Go Beyond

   Kolkata, India

   Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity are an amazing group of people. Serving the least of these all over the world, they continue the labor of love inspired by Mother Teresa. They do more than care for the obvious physical needs of the people they serve, they care for their spiritual and emotional needs as well. Mother Teresa said, “If our work were just to wash and feed and give medicines to the sick, the centers would have closed a long time ago. The most important thing in our centers is the opportunity we are offered to reach souls.” Here are some quick observations about these selfless servants for whom I have the deepest respect and admiration.

Selfless | I don’t know that I have met a more selfless group of individuals than the Missionaries of Charity nuns. They are an amazing group of women from all nations who are committed to serving the least of these while living with the least of things! It was Mother Teresa’s intention from the beginning that this order of nuns would live like the poor in order to better identify with them. While headed for our afternoon assignment at Nirmal Hriday, we stopped to buy soft drinks for the nuns there. They were touched by our thoughtfulness but said, “We will drink water and save these as a special treat for the residents.” As I have observed these women over the past few days, they have consistently modeled the attitude that Paul said Christ-followers should cultivate: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also the interests of others” (Philippians 2:3-4).

Helpless | The Missionaries of Charity nuns understand that they are helpless to do anything apart from prayer and dependence on Christ. As prescribed by Mother Teresa, they begin each day with prayer and then pause to pray throughout the day. This is important because of the overwhelming needs that they face every day. A casual stroll through the streets of Kolkata could easily lead one to conclude that when Jesus said “the poor you will always have with you” (Mark 14:7) He was speaking about Kolkata. The work of continually caring for the thousands of poor, sick, and dying individuals cannot be done in dependence upon human strength. It takes people of prayer who ask God for the divine strength to accomplish His divine tasks.

Fearless | After all I have seen the past several days, I have concluded that the Missionaries of Charity nuns are fearless. Working in Prem Dan and Nirmal Hriday is definitely not for the squeamish. These sweet sisters of charity don’t have time to stop to put on rubber gloves every time someone vomits or does something worse. They handle the situation cheerfully, as they have hundreds of times before, and then move on to the next thing.

I am less squeamish today than when I started several days ago. Today, the man in bed number 46 motioned for me to help him. His clothes and bed were soaked with urine and covered with diarrhea. Holloway was massaging cream into another man’s calloused feet. So, Jon helped me carry the man to the bathroom to clean and change him. When we took him back to his bed he took my hand in is and placed it over his heart, a simple and beautiful gesture of gratitude. Sister Anila from Albania told us that the man’s wife and children had left him at the door of Nirmal Hriday. “He is suffering from the worst kind of sickness,” she said, “the sickness of being abandoned and unwanted.” Jon and I leaned over and told him that we loved him. We told him with our eyes and hands. He understood.

Tireless | I have done a lot of really tough travel to some really nasty and filthy places over the years. But, at the end of two weeks I get to return home to my comfortable home. Not so for the sisters who work in Mother Teresa’s homes in Kolkata and the hundreds of other homes around the world. You don’t get voted off of this island. These are the true survivors who labor hour after hour and day after day showing God’s love to the endless flow of hurting humanity who pass through Mother Teresa’s homes. Another man died at Prem Dan. He was carried out in a wooden coffin. Later, a frail, skeletal man was carried in to take his place. This is the cycle of life and death in Mother Teresa’s homes. Thank God that there is always a selfless servant waiting to welcome every new arrival and ready to work tirelessly to restore the dignity that every human being deserves.

   Kolkata, India

   The residents of Prem Dan and Nirmal Hriday are a family. As with most families, the resemblance is unmistakable. Even the casual observer can easily identify them as the children of hardship and pain, raised in the ample home called the streets of Kolkata. Their family is so large that many of these siblings met for the first time when they arrived at Mother Teresa’s homes, each one bearing similar marks of abuse. Although they may look frightening at first glance, they are wonderful people once you get to know them. Here are a few things I have noticed as I have spent time with them in the compassionate communities they now call home.

   Longing Eyes | When we arrive at Prem Dan and Nirmal Hriday, the first thing I notice is the longing eyes of the residents. They know when the volunteers will arrive each morning and afternoon and eagerly watch for them. Although those of us who have come to Kolkata to volunteer speak many languages, we have somehow learned to understand the universal language of the eyes. A person in need can just look at us and somehow we know what to do next. So, I always look at the faces and into the eyes of the men when we arrive to serve.

   Outstretched Hands | I have been impressed by a certain blind man at Prem Dan. He always sits alone but when he hears approaching footsteps he extends his hands. He’s not begging for money. He’s longing for a connection with another human being. I have tried to stop each day to hold his hands or to put my hand on his shoulder. This small investment always registers in a smile and lights up his dark world.

   Broken Bodies | One of the residents of Prem Dan is grotesquely disfigured by large protruding warts all over his face and body. He never smiles. His expression is vacant and distant, as though his appearance has exiled him to some forgotten and inaccessible place. Others bear distinguishing deformities that I am certain played a part in alienating and consigning them to an existence in the filth and shadows of the streets. Today I watched and assisted as the nurse at Nirmal Hriday treated oozing sores, burns, and removed stitches from a leg that was ripped apart by some terrible blow.

   Faltering Steps | Part of our work is to come alongside and to assist those who walk with faltering steps. Many of the residents have limbs that were twisted at birth or that were broken and damaged by hard years on the streets. One man has feet that appear to have been eroded by leprosy. Others have suffered the loss of toes, feet, and legs to accidents or amputation. We have carried and assisted the lame to their beds and to the bathroom, massaged twisted limbs, and carried food to those whose broken bodies have conscripted them into the ranks of the immobile.

   Unexpected Smiles | One of the most amazing things I have found in Prem Dan and Nirmal Hriday is unexpected smiles. There is nothing more amazing in these places than to see a smile on the face of a man who owns nothing, not even the clothes he is wearing. Somehow these men who belong to the brotherhood of the broken have learned to appreciate even the smallest kindness extended to them. Their smiles are their Hallmark Card expressions of gratitude delivered directly to the hearts of those who have come to serve them.

   Final Breaths | A man was brought to Prem Dan yesterday at about 11:30 AM while we were serving lunch. This morning I watched him die. He took his final breaths in the comfort of a simple bed with a two-inch foam mattress. He wasn’t that old. He was just tired. I stood with a nun who turned to me and said, “He had no one, so he came here to die.” The nuns wrapped his body in a white sheet and placed a single flower atop his lifeless shell. The nun told me that one of Mother Teresa’s ambulances would later transport his body to Nirmal Hriday to be prepared for burial. I was doing laundry at Nirmal Hriday when his body arrived later in the afternoon. Death is always waiting at the gates at Prem Dan and Nirmal Hriday for those who have come to take their final breaths there.

   Kolkata, India

   As our plane made its descent, the sprawl of Kolkata became increasingly distinct. Houses and streets and buildings took on clearer definition. Distance always impacts perception. When we are too close to something, it helps to back away to get a better perspective. And, when we are too far, it helps to get closer in order to see things more clearly. Today is all about closing the distance and seeing things in a new light.

   As we left the airport terminal building, the houses and streets and buildings faded into the background as the faces of the people who call Kolkata home came into sharper focus. I looked into the face of our cab driver and noticed his concentration as he wrestled our bags into the small trunk of his yellow Ambassador cab. And then, as our cab plunged into the river of traffic, I looked out the window at the teeming humanity swimming up and down the sidewalks. Day to day existence is a challenge for many of these. We moved so slowly through Kolkata’s log-jammed streets that I could read the expressions written across the faces of its masses.

   After we settled into our guesthouse we walked the short distance to Mother’s House, the place where Mother Teresa died and that serves as the headquarters for the Missionaries of Charity. As we walked down the filthy sidewalks, two street kids took my hands and offered to escort us from Mother’s House to Shishu Bhavan, the place where we had to go for our orientation and work assignment. The eleven year-old holding my right hand said, “I am a Christian and so is my mother.” I smiled and asked, “What about your father?” I learned that her father had recently died and how his death had rudely shoved her and her mother from a secure home and into the streets. Getting closer to people not only helps us to see them more clearly, but also enables us to hear them more distinctly. At that moment I distinctly heard one of a million distressing stories because I was close and not far.

   When we arrived at Shishu Bhavan, I met Sister Sandwana, whose name means “comfort.” She has worked here since 1972. She spoke to me about Mother Teresa and what a beautiful woman she was, but her expression lit up when she talked about Jesus. “The Christ of Christianity is the only hope for those we help,” she said. Soon, volunteers from Korea, Japan, China, France, Spain, Switzerland, and America trickled in for orientation. Three times a week volunteers from all over the world travel to Kolkata to work at Mother Teresa’s homes. I also listened to their stories, each a testimony to Mother Teresa’s compelling life. Almost twelve years after Mother Teresa’s death, thousands of volunteers continue to travel great distances in order to serve Kolkata’s poor.

   You don’t have to travel to Kolkata to serve the poor, but you must be willing to close the distance that separates you from the poor in your own community. Distance is what keeps us from looking into the faces of those in need and hearing their own distressing stories. Distance is what keeps us from holding dirty hands and connecting with hurting humanity in a personal way. What will it take for you to close the distance between you and someone in need? Take the first step and then add another until you begin to see people clearly and to hear them distinctly.

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Note | Jon and Holloway and I have been assigned to work at Prem Dan (home for the very ill) in the mornings and Nirmal Hriday (home for the dying) in the afternoons. Our days will start at 6:00 AM and end at about 7:30 PM. We appreciate your prayers.

   En Route to Kolkata via Dubai

   After several months of prayer and anticipation, I am finally en route to Kolkata. As our plane picked up speed on runway 33 North at Bush Intercontinental Airport, I reflected on when this trip really started. Several months ago while in Nigeria, I stopped by a bookstore and purchased a copy of Mother Teresa’s biography to read on my flight home. Like most people, I only knew Mother Teresa as the Catholic nun who had devoted her life to caring for the poorest of the poor in Kolkata. I didn’t know much more about her. However, as I read her biography I gained a profound respect and appreciation for this tiny woman who left a huge legacy to the world. I had to know more, so in the next two months I read six more books and a number of articles about her.

   I discovered that Mother Teresa was passionately in love with Jesus and had a profoundly intimate walk with Him. She desired nothing more than to please Him in all respects and accepted nothing less than total commitment to Him. She was especially moved by His concern for and identification with the least of these (Matthew 25:31-46). As a result, she walked the streets of Kolkata looking for Jesus in His many distressing disguises. She fed the hungry, clothed the naked, and cared for the sick as though she were doing it for Jesus Himself. She challenged those who worked with her to do the same.

   One day Mother Teresa came upon a woman dying on the streets. She took the woman with her and offered her a bed so that the poor woman could die with a measure of peace and human dignity. That act of compassion led her to open Nirmal Hriday, a home for the dying, in 1952. Later, she opened Shishu Bhavan, the first of a series of homes to care for abandoned children. Homes for lepers, people with AIDS, and unwed mothers soon followed. The Order of the Missionaries of Charity grew as more and more joined her in caring for the least of these. Today, thousands of volunteers from all over the world continue to serve the least of these through the many homes she started.

   I am no stranger to the sight of extreme poverty and suffering. Over the years, I have visited displacement camps in northern Darfur, crawled into the sewers of Ulan Bataar where throw-away kids struggle to survive, walked among lepers and the blind in Nigeria, looked with disbelief at beggars with grotesque deformities on the streets of Dhaka, and more. I have seen a lot of human suffering from a relatively sterile distance. And, I have always returned to my comfortable home. But, this trip will be different for me because its exclusive focus is the least of these. In a short while, my life will intersect with those who have lived a lifetime with nothing – the poorest of the poor. And, I will meet Mother Teresa’s nuns who have denied themselves the comforts I enjoy in order to better identify with the poor they serve. I have so much to learn.

   As we flew over the Atlantic I re-read one of Mother Teresa’s books and welcomed unexpected tears as I contemplated her life. Her love for Jesus led her to love people. She fed the hungry and clothed the naked and cared for the sick because she understood that even the least of these bear the image of God. And, because each person is created in the image of God, they possess the inherent dignity and value that accompanies it. Our world needs those who, like Mother Teresa, are willing to compassionately incarnate the gospel and affirm the worth of others through unconditional acts of love and kindness. Thanks for your prayers for me and for my friends Jon and Holloway as we continue our journey.

In his letter to the Philippians, Paul exhorted his readers to follow his example and to “observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us” (Philippians 3:17). Paul set himself up as an example worthy of imitation. While his words seem to have a ring of alarming audacity, we must not overlook the fact that Paul’s exhortation is framed within the context of his confession that he was not perfect and continued to press on toward the goal.

In 1 Corinthians 11:1 Paul wrote these words: “Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ.” Paul wanted for others to follow his example only insofar as he followed the example of Christ. But, Paul did not claim to be the only one who followed Christ’s example. There were others whose lives were exemplary and worthy of imitation. That’s why he also exhorted the Philippians to “observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us” (Philippians 3:17).

Christ-followers can and should learn from the examples set by those who faithfully follow Christ. For example, Billy Graham has set an example of the importance of proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ. And, Mother Teresa set an example of what it means to serve others, especially the least of these. Billy Graham and Mother Teresa are two Christ-followers whose lives are worthy of imitation. Below is a broad overview of Mother Teresa’s exemplary life.

Early Life | Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu — the child who would one day be known as Mother Teresa — was born on August 26, 1910 in Skopje, Albania. Her family lived next door to the church, where she spent much of her time. She was inspired by the example of her mother, a compassionate and generous woman who never allowed the poor who came to her door to leave empty-handed. As a young girl, Agnes had a special interest in missions and began to sense God’s call to the missionary life at the age of twelve.

Call to Missions | At the age of eighteen, Agnes applied for admission to the Order of the Sisters of Our Lady of Loreto because she was attracted by their missionary work in India. On December 1, 1928 she boarded a ship for India and arrived in Calcutta on January 6.

A New Name | In May 1931, Agnes changed her baptismal name to Teresa because she was impressed by the example set by Therese of Lisieux, a Catholic nun also known as “The Little Flower of Jesus.” Therese, who died at the age of twenty-four, understood the importance of serving God by doing little things well. She wrote, “Love proves itself by deeds, so how am I to show my love? Great deeds are forbidden me. The only way I can prove my love is by scattering flowers and these flowers are every little sacrifice, every glance and word, and the doing of the least actions for love.”

Call within a Call | On September 10, 1946, Sister Teresa felt a call within her call. She later wrote, “I was quietly praying when I clearly felt a call within my calling. The message was very clear. I had to leave the convent and consecrate myself to helping the poor by living among them. It was a command. I knew I had to go, but I did not know how to get there.”

The White Sari | Sister Teresa left the Sisters of Our Lady of Loreto on August 16, 1948. Setting aside the religious habit of the order, she put on a white sari (trimmed in blue), like the ones worn by the poorest women in India, and became an Indian citizen in 1949.

Her Work | Mother Teresa founded the Order of the Missionaries of Charity in 1950 and opened the first home for dying destitutes in Kalighat, a Hindu temple in the heart of Calcutta, in 1952. She named the home Nirmal Hriday which means “Home for the Pure Heart.” Mother Teresa and her nuns dedicated themselves to caring for abandoned street children and the sick and dying.

Recognitions | Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on October 17, 1979 and asked that the prize money be given to the poor in India. President Ronald Reagan presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States, in 1985. In October 1996, President Bill Clinton signed legislation making Mother Teresa an honorary United States Citizen. In June 1997 she received the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor.

Her Death | Mother Teresa passed away quietly at her home in Calcutta on September 5, 1997. Throughout the years she worked tirelessly on behalf of the poor. Many admonished her to slow down and rest. However, Mother Teresa always labored on, saying “I have all eternity to rest.” Mother Teresa lived a life worthy of imitation. At the time of her death, the Missionaries of Charity were operating 610 missions in 123 countries. She continues to inspire others by her example, challenging them to look beyond themselves and to consider the needs of the least of these.

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Note | I leave for India today with my friends Jon and Holloway to work at one of Mother Teresa’s homes for the least of these in Kolkata (Calcutta). I will post about my experiences as I have opportunity, so please check back often. And, if you are interested in reading more about Mother Teresa, please check out my book list.