We sat taking in the day. Bama was sniffling after finishing a short bout of tears, one of many that evening. I had watched her for most of the day to see if she would, waiting for what happened to hit her. I figured she would be fine, maybe she isn’t connected to this building, maybe, it doesn’t hurt her as much as I thought it would. What had happened? It was 9:00 p.m. and we were sitting in the Good Shepherd Ministry office in the middle of a Bombay slum just around the corner from a school which also housed the local Church. Bama, the woman who continued to press on in this slum outreach, had begun with one hut space, then two, and up to this point no one had interrupted her or told her to stop. She had transformed the lots into a school for children in the slums and we were there cleaning up the third addition which had just been completed the day before. This was for a third classroom which would expand the school’s ability to educate the children in this impoverished community.
The only thing was that every small and tattered home happened to be built or put together on property that wasn’t theirs. This is the plight for millions of Indians all over the country and especially in the metropolitan areas. So, technically the school being built shouldn’t have been built, except that every home, business and temple on the same property is under the same set of laws. Up to this point, the authorities hadn’t bothered Bama and her education centers and with that courage she pressed to build a third classroom. No sooner had we finished a magnificent India curry with chipoti, dal and rice after a long morning of cleaning and adjusting furniture for the new classroom, when a knock came on our door. Words were spoken very quickly and frankly in Hindi and in a short period the Indians in the room were rushing out the door with Bama leading the way. We came to understand later that the municipality had come with a big truck, policeman, and about 15 men to destroy the new classroom. I learned that this is normal practice as many slums shoot up overnight and sometimes they are required to tear down their dwellings for safety, health reasons, housing regulations, highways being built and many other inardent reasons that will all go away with a simple bribe. Our police of course are to refuse this course of action and to proceed under the law. If Bama had just offered a bribe to these men to continue on their way and leave the building alone, we would be outfitting the classroom with paint, posters and other teaching implements. Instead, the westerners hid so as to keep from complicating things further and Bama, along with her volunteers, some local believers, and most of the surrounding community watched as their new classroom was torn to the ground. Brick after brick was laid bare while we prayed from the office many unanswered prayers. They continued while we were moved to a local believers hut and waited the destruction out.
Finally, when we they were finished and had driven away, we moved out into the open to discover the rubble of broken walls, where just a couple of hours before stood our classroom. They had waited until right after it was finished to commence their destruction. I suppose to teach Bama a lesson. The lesson being that you don’t build unless you provide the right people with a bribe, in fact the policeman standing and watching over the proceedings asked Bama, why she hadn’t made “peace” with t
hem earlier. For a woman who has been walking with the LORD for most of her life and serving in mission for twenty years in slum ministry, this was more than just a building. Every step forward would seem to send her two steps back. Her godly action of creating, instructing and giving hope was being reversed by greed, anger and tyranny, and there wasn’t anything she could do about it. Of course, this has happened to many in the slums, many homes have been simply demolished, torn to the ground, displacing thousands of slum dwellers at times. I wonder if this is what Israel felt like each time they had to face their attackers coming to the gates of Jerusalem. Should we give them food like the Israelites were instructed to do when their enemies came to bring them under a siege and instead God blinded them all while the Jews fed them and sent them home. What do you tell your king when that happens? God told them to love their enemies and especially to be kind to the passers by because they were all wanderers and tent dwellers at one time. I suppose that their lives would have been looked down upon by many, like a caste system and yet God chose them. Israel was to know what it meant to suffer, so that they could form solidarity with the world that they would reach, a world gripped under the tyranny of suffering. I remember asking my mother about her and my father’s commitment to the people that God brought them to and why they had stayed in the face of so many disappointments, discouragements and setbacks. First she said that it was for obedience, yet when I pressed for more, she told me that as she looked around at the suffering and the hopelessness and cried out to God for answers to how they would be able to reach these lost people. She told me that God spoke to her heart and said that it would be through suffering and the suffering that they experienced actually was directly related to the suffering of the people that they had been called to. It is almost like God allows us to suffer in the same way that the people that He’s called us to suffer like. If we try to escape it we are seeing our lives as less than our calling. A calling is costly! So what did Bama have at the end of the day?
She had broken walls, a broke bank account and a broken heart. What the men had come to destroy though only sought to build something else - the walls of the Kingdom that Jesus proclaimed and commissioned all of
us to proclaim into all parts of the globe. Each brick that came down that day only served to continue building solidarity with the people that Bama had been called to. So what did Bama have at the end of the day? Many complaints could be put forward but what she had was worth more than that classroom cost, more than the bribe she wouldn't pay, more than the entire building itself - she had gained solidarity with a suffering people that would forever alter the destiny of her ministry there and give the Gospel the power it was waiting for and Christ the exaltation He deserves. When asking why we suffer, we can also ask, who do we suffer for and how are the walls of the Kingdom being built while the walls around us crumble? Suffering and solidarity.
Matthew 4:17
“From that time Jesus began to preach and say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
The only thing was that every small and tattered home happened to be built or put together on property that wasn’t theirs. This is the plight for millions of Indians all over the country and especially in the metropolitan areas. So, technically the school being built shouldn’t have been built, except that every home, business and temple on the same property is under the same set of laws. Up to this point, the authorities hadn’t bothered Bama and her education centers and with that courage she pressed to build a third classroom. No sooner had we finished a magnificent India curry with chipoti, dal and rice after a long morning of cleaning and adjusting furniture for the new classroom, when a knock came on our door. Words were spoken very quickly and frankly in Hindi and in a short period the Indians in the room were rushing out the door with Bama leading the way. We came to understand later that the municipality had come with a big truck, policeman, and about 15 men to destroy the new classroom. I learned that this is normal practice as many slums shoot up overnight and sometimes they are required to tear down their dwellings for safety, health reasons, housing regulations, highways being built and many other inardent reasons that will all go away with a simple bribe. Our police of course are to refuse this course of action and to proceed under the law. If Bama had just offered a bribe to these men to continue on their way and leave the building alone, we would be outfitting the classroom with paint, posters and other teaching implements. Instead, the westerners hid so as to keep from complicating things further and Bama, along with her volunteers, some local believers, and most of the surrounding community watched as their new classroom was torn to the ground. Brick after brick was laid bare while we prayed from the office many unanswered prayers. They continued while we were moved to a local believers hut and waited the destruction out.
Finally, when we they were finished and had driven away, we moved out into the open to discover the rubble of broken walls, where just a couple of hours before stood our classroom. They had waited until right after it was finished to commence their destruction. I suppose to teach Bama a lesson. The lesson being that you don’t build unless you provide the right people with a bribe, in fact the policeman standing and watching over the proceedings asked Bama, why she hadn’t made “peace” with t
hem earlier. For a woman who has been walking with the LORD for most of her life and serving in mission for twenty years in slum ministry, this was more than just a building. Every step forward would seem to send her two steps back. Her godly action of creating, instructing and giving hope was being reversed by greed, anger and tyranny, and there wasn’t anything she could do about it. Of course, this has happened to many in the slums, many homes have been simply demolished, torn to the ground, displacing thousands of slum dwellers at times. I wonder if this is what Israel felt like each time they had to face their attackers coming to the gates of Jerusalem. Should we give them food like the Israelites were instructed to do when their enemies came to bring them under a siege and instead God blinded them all while the Jews fed them and sent them home. What do you tell your king when that happens? God told them to love their enemies and especially to be kind to the passers by because they were all wanderers and tent dwellers at one time. I suppose that their lives would have been looked down upon by many, like a caste system and yet God chose them. Israel was to know what it meant to suffer, so that they could form solidarity with the world that they would reach, a world gripped under the tyranny of suffering. I remember asking my mother about her and my father’s commitment to the people that God brought them to and why they had stayed in the face of so many disappointments, discouragements and setbacks. First she said that it was for obedience, yet when I pressed for more, she told me that as she looked around at the suffering and the hopelessness and cried out to God for answers to how they would be able to reach these lost people. She told me that God spoke to her heart and said that it would be through suffering and the suffering that they experienced actually was directly related to the suffering of the people that they had been called to. It is almost like God allows us to suffer in the same way that the people that He’s called us to suffer like. If we try to escape it we are seeing our lives as less than our calling. A calling is costly! So what did Bama have at the end of the day?She had broken walls, a broke bank account and a broken heart. What the men had come to destroy though only sought to build something else - the walls of the Kingdom that Jesus proclaimed and commissioned all of
us to proclaim into all parts of the globe. Each brick that came down that day only served to continue building solidarity with the people that Bama had been called to. So what did Bama have at the end of the day? Many complaints could be put forward but what she had was worth more than that classroom cost, more than the bribe she wouldn't pay, more than the entire building itself - she had gained solidarity with a suffering people that would forever alter the destiny of her ministry there and give the Gospel the power it was waiting for and Christ the exaltation He deserves. When asking why we suffer, we can also ask, who do we suffer for and how are the walls of the Kingdom being built while the walls around us crumble? Suffering and solidarity.Matthew 4:17
“From that time Jesus began to preach and say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
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