The Last Ten Percent

 I dedicate this post to my Hume campers 

Ever since Hume I’ve been thinking through the “last 10 percent” and what that means for me personally. I’m already a Christian and I try to be obedient to His callings.  But I also know that until Christ returns or I go to be with the Lord, I am not fully sanctified. I will always be seeking to go the extra mile, because Christ went where no man could go. Which means I will be trying my whole life to just get as close as possible. 

So how does that translate into my life right now? How can I go even further in my obedience to the Lord and my emulation of Christ?

Well, to be frank, my prideful heart thought I was doing pretty well. I imagined myself in the last five percent. I live in one of the grungiest and most impoverished cities in the world, working to end the sex trade. And while I still have my reservations. [There are places I haven’t gone, like into the trash piles with women who dig for food; or things I haven’t eaten, like street food made with gutter water.] It was honestly just a matter of time, because that’s my personality. Taking risks and being adventurous comes relatively easy for me.

Thankfully God likes to humble us. Last weekend He showed me that the “last 10 percent” is what is HARDEST for us to give. I’m foolish if I think I will serve God better simply by mustering up enough courage to sit further into filth. But what is hard for me, what God wants from me, is for my heart to bleed as His does.

Let me explain:

This past weekend I left my city for the first time to pass out medical supplies to local villages.

The journey started with a two-hour car drive south, a boat ride across the murky swamps, and another 30 minutes by bike until we finally reached a small, run down, concrete government school. There we set up chairs and started treating villagers who had traveled all day to meet our team, most of whom needed care way beyond our capabilities. 

And while the medical camp itself was fun: talking with the local women, practicing the local language, playing with the kids, holding babies, and laughing with my team; it was probably one of the hardest days of my time so far.

I couldn’t find the words until I got home and started opening up to my roommate Jen, who is a saint for putting up with me all the time. I finally pinpointed the reason for my restless sprit. For whatever reason, my heart had finally opened up, leaving it vulnerable and unguarded.

On my way to the medical camp we passed brick factories. For as far as the eye could see mud was being packed, dried and baked into large, red stones. And right in front of me, in plain, clear sight; I watched five to seven-year-olds slave away in those fields, carrying and shaping mud with sweat rolling down their brows.

My heart froze in time. I saw but I couldn’t comprehend. It was as if those red bricks weighed down on my soul all afternoon. And finally, I broke. I was able to cry, for the first time, over the poverty and injustices I vicariously experienced each and every day.

Through my tears I managed to say what I’ve wanted to scream since being here, “I’m sick of watching innocent children robbed of their childhood and then just driving away.”

For months I had been on protective mode, not really letting these precious kids or their precious mothers into my heart, because if I did I'd be wrecked like I was that day. It was a coping mechanism … a way to stay sane.

But staying sane left me right around 90 percent….

We are taught here that giving the children attention just makes matters worse. If westerners give them food, then their mothers wont. If they can’t work underage, they will be trafficked. If we give them attention, their traffickers will beat them for not getting money as well. If we give them hugs, it creates a dependency on receiving love. If you smile, they will want something more. If you are nice, you’ll make yourself vulnerable.

The excuses are endless. Some make sense, some don’t.

And yet, as I reflect over the way I have been taught to live; the way I have been prompted to protect myself, I can’t help but think that Jesus would have never just walked away. Jesus would have never ignored a child. Jesus would have never refused to eat dinner with an “untouchable.” And so nor shall I.

This is my “next ten percent.” This is the narrow alley way my Savior has asked me to walk down: opening up my heart to those who need it.

The way I live doesn’t make sense to most of the world and frankly to most of my closest friends. But I don’t answer to them. I answer to the Holy Spirit who speaks directly to my soul.

So this is my one piece of advice to you High Schoolers. You know the convictions of your heart. You know what God is asking of you. (And if you don’t read the book of Matthew.) But my point is, don’t be afraid to leave yourself vulnerable to the world. We may get hurt, our hearts may get trampled on; but God wants us to bleed as He bled, for how else will we be remade? 

And know that I will always be here cheering you on. Encouraging you to take that next step into the unknown.

With All His Love,

Kristy

Greece 2.0

As most of you know I have “a Greece story.” It’s a ridiculous tale. But it’s still my favorite memory from all my travels. If you don’t know what I’m talking about you can read up here.

Well … I didn’t think it was possible but I’ve topped it. I did it again … I danced with random strangers, hanging with the locals until late into the night. Basically this weekend was one for the books (or in this case, the blog). ** Warning I apologize for the novel... there was just too much to say**

Last blog post you heard a little bit about the festival season that took place in my city. It is a time for the natives to celebrate their Goddess. Informally, she is the Goddess of death and yet to honor her the people dance in the streets, they play the drums, sing, worship, eat food, and celebrate all day long until all hours of the night. The Pandels, temporary majestic structures built to house the idols, glitter mystically in the night air. The crowds ebb and flow together as one mass. Even the beggars get up and blissfully join in the revelry. The food and spices tempt you to forgo all inhibition to consume the meals prepared by hands never washed, on surfaces never cleaned and with water taken from the gutter you just stepped in (Yes, I eat street food. It’s my most note worthy accomplishment so far). And the children squeal with delight as men balance swords, swarms of people break into dance battles, merchants sell glorious gold adornment, and the priests pass out food once dedicated to the idols.

Per the tradition, on the fifth day of the festival the citizens gather to tear down their neighborhood idol, march down the streets with the idol in the bed of massive trucks, and dump them into the “holy” river. As the idol sinks into the water it symbolizes the Goddess leaving the people once again.

So my roommates and I were in a taxi coming back from Bollywood lessons when we noticed an unusual amount of traffic. The reason being, thousands of people were piling into the streets, marching to the haphazard beat of a hundred unskilled drummers banging their instruments arbitrarily yet ferociously. Likewise the mob followed along with equal intensity. Arms were swinging in the air. Feet were rapidly stomping the ground. People were laughing, yelping, singing and screaming to their heart’s desire.

So naturally my soul started to itch. My heart needed to join in this beauty. Also not surprisingly none of my roommates want to join. I tried to suppress the urge…

Like that has ever worked before…

Suddenly, without consent from my frontal lobe, my mouth started to yell to the taxi driver to pull over. My roommates freaked out. We were still in the middle of the street but I jumped out, grabbed my stuff and yelled over my shoulder that I would be back.

After sprinting across the street and climbing onto the center divider, I started to snap photos. Soon after, a couple local guys realized they were subjects of an anonymous photo shoot and subsequently decided to act like it.  They ran up to me posing, jumping, flailing and floundering like wild dogs just released from confinement.

At this point I was still safely on my center divider and old men were holding back the others, shouting at them not to touch me. (Great example of this in the photo to the right).

So the crowd reverted to Plan B and beckoned me to join in the dance.

At first my superego was fighting desperately to keep some sort of control of the situation and I hung back out of harms way. People were coming up, asking for their portrait but then leaving before I could even hit the button (resulting in many dark, blurry photos).  However, as I realized that these people just wanted to celebrate, dance and enjoy their sacred festival, I started to cowboy up. 

I made my way to the center of the crowd and began to sway to the beat of the drum. Upon seeing the white girl try to dance to Indian beats, the women clapped their hands together and laughed, roared, squawked or squealed … (sorry but there are just no equivalent sounds to relate this to.)

Point being, I became an instant celebrity.

A woman then grabbed my hand and motioned for me to move my body like hers. That’s when I really gave in. I had to prove I knew what I was doing. I got down and busted out my Bollywood moves with some freestyle thrown in on the side. They went crazy.

One man looked me in the eye and asked, “Are you happy?” (Code for “Do you feel safe”) I answered DUH. He said, “If you’re happy; I am happy.’ He then recruited two other men to literally push the crowd back, creating a foot of space between myself and everyone else like I was president of the United States.  So now not only was I dancing and spinning in the middle of the street in the middle of the night, I was doing so by myself with hundreds of South Asians starring at me.

The crowds literally stopped moving. The marching ceased. The cars turned off their engines. All eyes were on me. (I’m not trying to be egotistical here. This is just plain fact.) And one by one someone would break into my celebrity circle, take my hands, and teach me a new dance move. Once their turn was done, the next would break through, push the other aside and once again teach me to dance. This happened probably 10 times as everyone was laughing and chanting on the side.

As I started to loose steam, I simply turned, motioned to the crowd and yelled to the hundreds of people watching, “Let’s keep moving!” Without hesitation everyone started walking again and the march continued.

I could go on forever trying to describe what it was like. But the best I can do is say that it was pure ecstasy. I have never seen so much energy and delight wrapped up in one event before. Never again will I use the word celebration so lightly. This was a true party.

About a half an hour later I remembered my roommates were most likely sitting at home terrified and praying over my safety (which was entirely accurate). So I made my way out of the crowd, which took another 15 minutes because I had to stop, and bow or shake hands to every person along the way.

Finally I broke free, stopped, turned around, waved to all two hundred faces starring back at me, and continued on home.

As they turned the corner down the road and the drums started to fade into the distance, I couldn’t help but laugh to myself. Not only do I continue to survive these precarious situations, I somehow manage to have self-designated bodyguards protecting me through them.

But there is one point I must make sure you understand. The reason why I do the things I do, is not simply for the adventure. I am an outsider. I am white and I speak English. But that does not mean I need to create more barriers than the ones already put in place. My job is to break barriers, not build them up. This festival means the world to this culture, and by participating I started to speak their language. For that brief moment I was part of them. I understood them and they understood me. I honored them by dancing the way they did, by acknowledging their drums, by contributing to their joy. 

How long will we cower in fear of the ‘other’? Because the second you break free from that fear you cease to be separated by trivial matters of culture and finally can embrace each other as the brothers and sisters we were designed to be.

So I can’t say that I regret these moments. God has created me to dance. And so I will. It’s what makes life so exciting. It’s what makes life worth living.