India, Rosa Parks, and a Reunion

To quote a David Crowder song that I love, "What a glorious day." Thom and I met around noon yesterday, and we went to visit two friends of mine (and church members), John and Greg. John is the chief legal counsel for our state's Department of Public Health, and Greg is assistant counsel. We have talked about the possibility of forming a team of professionals from their department who are believers to partner with a city or state in India and do a public health conference with counterparts from over there, possibly among the lower castes. It would be a very different type of trip and the possibilities for activating the gifts and talents of professionals here and partnering them with need over there, while at the same time engaging the Hindu worldview from a Christian perspective, would be astounding. As we met with Thom, he detailed a great number of possibilities and suggested the state we could partner with in the north as well as two universities in India that could sponsor such an endeavor. We will put together a proposal and are looking at a trip next year. This could be really exciting!

While we were having lunch, I saw a man that we used to disciple a couple of years ago. He lived in the housing project that we visited every Sunday afternoon. He had just been released from 15 years of prison when we started meeting with him, had spent his whole adult life on drugs, and didn't know if he would make it. He was a brand new believer and we got to meet with him regularly for about a year. We prayed with him, had Bible study, and got to be friends. In time, we had to stop going to the neighborhood and we eventually lost touch. I saw him today for the first time in about two years, and he looked wonderful! He was beaming with pride over keeping his job, staying off of drugs, and staying out of prison! He said to me, "can't you see that I'm different?"  Wow. Yep, he was different. It's amazing what a difference Jesus makes in someone's life. I'm so glad we got to be a part of that! We exchanged numbers and I hope to get together with him soon.

After lunch, we went up the street to Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church. This was the church that Martin Luther King, Jr. was pastoring during the 1950's when the Montgomery Bus Boycott occurred. I have known the pastor, Rev. Michael Thurman, since I arrived in Montgomery as we have gotten together a few times and shared a meal. Last December when Rosa Parks died, Thom contacted me and asked if I would be able to help him with a project called the Phule-Parks Human Dignity Award. It would be given annually to a person in India who fought for justice and mercy for the lower caste and outcaste peoples. It would be named after Rosa Parks because of her courageous stand during the Bus Boycott, and Phule, the father of social reform and revolution in India in the 1800's. Phule was the ideological father of Ghandi, but he was a follower of Jesus. He called for social reform from a decidedly Christian perspective. Thom wants to use the legacies of Phule and Parks to encourage social reform among the lower castes and outcastes today and to advance the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. into India. He believes that this can best happen from a Christian perspective. It is fascinating stuff, really, and I wish I could go into it more.

At any rate, Rev. Thurman agreed that this was something that he would be interested in. The picture that you see is of Thom handing Rev. Thurman an autographed copy of the manuscript of the book he has written on the life and impact of Phule. It is the first copy given to anyone in the United States and it was given, symbolically, behind the pulpit that Martin Luther King, Jr. used to preach from. It is amazing what can happen when God is moving to draw people together and advance his Kingdom.  This award could be a real catalyst to celebrate advances in destroying the last, and strongest, apartheid on the planet. We believe that Christ is to be the driving force to setting the lower castes and outcastes free, both temporally and eternally.

At dinner last night, we joined two other couples from our time at Golden Gate in the late 1990's when Thom was chair of world missions and our professor. It was an incredible reunion. One of the couples are M's in a restricted access country and the other couple is helping to establish a church not far away. We had another couple from our church, and our ministry intern. It was an incredible evening of sharing memories, laughing, telling stories of what God is doing around the world, prayer, and thanking God for putting us into each others lives. I'll never forget this night as long as I live.

We had several other experiences yesterday that I cannot go into, but there might be some things opening up with a possible partnership with a university early next week. Thom is truly an amazing fellow and it was a pleasure to help connect him with people who can possibly help speed the coming of the Kingdom in India. My desire is to help create pipelines of people and resources from our area to go to the edges of the planet through use of professional skills, while forming networks of participating churches to support the trips and endeavors. We had an amazing experience today. Today, we have one meeting and then the conference starts! Please pray that it will be successful and that we will be able to help people understand how their work can be both worship and witness!

Comments

[Bill Wilkie]

It all sounds wonderful. But what public health model will the American experts represent at this conference?

Without being too critical, it sounds like "know-it-all" Americans will go help out the poor Indians who don't have the expertise. (Big Brother) Some of the best and the brightest brains in America today have been imported from India so that Americans can stay on top economically and politically. See Juan Enriquez's book "As the Future Catches You" where he deals with the poor quality of education in America and the resulting impact on America's future.

Let's create a neutral platform for discussion and designing solutions, identify the "lead users" in the world, whether Christian or not,who are thinking outside our box on public heath issues because they have a greater need in their country than the USA as well as a different world-view and invite them to participate. Let's do real problem solving. Let's commit to creating/designed the new medical model for the 21st century that is affordable to the poor in all countries including America. Enriquez's book provides a glimmer of hope that new technology around the genomics could provide a cost effective preventative health care model in the 21st century.

Better yet, should you invite some Indian medical students or recent graduates or recent graduates of the India Institute of Technology IIT to (maybe the best university in the world based upon the concept of meritocracy alone) come to Alabama to brainstorm and design "preventative public health systems that are affordable for 40,000,000 people in America who have no health care insurance?

Then the Indians would be the experts and we could later reciprocate by sending a team to collaborate on issues that relate to India.

Some historians tells us that Christians had a big hand in creating hospitals in America and a pubic education/literacy program for everyone in the U.S. With a very creative God, I am sure that we can create a new more viable 21st century medical model than the one in the USA today.

[Alan Cross]

Interesting thoughts, Bill. Thanks for coming on and engaging. I assure you that we would not be the "know it all" Americans, however. And, public health in India is a complete disaster (that's not a know it all statement or arrogance - it is just true). This directly stems from the Hindu worldview and how it is destroying the quality of life there. We would engage from a Christian worldview, which I think is valid, but we would seek to converse instead of dictate. Absolutely.

I am definitely open to learning and future partnerships as they develop, but I would not want to be handcuffed by trying to do it perfectly from the beginning, and then accomplish nothing because it was so complex. If our attitudes are humble and we seek to serve, we could provide real solutions as servants rather than experts or masters. That is a heart issue and it shows the need for us to walk with the Father through this. So, you raise some good points.

As far as creating a neutral platform where we could learn from India so that we could solve the current health crisis in America, can I agree that we have serious problems without agreeing that our solutions would necessarily be found in India? Their own people starve because rats eat enough grain to fill train cars that would run the distance from New York to L.A. They cannot exterminate the rats because they are revered and worshipped in the Hindu worldview since they might be an ancestor. That is just one of the many perspectives that causes India to harm itself, apart from external forces.

Thank you for your perspective. It is worth thinking about as we move on through this. There is a need to take this one step at a time and we are just exploring what step one might look like. Perhaps we can bring some of these things in as we get further down the road. Keep challenging me and helping me see other sides.