Don't Worry, It's Just Me.

“You’re not in India!” Someone said this to me as I walked into a prayer meeting at my church on Sunday. They were at the moment getting ready to pray for me on my trip to India.

My mind rushed trying to think of the cleverest response to this. Perhaps a shocked look, then “Wait, are you trying to tell me I’m not in India?” Or perhaps I could go with a more subtle, slow realization that I wasn’t there like, “Whoa. Dude. I am so not in India.” I thought about inventing a crazy story about how Renee was in India and I was just her doppelganger, but as my mind was working out the logistics of how I (the doppelganger) had escaped the lab where I was grown, my mouth spoke the truth, “Yeah. I’m not. I lost my passport and wasn’t able to get a replacement visa in time.”

So if you see me in St. Louis the next few days, you can rest assured that it’s probably not my doppelganger or evil clone you are seeing, it is me [note: If you see me doing something like holding up a bank, kidnapping orphans, or listening to pop music, it is actually a doppelganger and not me. These distinctions can be confusing sometimes.] When I first realized that I wasn’t going to able to go to India, I was very disappointed and sad. I have wanted to go for so long, and I felt like this trip would be the culmination of years of longing. I felt like the trip might be an indicator over whether or not God was leading me to serve in India or not. Not being able to go felt sort of like a loss of purpose… if I’m not going to India, then what am I supposed to do with my future?

Over the past week, I’ve had a lot of my disappointment alleviated. It’s true that I don’t know why I’m not going to India. It’s true that in some sense, I still don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing with my life. But I keep being reminded of all this scripture where God promises again, and again, and again, so that we, anxious, doubtful, mistrusting creatures that we are, cannot ever forget that “I know the plans I have for you, they are plans to help you, not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” “Remember that all things God works for those who love him.” In not being able to go to India, I’ve had an incredible amount of comfort that God is sovereign in my not going. For whatever reason, I am staying in St. Louis for a purpose. And what about my future, where am I going, how I’m supposed to live right now? This verse keeps echoing through my head, “I will instruct you and teach you in the ways you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you with my eye.”

The Least of These

At a station in India
When I tried to eat
suddenly,
a small, dirty hand
came in front of me

And I saw the dark face
of a child
staring at me
with sunken eyes

Embarrassed and even scared
I put on his palm
a small piece of food and
quickly shut the window

The train moved,
but his eyes kept
gazing at me—deeper
the more I pretended not seeing.

This of twenty years ago still
haunts me, and often
as I sit around the table
I feel his eyes gazing…

Yorifumi Yagushi,
Sapporo, Japan

Seven years ago I walked down the streets of Mexico City, leaving a fancy restaurant to go to a tourist’s safe market. The church group that I was with was highly protective of us foreigners; the Mexican church members walked in a circle around the Americans, shooting fierce looks at anyone who gazed at us too hard. Thus I walked inside a bubble, shepherded from street to cushioned bus. Though I was safe from external harm inside that armor of church members, I was not safe internally.  

I was walking through the valley of the shadow of death. Lined up underneath all the buildings on the side of the street were beggars. Whole families sat on a single, dirty blanket. One woman lay curled up fetally with her two baby boys. I could see every bone in her body, my eyes lingering over the bulging balls of her knees and knuckles, the straw-thin bones in her fingers. The babies’ eyes were open and dull, too tired to cry. I turned my head away. Across the street another woman sat leaning against the side of a building for support. Her skeletal hands held up a wooden bowl asking for money. The taste of food from the restaurant was still in my mouth; it tasted poisonous. The food in my belly leaped to my throat as if to choke me. I stared at my feet.

What I remember more than the women, more than the families, are the little girls.  Spaced in between the families on their mats were little girls playing accordion. I remember watching their spindly fingers run up and down the keys like tiny spider legs. One girl looked at me, and I couldn’t look away. I still remember her—those fingers playing quickly, mechanically, her tiny body hid behind the frame of her instrument, her black hair a greasy mass around her face, dark shadows under her eyes—her eyes questioning, sad, condemning. Seven years ago, on a street in Mexico City I locked eyes with a dying child and walked away. Seven years later, her eyes are still haunting me. 

I’ve been thinking about this girl a lot lately. As I am getting ready to go to Mumbai and visit the slums, I have to prepare my heart for the horror of walking past people who are diseased, or starving, or even dying. I have to prepare my eyes to meet other eyes that will linger with me seven years, or perhaps twenty years like in the poem, or perhaps for the rest of my life. And honestly, there is no way to prepare myself for the slums, because they are not meant to exist… Part of the reason this blog took so long to write was because I couldn’t find the words to accurately describe how saddening it is to be surrounded by such poverty. Looking into that little girl’s eyes so long ago, there was such a deep, innate sense that this is not how things are supposed to be. If people are really created in the image of a divine God (as I believe they are), they are not meant to live their life reduced to humiliating, dehumanizing conditions of squalor, and they are not meant to die from hunger. I can’t really “prepare my heart” as I said, because the only natural response of the heart is sorrow.

Jesus says, “Whatever you do for the least of these, you do for me” talking about giving food to the hungry, water to the thirsty, shelter to the wanderer, looking-after to the sick, and visiting to the prisoner. To me, this verse has always held a bit of a promise that I will encounter God through service to the poor. It is certainly true that I met God seven years ago. Walking away from the street, I broke down and wept. The entire day, I saw the city through a blur of tears. I cried on the bus, shaking with sobs, my sister Anna stroking my hair. As my heart was breaking, I felt God’s heart breaking too. I felt a voice inside me say, “Renee, all your compassion is but a drop in the ocean of my compassion. All the agony and suffering inside you, every ounce of sorrow, is just a pale reflection of the grief I feel right now.” On that day, I was met with my own poverty of compassion, of justice. “Renee,” God said, “I have seen your want and I will fill you.”

It’s impossible to have an encounter with God, and walk away unchanged. Jacob wrestled with God and walked the rest of his life with a limp; Moses saw God’s glory and his face burned so bright it couldn’t be looked upon; Paul met Jesus along the Damascus road and was left blinded. Like Jacob, I was left wounded. My heart ached! But in that wounding I was also blessed, in the cracks of my sorrow, I felt myself being filled with God’s love. Now, I look back those seven years, and I still see those penetrating eyes. I feel convicted, overwhelmed, and scared. Now though I know that God sees those eyes too…  

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made?

            I mentioned in my last blog that I’ve wanted to be a missionary in India since I was a little girl. Part of wanting to serve in India means that I have studied the lives of those who have gone before me. One such person was the indomitable Amy Carmichal.

            Amy Carmichal was a missionary in India in the 1800’s. One of the things that she is most well-known for is… kidnapping. At the time that Amy Carmichal was living in India, it was a common practice for poor girls to be sold as “brides” to temple gods. The girls would be sold young, often even in infancy. As a bride to the gods, the girls were then raped by priests (representatives of the gods), or pimped out to wealthy patrons of the temples. Once Amy became aware of this injustice, she made it one of her life goals to rescue girls sold to the temples. She travelled all over India for the rest of her life, walking brazenly into the temples and ferreting children away. She would take them to a communal home in Southern India where a motley assortment of British missionaries and Indian locals lived, where the girls would be educated, taught a trade, and showered with love.

            When Amy was a girl growing up in Victorian London, she was told she was an ugly child. The fashionable Victorian child was plump, rosy cheeked, angelically blond, and, most importantly, blue-eyed. Amy herself was wiry with flat brown hair and deep brown eyes. At night, she would cry in her prayers and ask God to make her beautiful. “God, please, if you can’t make me beautiful, just give me blue eyes.” As an adult in India, she realized that if she didn’t have brown eyes, she would have been marked instantly as a foreigner, subject to suspicion when going to temples. Her brown eyes and dark hair gave her anonymity, allowing her to rescue countless girls.

I’ve been thinking about this story a lot lately.  A couple of weeks ago, I started going to counseling sessions with my pastor’s wife. One of the things we’ve talked about is that the way God has made me is good. My personality, my experiences, and the family I was raised in were all chosen by God to utilize for his good works.  Unlike Amy, I have never prayed that God would change my body. But I have wanted other parts of me to change… I have loathed myself for being so distracted, so disorganized. I have wished that I wouldn’t be so emotional, so easily moved to anger and sadness, so uncontrollably giddy when happy. I have alternately hated either my withdrawals into solitude or my over-exuberance in crowds. Thinking about Amy, about how even her eyes were crafted for a purpose, I’ve begun to wonder if I should celebrate a little more that I am the way I am.  The very things about myself that I wish would change may in fact be the things that will allow me to serve God the best.

            I only hope that God has as great plans for me as he did for Amy… 

Support Letter For India

When I say to the wicked man, “You will surely die,” and you do not warn him or speak out to dissuade him from his evil ways in order to save his life, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood. Ezekiel 3:18 (NIV)

Then I heard the voice of the LORD calling, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”
And I said, “Here am I. Send me.” Isaiah 6:8 (NIV)

I’ve had India on my mind for a long time. When I was nine years old, my siblings and I watched a National Geographic documentary about the country of India. When the movie ended, my siblings walked away, mildly bored. Me, I curled up on my bed, closing my eyes and imagining India. I could see the swirl of red saris, could smell pungent curry, could feel yellow dust motes on my skin.  I could also feel a sense of spiritual darkness like a heavy weight on my back. While I had watched the movie, the many gods had leaped out frighteningly from the screen, scaring me with their oppression and demands. I remember feeling such sadness, that anyone should live or die believing in such dark gods. I wanted someone to tell people in India about Jesus, I didn’t want anyone to die not having at least having been told about the grace and hope of the gospel. “Why don’t you send someone?” I had prayed. Then, even at such a young age I felt God saying back, “If you want people sent, you must be willing to go yourself.”  

          Fourteen years later, I’ve been unexpectedly given my first chance. This November my church, New City Fellowship, is sending a group to Mumbai for our pastors to participate in a Global Leadership Conference. Other members from the church have been asked to come, hoping that we can build a partnership between our church in St. Louis and an New Life Assemblies of God church in Mumbai. This trip is not as much about me going to “do” something. Although I will be interacting with the ministries of the church (There’s a youth ministry in Mumbai’s slums that I’m particularly excited about), my purpose for going is largely to learn more about India and its needs, and building connections and relationships with the hopes of traveling back again later.

          So here’s where you come into the picture. First of all, I need prayer. Lots of it. Like I said before, India is a country in which many spirits and gods are worshiped. My missionary friends who have been to India have told me that these spiritual forces can be felt even physically, manifesting themselves in depression, fear, and anxiety--feeling that I am susceptible to already! Furthermore, while in India I know I will be exposed to some pretty horrifying levels of poverty, which for me has caused almost overwhelming feelings of sadness and helplessness when I've seen it in the past. Pray that God will help me stand strong in spirit while in a spiritually dark country. Pray that God will show me the ways that he is at work in India, even in the midst of heart-breaking poverty. Finally, I still have to raise about 1500 dollars to help finance this trip. Pray that God will provide me with a job to help me raise the rest of the funds, or pray that God will lay it on others hearts to help me raise the rest of the support money for this trip.

          If you feel like God may be leading you to help financially support me in my trip to India, please send a check. Checks should be made out to New City Fellowship with an annotation that the funds should be used for "Renee Badenoch trip to India" in the "for" line. Send money to:
New City Fellowship
1142 Hodiamont
Saint Louis, MO, 63112

In Christ,
Renee Badenoch

PS: Leading up to my trip and on my trip I will be writing regular blogs about my preparation and journey. If you'd like, follow my progress at thereneehope.blogspot.com