No Longer A Slumdog

We took a trip to the dessert recently as a family to visit my hubby's grandma.  No wi fi or TV meant I should probably bring a book.  In reality, I only read the introduction but it got me craving some reading time.  It was a book we have had for a while:

 
You can order a free copy from their website.  

If you need a little perspective. If you need a little shift back to the realities of the word.  If you need a reason to pray and to remember to be a person of gratitude.  If you need some spurring on to righteous anger and away from complacency.  Read this book.

It's an easy read in that it's very well written and captures your attention.  It's a hard read in that it will likely break your heart. Basically, it describes the plight of many of India's children and families, the caste system, and the poverty.  And it tells stories about the ministry Gospel For Asia has there for those kids.  It's pretty amazing.

I've always (for some reason) been captivated reading about the holocaust, learning about slavery,   etc.....studying all of those things in "history" that we are taught in school.  But, though it may make you angry that those things happened, it seems the chapter is closed because things "have changed".
But more and more I learn about the realities of depravity and disgusting injustice where a people group is literally treated like less than dogs.

While I sit in my air conditioned home, with filtered water available at any moment from my brand new refrigerator.... while I type on my iMac computer and prepare to wake up my toddler from his nap...which he takes in his own comfy bed in his own comfy room that he doesn't even have to share with anybody and that's filled with clothes and toys...while I prepare to make a dinner for my family that will fill their tummies....

it's easy to forget about the rest of the world.  I do feel a little guilty.  There are 250 million Dalit children alone in India.  With little hope of ever having any value...of ever even having enough food, water, and education, or ever escaping the caste system.

There is new hope for some of these kids as they enter the Bridge of Hope program.   Instead of believing that they have no value and deserve to have nothing and be treated as animals and abused....they can learn of a God that not only created them with a purpose but that loves them and values them.  The gospel has a whole new meaning when I think of these people.  It's not "just" Jesus died for your sins so you could live in eternity with Him in heaven.  Take it a step back to the fact that God created and world and knit them together in their mother's womb.  God cares for them.

While people debate about homeschooling vs. public school vs. private school......

it's easy to forget to be grateful that we can provide an education for our children at all.


While we debate about grass fed beef or organic produce or locally grown whatever foods...it's perhaps easy to forget to be grateful for even having access to food.

And perhaps it easy to forget all these things because we feel entitled.  It's an American epidemic.  We feel we deserve the best of everything as if we are somehow better than the oppressed.

So the question of the hour at our house...how do we instill a sense of gratitude and compassion in our children?  I would love our boys to grow up with compassionate hearts, a righteous anger for injustice, and a passion to change the world...whatever that looks like for them in the pursuits God calls them to. Definitely something to pray about.  Is it possible to "live simply so others can simply live" as the slogan goes?