Prayers to guide us in praying for those that SEEM forgotten (because they’re not)

This is the 3rd in that “series”, of sorts, “Lord Teach us to Pray”

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The streets here seem to palpate with hardship and need at times. 

The colors may be vibrant and the spices and bedazzled saris may tinge the streets with a romantic splendor that briefly distracts the gaze from the disabled beggar or the leper.

Stunning handiwork might decorate the dusty, littered sidewalks

Festivals surely speckle the calendar year with garish, flamboyant parties…

Yet they are simply ornate bookends that divide the every day dearth of life on these sidewalks from the next…

I remember when the Commonwealth Games came to Delhi four years ago. I left India from one Delhi airport filled with dust and heat and pungent smells, and returned later to a vastly different airport.

The new airport was state of the art, air conditioned, and seemed perfumed in every crevice.

As we drove away from the airport, I noticed an absence of the once brittle community of life that used to cover the sidewalks.  There were no half naked men finding refuge beneath a tattered blanket…no barefoot children chasing flies and tackling one another. Over time it became apparent that in preparation for the CommonwealthGames quite a few slum communities were knocked down to make a more “welcoming” entrance to life in Delhi, capital of the “Incredible India”.

 It was a cleansing of sorts.

Of course, one only had to drive twenty minutes to see reality.  The bookends can only embellish a shelf for a narrow interim.

Soon enough, the scuffed, dusty books covered in fingerprints with your dog eared pages start packing in the space and showing the real life that exists there.

Though it sounds brutal and unappealing, perhaps, this reality of life in Delhi is what allured me to India. My Abba romanced me by giving me His eyes to see stories within each of those seemingly brittle lives.  For in reality, these men, women, and children may appear brittle and their breath may be shallow and feet may be calloused…but they are some of the most resilient beings on this planet earth.  And they have stories that pulse with spirit and a buoyancy that would navigate the toughest waters.

My first few years here, these were the lives and the people that seemed forgotten and invisible. I spent many hours frustrated and confused as to why these people on the sidewalks, under the bridges, and at the train stations seemed invisible to the rest of mankind walking the streets (save an extra rupee thrown into a dish for good measure or just to balance out the conscience and hurry the beggar or disabled away). 

More so, I spent my days with my head fixed upwards pointing at the heavens, questioning why a God of love would turn His gaze from these lives that He had fashioned. 

Did He not remember?

Was the need too much for Him? For this One Who owned the cattle on a thousand hills? How did it possibly escape Him?

How could the lives of those street children be existing next to children of the same age, but of a different inheritance (or, let’s just stop with the political correctness and call a spade a spade…)

Of a different CASTE…driving past in the blacked out BMW SUV?

I could not justify it.

Then 4 best friends and I took a train ride across India. Our return journey was Kolkata to Delhi, via Siliguri, for a brief trek up to Darjeeling.  Our train was delayed in Siliguri for a brief 4 hours, which ended up being eternally treasured hours.  In that time we were approached by 3 little girls who claimed to be Kanjell, Sanu, and Pooja (I say claimed because I am sure their names are changed according to where they are staying that day, to whom they are asking money from, and to whom they are then reporting at the end of the day).

These 3 girls did not get any money from us, but I actually think that is the last thing they wanted. They set down their rucksacks and started talking with us thru our broken Hindi.  We had some henna packets with us as well as some wipes and nail polish.  Feet and hands were washed and adorned with polish and attempted henna motifs.  Their thinned out, orange tinted locks were braided and the lice overlooked. It was just about the most celebrated afternoon I can remember.

By the end of our time there, about 10 other children had gathered and 2 infants given to us. As our train came to a different platform than initially planned, we frantically ran up stairs, over platforms, and down again until we found the right boarding platform for our train.  We passed infants to older children and waved goodbye, my friend Amanda whispering words of life to Kanjell before she hopped on the train and we speed away.

And we left them behind.

And those 15 children may think they are forgotten by us and that we were simply tourists coming and going. But they do not know that three of their faces (Kanjell, Sanu, and Pooja) have plagued our dreams and our minds and our car dashboards with their faces.
That following year, we shared their names and invited countless others to pray. 

A year later, two of us and a new friend traveled back to the same station with their photos and the offer of a place at a home with an education and roof to sleep beneath.
It seemed to be one of the most foolish trips we could have planned.
But we simply knew that we had not forgotten them.

Why those 3? Why not the 2 infants and 10 friends?
I don’t know.
(He, on High, does)
We went and camped out for a week at that same train station. We took their picture, went and sat outside the station, and prayed to find a way to see them again.

At the end of the week, we pieced together stories of where the girls now were from 3 different sources…a rickshaw driver, a local Japanese believer, and a little boy named Pinky who actually had been a friend of the 3 little girls.  The stories all matched to explain that the slum where Kanjell, Sanu, and Pooja lived in had burned down ant that they were safe, but had moved to a different state to continue begging. One of them had a father who was a rickshaw driver and was most likely caring for them now.

Though we were tempted to be discouraged, we could not help but KNOW that they were not forgotten. These 3 little girls may never know the journey we had gone on to share their names and to try and find them again. They may never know that their faces are now poster sized portraits above Sunday School rooms in a grand church in Florida. They may never know that a tiny elderly woman in her modest home across the ocean is praying for them by name and that a lady living and working in the Philippians prays portions of Isaiah over them.

They are surely not forgotten.  And though I may never fathom, and maybe not agree with, the way in which that story “ended” (I say “ended” because, really, it is not nearly over)… I have seen a glimpse of how our God’s ways are beyond our ways and His thoughts are beyond our thoughts.  I know that He who began a good work IS FAITHFUL to bring it to completion.  I know that the prayers of the righteous are powerful and effective…and there are many righteous, by His blood, who have for 4 years now been praying for those 3 little girls.

And though, on this earth, they may only know poverty and hardships, I do not know what the words of life Amanda spoke to them could have done. What seeds may have been planted? I am reminded of the story of Mimosa and what a few words of Truth spoken to her at a young did to redeem her and sustain her through a life of hardship.

Dear one, I share this story because in this series of Prayer where I am asking “teach me to pray”, along with you and that bold disciple many years ago…there are often times that we look around the world, on the sidewalks that have been cleansed, into our neighbors home that seems empty of love, or into the polished schoolrooms that our children fill in but that we know are filled with stories of loss and ache…and we think

THEY ARE FORGOTTEN.

I AM FORGOTTEN.

But, dear one, they are not forgotten.

You are not forgotten.

And there are words of Truth to assure us of that.

And there are words of Truth to guide us in praying for those whom we think are forgotten.

And there are words of Truth to give us a foreshadowing of the glory of the day when the Redeemed will dance and we will see the other side of this tapestry being woven.

We only see loose strands of fading color now…

But then we shall see all the grand motifs made from the broken pieces that this world could offer. 

Perhaps now we only see the tattered clothes, anemic eyes, and fly covered frail bodies. Then we shall see that they are hidden in the shadow of that rugged cross and that scarred hands are washing their aching bodies.

Though countless men looked past their aching bodies, God left His glory to be birthed into an outcast family in a mess of a “labor suite” to pursue them, heal them, rescue them, give Himself for them, and make them His bride. 

And we may not know how, or when, or who, or why…but we shall on that day hear the song of the Redeemed and all of this suffering will merely be a distant memory for we shall see Justice and Love in perfect harmony.

Until then, I will spend my time on my knees with my face bowed…a renewed posture from my years spent shouting to the heavens, fist tight and brow furrowed.

Because this is not the parable of the Good Samaritan in which I am the hero and the broken and seemingly forgotten are who I am to save.

Because, really, there is only One Good Samaritan. 

And we are all the beat up ones on the side, in need of His help.

Though my body may be round with health and I may have never tasted hunger or known the throngs of infectious, preventable disease…I am right there with these that crowd the streets of India…broken and in need of the one Good Samaritan and His cross of mercy and His bath of blood that can wash the most filthy of us clean.

So, dear one, if there are ones you know of that you are tempted to think are forgotten…the countless numbers of orphans, the trafficked women and children, the widow down the street, or the bankrupt business man in the pew in front of you…these Words may guide you as they are guiding me.
These days, I especially thinking of those beautiful young girls in Nigeriaand how they seem forgotten and it all seems hopeless.
May these Scriptures guide us in praying for them?
Join me, if you will?

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>Lord, when I am tempted to feel restless, anxious, and frustrated towards the injustices that seem to be all around us…do not let me give into despair. Teach me how to wait quietly for You, yet pray boldly, and act merciFULLY and with COURAGE…trusting that it is your heart to care for the broken.  And Lord, by Your Spirit, give strength and hope to those at the hands of injustice at this current moment. If they must wait a day longer, help them to endure it.

>Lord, your servant David knew the depths of despair and hardship. May his words represent the voices of men, women, and children who are in vulnerable, desperate, and dangerous trials today. Hear their voice and their cry for mercy and come quickly to save. Remind them of where their help comes from.