Where is the love...

People kill, and people are dying
Children hurt, can you hear them crying?
Do we practice what we preach,
Or do we turn the other cheek?
Father Father, help us
Send some guidance from above
‘Cause people got me questioning,
Where is the love?

Black Eyed Peas - Where is the love?

Stopping for just a moment, taking the time to look around.  Looking past the sights and smells of India, ignoring the majestic and age old temples and ruins, the Taj Mahal, and even the buzz of tuc-tucs and rickshaws.  Taking in only the people, especially the kid in India, one would easily see where the inspiration of this song by the Black Eyed Peas comes from – and would even agree with them.  Where is the love, when children are left to fend for themselves on the streets of New Delhi, when children are crying, hurting instead of being loved?  It’s the sight that first greeted me when we arrived in India, and it’s a sight that will remain in my mind, haunting my inner being.  Where is the love...

Arriving at or ministry point in the Rajasthan province of India, it was exactly this question that awaited me, staring me in the face with two dark eyes, hands gripping at my arms, and one of the biggest smiles I have ever seen.  The same kids that greeted me in New Delhi, was now standing around me.  The orphanage is home to kids who had to fend for themselves on the crazy streets of New Delhi;  kids who got abandoned by their parents and families;  kids who had parents, but is financially/physically unfit to look after them;  kids who lost their parents;  kids for whom the orphanage is the only place they can and ever will call home.  Surrounded by kids of all ages, I was overwhelmed by a sense of not knowing what to do – I don’t have anything to give them, especially not for so many.  My context and circumstances as a kid was so different from these kids’ current situation, I can’t possibly relate to them.  Luckily, it didn’t take long for me to realise that these kids didn’t want anything from me, not gifts or money, no freebies or hand-me- downs.  Without the words ever leaving their mouths, all they asked was one thing – love me!  Love me for me.  Love me as I am, nothing more, nothing less.

Loving the kids at the orphanage became increasingly easier by the day.  After not even a week, loving the kids got to a point where it was absolutely unconditional, undeserving.  Before you go there, people would warn you not to get too close to kids, or at least be on the lookout for certain signs.  They might have lice, so watch out for that.  Don’t share their food or water, for the water they drink and prepare their food in comes straight from the tap, and it could make you sick.  Don’t drink the water!

I soon found myself sleeping over with the kids in their rooms, making sure to take my own sleeping bag and mattress.  I took my own water bottle, and made sure to never be there over lunch or supper.  And above all, watch out for the mosquitoes, they’ll carry you off alive!  But this isn’t unconditional love.  If you are too worried about what to do or what not to do, you aren’t giving it your all, you’re not putting all of yourself out there.  I made the conscience decision to not what worry about what I pick up from the kids or sharing their lives with them.  As long as anti-biotics, or the passing of time, can clear it out of my system and heal whatever I picked up, I will give myself to them.  I will put my all into loving them.  I ended up sleeping over almost every second night, sometimes not even taking my own bedding.  I shared their meals with them, and even the water they gave to try and get rid of the burning taste of all the chillies they fed my!  All this and so much more, and not a single stomach upset, itch, or any other form of something that I might have picked up from the kids.  Not even the flu.

This love wasn’t one sided.  They too didn’t care who I was or where I came from, that I couldn’t always understand them or their language.  Acceptance for who and what we are, that was the key to our love.  Just too bad that this love stayed with the kids, but didn’t quite make its way into our group of challengers.

We preached love to the kids, unconditional and undeserving.  We even shared Scriptures on loving they neighbour during our morning devotional time.  But as the day passed by, it became clear that love in general, not even speaking of unconditional love, was but an illusion at the best of times.  Most off the days, we merely endured each other, not budging from our own little corners in our own little worlds.  Yes, there are friendships in the team where love can be seen, even unconditional love.  But that is only between a few people, four or five out of a group of thirteen.  This surely isn& rsquo;t the way forward; this definitely isn’t living out what we are preaching, or the life God asks us to lead.  There is certainly space and a need for improvement!

Sitting in Thailand during debrief, in the most beautiful botanical garden I have ever seen, it dawns on me that this ‘lovelessness’ isn’t just a group thing, it’s a human thing.  It’s a worldwide phenomenon that people seem to accept and take in their stride.  Or so it sometime seems.  How can there be love in a group of thirteen people if they only know each other superficially, if they only share a fraction of themselves?  Even deeper, how can there be love for fellow group members if people can’t even love their mothers or fathers, brothers or sisters?  For some reason we want people to deserve our love, and if they hurt us, then we block love from our loves, only sharing it with a few, a selected group of our own choosing.  When confronted, we easily and quickly say ‘I love you’, but this has become nothing but a mere fashion word, only going skin deep.  Saying the words doesn’t always make it so, and the way we treat the people to whom we say it always gives it away.  Love isn’t a word, but a way of living, a way of treating each other.  Love is never deserved, but comes from a place of giving your all, no matter the consequences, no matter what you pick up from it – whether antibiotics can clear it out of your system or not.

During our time in India, there was one certain morning where things kind of fell apart, where team members were no longer able to cope without love, or with ‘fake’ love.  During our talk that morning, God laid s scripture on my heart – Matthew 18:1-5

1)       About that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven?”

2)  & nbsp;   Jesus called a little child to Him and put the child among them.

3)      Then He said, “I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven.

4)      So anyone who becomes as humble as this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.

5)      “And anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf is welcoming me.

There it is.  Love each other as we love these little children at the orphanage.  For it was not only me who loved the kids in such an unconditional way, but every team member loved the kids in such a way.  So the question I begged to ask our team, is the same question I beg to ask of you.  How do you love the little children in your life?  How come you don’t love the people in and around your life in the same fashion?

This is what our team is currently striving for, loving each other as we loved the kids in India.  The process is slow, for it only goes as fast as the time it takes for us to get over ourselves.  And we are getting there, slowly but steadily allowing ourselves to love one another like little children, through the good and bad.

 
I would like to answer the Black Eyed Peas's question on where the love is.  The love is in us, and although it’s not of this world, it’s certainly still in this world, the only world we have.  We are that love, we have to live it out!  Bit by bit, person by person, treating each other as being worthy of the Kingdom of Heaven!