day two

Today has been a very special day.

This morning I woke up and spent some time trying to connect to the internet before realizing that the power was out. Now in principle I know that the best “first thing” to do in the morning is to read the Word and pray to our Father.  At camp I would use the illustration, “If you were dating a girl, and she wrote you a letter, but you did not read it… would you fall in love? Or what if you never spoke to her when she was listening attentively… would you fall in love? No. So how can we ignore our prayers and bible reading, and then question why we have no relationship with Christ?”  However, though I know very well, that this is the best way to start ones day- I went straight for my laptop, as always… tabbed up facebook, g-mail, and hotmail before realizing that the power was out…. and with that the internet. This blessing forced me to follow the principle, and start my day by committing this mess to the Lord, that he would use me in whatever way he sees fit.

I have a confession, or admission. In all of my blog posts I don’t think that I once  have mentioned part of my reason for being here… I don’t know why not, I’m certainly not trying to hide it… so here it is. I wish to start a website where one can go to sponsor one of Vijay’s children. I have spoken to my friend Andrew from camp Mini-Yo-We, who has agreed to be our website designer and admin. I have also spoken to a lawyer from Ontario- though I am very simple; I understand that it is important to have charity status, either through another organization or on our own. In my opinion charity status and tax receipts are a great stumbling block for North America. My father has been in contact with an organization which offers to partner with small charities, lending to them their charity status. One of their people is only a few hours from where I am, and is coming to see the orphan home this weekend. I pray that God will put a passion on this man’s heart for Grace Orphan Home, and I ask that you will join me in this prayer. However if they do decide to partner with us, we have an even harder battle before us… getting charity status in India for the orphan home. As Vijay has told me, this will require a lot of bribing- mostly because Vijay is a Dalit man, living in a country that does not appreciate him. As I write this next sentence I boil with anger- this cast system even holds power among the Church here, the bride of Christ…. Wow. How interesting it is for me to come here, conformed to American culture, and see how perverted conformity could be… I pray that God would conform me only to him, yet whether I have this gift or not…. God works through dust, and I see that he is even more beautiful for doing this.

This morning Vijay and I had a long talk about the construction of the new orphan home. Immediately I saw this as being part of the new website. “Help build the orphan home that your sponsored child will live in.” If it is legal, I wish to speed up the production and launch of this website- starting to collect and distribute funds before charity status or tax exemption receipts will be available. Vijay told me that He was approached yesterday by someone who told him that this was my purpose here, to partner with him in finishing the new orphan home building. Today we went to the new orphan home construction site.  I will be posting a blog about the progress today… including many pictures. I ask you now for prayer.  Firstly that you would join me in praising God, for allowing me to be here in India. And secondly that God would  carry us along gently as we produce this website. Second blog post (construction) will be up very soon!