Go Beyond

Kolkata, India

Monguli with Kingsland volunteer Kaytlin Smith.

There is absolutely nothing boring about Kolkata. This city is a sensory smorgasbord. Whether you look to the right or to the left, it’s impossible to escape the sights, sounds, and smells of Kolkata — all mixing and wafting out of a cauldron of ceaseless human activity. And when you take a moment to scratch beneath the surface you’ll find that there is nothing boring about the people. All you have to do is squeeze them gently with a question or two and their personal stories begin to seep to the surface, providing context and clues to their existence, frustrations, hopes, and aspirations. Today, I met a twelve year-old girl, just a face in the crowd of young students attending the only school in the slum of Udayan Pally, a school founded by my friend Pastor Rudra. Her name is Monguli, the oldest daughter of a Bengali cobbler and a maid trying to support their three children on the edge of existence in a hovel crammed among thousands along a foul-smelling canal.

Monguli’s family survives on the equivalent of less than two US dollars a day. Struggling to make ends meet, Monguli’s mother withdrew her from Pastor Rudra’s New Hope School last May and sent her to work as a live-in maid for a family of means. It was a tough choice but the family needed the extra forty-cents a day that Monguli earned by cleaning floors and toilets and dishes and silverware and clothes. At every opportunity, Monguli begged her mother to allow her to return to their home and to school. Pastor Rudra’s wife, Mita, repeatedly begged and reasoned with Monguli’s mother, trying to get her to understand the value of a good education for her daughter. Finally, in October of last year, Monguli’s mother admitted that she had made a mistake by taking her daughter out of school and forcing her to work as a maid. Monguli returned to New Hope School where she continues to excel in her studies. She is a beautiful little girl who truly has new hope.

The slum village of Udayan Pally is crowded with poor Bengali Hindus for whom hope is something elusive and out of reach. The concept of “the future” doesn’t exist here — only surviving today. But, Pastor Rudra wants to change that by educating the children of these refugees and squatters who have staked out a tenuous claim on life on the outskirts of Kolkata. Having visited and served at this school over the past couple of years, I can see remarkable progress in the education of the children who attend. Our ladies team is serving at New Hope School this week. Already they are impressed by Pastor Rudra’s huge vision and even bigger heart for the welfare of a village that is not even on the newest maps of Kolkata and its environs. But what is quietly happening at this little school with more than one-hundred students is indeed bringing new hope to many families. Perhaps one day in the future somebody else will ask Monguli to share her story. I know that it will be a more beautiful narrative because of the work of one man and his wife who did not forget about her when her mother sent her to work as a maid.

Kolkata, India

I find both joy and comfort in seeing familiar faces when I am away from home. One of the first things I did after arriving in Kolkata was to visit the folks I know along AJC Bose Road. Over the past years I have become friends with beggars, shop keepers, a waiter at a hotel restaurant, a barber, a Muslim laundryman, several nuns at Mother House (headquarters of Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity), and the staff and security guards at the Baptist Missionary Society guesthouse. I have visited each of these folks over the past day and enjoyed smiles, hugs, hearty handshakes, and lots of conversations. And today, I made a new friend — a young Muslim man who runs a cell phone store next to Mother House. I was able to spend more than an hour conversing with him in his shop. We have agreed to stay in touch via email.

This morning, my old friend Don, the guy who handles the logistics for our trips here, and I went to the airport to meet Kay Smith and our Kingsland ladies. Once again, it was wonderful to see their familiar faces as they walked out of the terminal building pushing their luggage carts. Even though most of us see each other every week at church, seeing one another in Kolkata was like a mini family reunion with hugs and smiles and excited conversation. And, although tired from travel, we spent a few hours together getting oriented to life and landmarks on AJC Bose Road and the surrounding area. We visited Mother House, played with the kids at Sishu Bhavan (Mother Teresa’s home for orphans), and traveled by motor-rickshaws and trolley cars to get a quick bite to eat before going to bed. Over the coming days our ladies will work at the slum school we support, with the ladies in a vocational training sewing center we helped to finance, spend time with girls rescued from brothels, visit our justice partners in the city, and visit a ministry to kids rescued near the railroad station that handles a million passengers a day.

There is something really good about returning to the places where we have worked to build relationships and partnerships that are helping to advance God’s interests. Like me, the folks we work with and those we serve are always happy to see our familiar faces. Every time we return someone will say, “You’ve come back!” It means a lot to the folks here to know that we are committed to a long-term relationship with them and the people of Kolkata. I’m glad that they enjoy seeing our faces as much as we enjoy seeing theirs. Whether in Kolkata, India or Katy, Texas, it’s worth taking the time to get to know people and to bring a little joy into their lives. Every time we leave home we should make it a point to carry “a little balm and a little honey” (Gen. 43:11) with us in order to bring both healing and happiness to those we meet along our journey. May we live in such a way that others will smile and be filled with joy when they see our familiar faces.

Khondhamal Hills | Orissa, India

Today was a significant day in the Khondhamal Hills in Orissa, India — one of those days in which one can see how God has woven many threads together to make something beautiful. My part of the story here started with what I thought would be a one-time visit in the Winter of 1998. Little did I realize when I left these hills to return to my home that one of the threads of my heart had become entangled here and would unwittingly keep me connected to a man named Sudhansu. Years later, when persecution of Christians intensified, Sudhansu opened his home to boys from poor Christian families to ensure that they had a safe place to live and received a good education. When he started this initiative, my friend Jeff Hastings, a Houston attorney who had traveled with me to Orissa, agreed to personally support the work. Later, my friend Jerry Smith, who cares for orphans in Mongolia, agreed to take over support and to help Sudhansu care for an additional 45 boys. And then, finally, after the death of Kingsland member Diane Patterson, I felt a tug on that thread that had kept me connected to Sudhansu.

Because of the generosity of the people of Kingsland and those who loved Diane, a significant amount of money was entrusted to our missions ministry to honor Diane’s love for the nations and especially for the people of India whom she loved. I felt a heavy weight of responsibility as the steward of these funds but God gave me great peace about leading our missions ministry to invest in Sudhansu’s work in the Khondhamal Hills. Within a short period we saw the need to purchase land and to build a campus for the one-hundred boys in Sudhansu’s care. And so, we worked with Sudhansu to purchase a hectare of land on which to build a dormitory and dining facility. For the past two years we have worked to see the construction of this campus through to completion — not an easy task because of the resistance of Hindus in the area who would not sell us building materials and supplies. But, by the grace of God and in spite of opposition, the facilities are built and ready for the boys to occupy.

Today, Marcus Patterson and his children Daniel and Danae had the opportunity to see the campus built in loving memory of Diane. It was an emotional day for all of us as we stood in the midst of what is a part of Diane’s legacy — a home for the boys of the poorest Christian families in the Khondhamal Hills. Many of these boys come from homes that were completely destroyed by Hindu extremists and others have lost parents in the outbreaks of persecution in the area. But because of the concern of Sudhansu and the generosity of the people of Kingsland who gave memorial gifts after Diane’s death, these boys have a new home complete with new beds. The beds are a pretty big deal because these boys have slept on the floor, two to a blanket, for the past seven years. But today, everything changed because God wove something beautiful with the threads of several lives, including all who gave generous gifts. Only heaven will reveal the rest of the story as the boys in Sudhansu’s care serve the purposes of God in their generation.

Agra, India | 28 December 2011

Casting its reflection on the still waters of the Yamuna River, the Taj Mahal is regarded as one of the seven new wonders of the world and a must-see travel destination. This meticulously engineered epochal monument was built by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal who died while giving birth to their fourteenth child. Construction began in 1632 and took 22,000 workers a total of 22 years to complete. The beauty, symmetry, and detail of the monument is nothing short of amazing. But what is even more amazing is the love that inspired Shah Jahan to build this mausoleum for his favorite wife who lies entombed under the canopy of the central dome. Hundreds of thousands of visitors from all over the world travel to Agra annually to see Shah Jahan’s marble ode to his beloved wife Mumtaz — a monument that is arguably the most recognized icon of the Indian subcontinent.

When planning this trip to India for Marcus Patterson and his children to dedicate the boys home that our missions ministry constructed in memory of his late wife Diane, I asked Marcus if there was anything else he wanted to see during the few days allotted for our trip. He immediately said that he wanted to take his children to see the Taj Mahal. Having previously visited the Taj Mahal on two occasions, this was an easy request to fulfill, even on our tight schedule. As I watched Marcus and Daniel and Danae at the Taj Mahal, my thoughts turned from Mumtaz Mahal to Diane Patterson, a loving wife and mother who spent two years of her life serving the people of India. Not many people know that Diane had earned two masters degrees from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Diane devoted herself to equipping her family to love God and modeled passionate devotion to the purposes of God at home and among the nations.

The school we have dedicated in Diane’s memory is not a Taj Mahal but instead an ordinary and functional building. However, those who gave the funds given to construct it were inspired by Diane’s love for God. The building we have constructed may not last for centuries or will never become a must-see destination visited by thousands, but it will last for at least the next generation or two and will be a place where orphans and the children of the poorest Christian families in Orissa will find refuge and receive a good education. I can hardly wait to see the expressions on the faces of Patterson family as they visit the home for the first time — a place that will be something more memorable and meaningful to them than their visit to the Taj Mahal. In many ways, the home we have constructed in Diane’s memory is itself something of a monument to love — to the kind of love that will equip children to love God, love people, and serve His purposes in spite of the hate and persecution that Christ-followers in Orissa have experienced in recent years.

Houston, Texas en route to New Delhi, India

Everything changed for the Patterson family on June 15, 2006, the day that Diane, wife and mother of two, was killed in a tragic auto accident on Interstate 10 in Houston. Nothing can prepare a family to receive that kind of news — the worst kind of news that forces one to live with the reality of the unexpected and unexplained loss of a loved one. The years since Diane’s death have been difficult for her husband Marcus and their children Daniel and Danae. Not a day goes by that they do not miss Diane and wish that the events of June 15 had been as normal as those of any other day. And because we are human and try to make sense of the things we will never understand on this side of heaven, it’s easy to have those “If only” type of thoughts — “If only Diane had left the house five minutes earlier or five minutes later, she might still be with us.” Fortunately, we have a sympathetic Savior who understands. After the death of Lazarus, Martha approached Jesus and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:21).

The fact of the matter is that we will not fully understand things like the tragic death of a loved one until we see God face to face. In 1996, I visited the home of Corrie ten Boom in Harlem, Holland. Corrie and her family provided a hiding place for Jews during the Second World War. In her home, our guide showed us a needlepoint that Corrie had stitched and later framed. “It was her favorite piece,” our guide said as he pointed to what appeared to be a chaos of threads behind the glass of the frame. But then he turned it over to reveal what, to my surprise, were the words to “The Weaver,” a poem I had memorized years earlier. The words of this poem assure us that one day we will fully understand.

My life is but a weaving,
Between my Lord and me.
I cannot choose the colors
He worketh steadily.

Oft times He weaveth sorrow
And I, in foolish pride,
Forget He sees the upper,
And I the underside.

Not till the loom is silent
And the shuttles cease to fly,
Shall God unroll the canvas
And explain the reasons why

The dark threads are as needful
In the Weaver’s skillful hands,
As the threads of gold and silver
In the pattern He has planned.

Although Diane’s death was tragic, it is not a tragedy because she was a deeply devoted follower of Jesus. And because we believe the promises of God are true, we grieve with hope. In the months following Diane’s death, our missions ministry received several generous memorial gifts. Because Diane had spent two years of her life in India as a journeyman with the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, it seemed right to invest in building a boarding home for the children of persecuted Christian families in Orissa, the Indian state with the worst record of persecution of Christians in recent history. After two years, the initial phase of our campus is complete. The boys in the Diane Patterson Bethany Home will not only have a safe place to live, but will continue to receive the very best Christian education. This home is just one of those “threads of gold and silver” in the tapestry of Diane’s life and legacy.

I am privileged to be escorting Marcus, Daniel, and Danae to India to dedicate the boys home in Diane’s memory and to help move in the almost one-hundred boys in our care. Our friend Sean Cunningham who serves on Kingsland’s Media Staff is with us to document the occasion on video that we will show to the Kingsland family in the coming weeks. Please pray for the Patterson family as they honor the memory of Diane by officially dedicating and opening the boys home in her honor. And pray for the boys who will one day become godly husbands, fathers, leaders, and evangelists and who will represent the interests of God’s kingdom in one of the toughest places for Christians to live. When God finally unrolls the tapestries of the lives of each of these boys He will also explain to them the beautiful threads of gold and silver He included after the death of Diane, a woman they never knew but who loved the people of India.