Another Mosaic Thought

Today I will be leading a session on brokenness with the girls  I work with.  I thought I would share it with you too.

Show my broken mug with the handle missing.  Ask if the mug is still usable.  We could glue the handle back on and use it, but it might break again.  Would you give it to a guest to use?  What could you use it for?   Then take a hammer and pretend to break it.  Now what can we use it for?  It is just a bunch of broken pieces.  We have to be careful with the pieces because they could cut us.  We usually just throw the pieces away.

We are all broken.  Some of us have  just have one big break in our  life, like the handle of the mug.  We  may still be usable like we are or easy to fix.  But there will always be a crack in us that is weaker because of the break.

Brokenness usually comes from other people.  Tear up a paper doll cut out of a magazine.  Not many mugs just break by itself, but usually someone does something that causes the mug to break.  Maybe the person doesn't mean to hurt the mug but they are not careful with it and it breaks.  Or maybe someone wants to destroy the mug so they take a hammer to it to break it.

Once we are broken it is not easy to fix us.  Tear up another paper doll.  It isn't like we can go to a doctor and he can glue all our parts back together.  It takes a long time.  Love is the glue that holds us together. 

We will not be the same as we were before.  Start gluing the pieces of the paper doll to a coloring page of a fish.  But we will be beautiful!  We will be different.  When we were like the mug, before we were broken, we probably only thought we would be a mug and never imagined being something that is beautiful that people admire. 

Brokenness does not need fixing.  Brokenness changes us.  It is the beginning of something new.  Show the finished product of the fish mosaic made from broken dolls.

Show picture of Laxmi -  Acid attack survivor  
When Laxmi was 15 when a man who wanted to marry her but she refused, threw acid on her.  He was sentenced 4 years later to 10 years in prison.  For many years Laxmi just hid out at home, depressed and ashamed of her looks.  Her friends stopped coming by.  Relatives even avoided her.  But finally she decided to start really living again.  She took tailoring courses and opened a shop up.  And now she wants to go on Indian Idol and sing.  She has also helped pass a ban on the selling of acid and she speaks up about the horror that happens from the attacks.

Show picture of Shweta -  Red-light district, abuse survivor

Shweta was raised in a brothel as her mother is a prostitute.  She was also abused by customers and taunted at school.   A local NGO came into the red-light district to offer a way out for the children.  The children were given the opportunity to be housed and schooled.  Shweta got a good education and decided to dedicate her life to helping make change.  She received a scholarship to study in America and will come back to help the ladies in the red-light area find new opportunities of employment and give counseling to them.


I couldn't get the pictures to go where they were suppose to go.  Oh well. 

Freedom

Today is India's Independence Day.  We are celebrating 67 years of freedom from British rule.  Many lives were lost in our struggle for independence.  In fact, the area we live in is called Freedom Fighters because there are graves here for those who gave their lives for freedom.

Yesterday the girls at the home I work at had a celebration for Independence Day.  They sang songs, did skits, danced, and read poems.  It was a very touching celebration.  They weren't just celebrating the freedom of India, but they were celebrating another kind of freedom.  The freedom they experienced being rescued out of sex trafficking.  And it was beautiful!

One of the skits they performed had a girl that was illiterate crying on the street for someone to help her.  Then someone came along to give her freedom by teaching her to read.  Another example was a 12 year old girl whose mother wanted to marry her off.  But someone came and told the mother that she should let her daughter grow up and get education before she gets married.  And there was the child domestic servant who was beaten in the home and not paid, and someone came and rescued her out of that.  And finally there was the girl who went off with a guy who treated her nicely and then he sold her into prostitution.  She was despairing of her life.  Then someone came and offered her freedom.  For a minute she didn't accept the freedom because she didn't feel worthy of the freedom, but finally she grabbed the rope of freedom and was rescued.  As the girls performed the skit it was hard to keep from crying.  These girls experienced personally what they were acting out.  They know what freedom is.  They know that they needed someone to help them to be free.

I was reminded how there are many people who contribute to the freedom of these girls.  From the police, the CBI, the NGO's that rescue the girls, the homes that protect them, the people who work with them, the people who give money for the girls, and the prayers for them from people that they will never meet.  So many people are sacrificing for the lives of these precious girls.  Just like India's Independence took the sacrifice of those fighting, it takes many people sacrificing for these girls.

The girls ended the performance with a dance to this song:
"Who Am I"

Who am I, that the Lord of all the earth
Would care to know my name,
Would care to feel my hurt?
Who am I, that the Bright and Morning Star
Would choose to light the way
For my ever wandering heart?

Not because of who I am
But because of what You've done.
Not because of what I've done
But because of who You are.

I am a flower quickly fading,
Here today and gone tomorrow.
A wave tossed in the ocean.
A vapor in the wind.
Still You hear me when I'm calling.
Lord, You catch me when I'm falling.
And You've told me who I am.
I am Yours, I am Yours.

Who am I, that the eyes that see my sin
Would look on me with love and watch me rise again?
Who am I, that the voice that calmed the sea
Would call out through the rain
And calm the storm in me?

Not because of who I am
But because of what You've done.
Not because of what I've done
But because of who You are.

I am a flower quickly fading,
Here today and gone tomorrow.
A wave tossed in the ocean.
A vapor in the wind.
Still You hear me when I'm calling.
Lord, You catch me when I'm falling.
And You've told me who I am.
I am Yours.

Not because of who I am
But because of what You've done.
Not because of what I've done
But because of who You are.

I am a flower quickly fading,
Here today and gone tomorrow.
A wave tossed in the ocean.
A vapor in the wind.
Still You hear me when I'm calling.
Lord, You catch me when I'm falling.
And You've told me who I am.
I am Yours, I am Yours, I am Yours.

Whom shall I fear?
Whom shall I fear?
'Cause I am Yours, I am Yours.


As they danced to this song they were mouthing the words and they were worshiping God.  For He is the one who rescued them.  He has given them new life.  He has seen them.  The words of the song have totally taken on new meaning to me as I look at it from their perspective.  It is so beautiful!

News Blues

Today's newspaper made me sad as I read it.  I read an article about a gang-rape court case that the accused were released.  It made me really sad and a bit mad.  The incident happened in December.  Five law students were accused of holding a sixteen year old girl and raping her over several weeks.  She had at one point been able to identify them, but at the hearing she said she didn't recognize them, so they were released.

This makes me mad because the judicial system sucks.  There should be enough evidence that the guys would be held responsible.  If they had killed her they couldn't rely on her testimony, so why if she now refuses to identify them would they let them off.

I am sad because I imagine the girl and her family were threatened.  I imagine that the boys had a lot of power on their side. 

And I am angry that these guys could in the future be lawyers or even judges.  They are corrupt and the system failed this girl.  Justice was not done.

The Fear of the Lord

We have been reading Proverbs in the morning at breakfast time.  It has been really good to read with Micah as he has started back to school.  The first few chapters talk about wisdom and understanding and how important they are to get.

So I was thinking just now about the fear of the Lord and what it means.  I guess there is a sense of fear in breaking God's laws or doing something that you know is against what God says is good.  I was thinking especially of kids who leave home for college and rebel against the faith they have been taught.  Could the fear of the Lord keep them from rebelling?  For sure there is a sense of wisdom involved in that.  I mean, you want your child to grow in his faith and choose the path that is good for him, which means following Jesus.  So if your child decides that partying and sleeping around and trying to get away with cheating is an okay thing to do, then they are lacking wisdom.  The passage says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.  So if a person actually did fear, as in a scared sense, then it would be good in a way.

I don't want my child to be scared of God.  But if you think of it as a parent/child relationship, isn't there a bit of fear involved?  If I knew that I was doing something that my parents had told me not to do, then I would do it with a bit of fear.  I would know that if I got caught I would be in trouble.  And not just trouble.  I would know that they would be disappointed.  That was worse then trouble.  That kind of fear isn't bad to have towards God, is it?  If it keeps someone from doing wrong, is that good?

I will keep thinking about the fear of the Lord and what all it means to us as we raise our son.  I know for sure that I want him to have the fear of the Lord if it is the beginning of all wisdom.  I want a wise son.