light, Love and Sound that I carry and prayed over Mumbai and India, a nation deeply loved by God. As I exited the plane and made it through customs on the way to get my luggage, I could see ahead of me a lone little boy no older than four or five, crying so loud it echoed on the marble just outside the Duty Free gift shop. His mother was walking ahead of him, when all of a sudden a man, presumably his father, came up behind him and smacked him across the head and face. The boy went silent for the slightest second, pausing only to suck in enough air that in the next instant, his cry became a scream and it was even louder than before.

I wanted to stare, but I walked forward looking on. But a song rose up within me…

“He loves you, oh, how He loves you…” I sang it under my breathe to the child.

But then, the Holy Spirit reminded me of the man and his own depravity, and I sang those same lines over him. It was this quickening of the Spirit to remind me that the father is loved by God as much as the man’s son is loved. Each need to know how much they are loved, but also what love looks like.

It’s easy to see poverty—of clothes, of food, of money, of love, of spirit, of conscience. But we’re called to be people who see His love and call it forth in our surrounding and in our spheres of life.

For more information on Mumbai, check out this article from The Guardian by Sadie Gray.

Maybe you have never thought about it, but all creativity that is refreshing and beautiful comes from a place of love. The two are interwoven. We are affectionate towards our ideas, our media and our craft. Without this love and affection, the creative processes become mechanistic. Without love, all that should flow naturally and organically becomes plastique.

However, if we were to spend our energies focusing on the things we love, this is also the best way to let the fears of failure go. If we let this love be perfected in us, the fears all disappear. Today, find those loves and then ones you do, extend your hand to give it all away. The world needs a whole lot more lov’in, and the more love that can be expressed through the creativity of your life, the better off you will be and our world will be.