Making Previlaged the Under-previlaged.
Last weekend I was at Tirunelveli, my hometown, back to my 'home sweet home'. I did quite a lot of different things from going on a picnic to sharing the Word in a village church to watching the musical 'My Fair Lady' for prolly the tenth time.
What was special about the weekend was that we hosted four Angel's friends from Ottanchathram Mission hospital, three British girls and an American one. We went to the Manimuthar falls on Saturday and on Sunday we went to Kanyakumari (hoping) to watch the Sunrise, then we went on to the cape and then to the falls Thiruparapur. All places were memorable, sceneic and beautifully overwhelming. But off all moments there was one that was most profound and it is about that I want to revel about.
On Sunday at a Village Church, we were the cheif guests the girls sang some songs and I had to preach. The village folks were enamoured 'watching' the girls sing. After the service was over. I saw the little girl sitting in the front and it seemed to me that one of the kids wanted to talk to the white-women that had accompanied us, I told Angel about it. In the meantime, Becky the British girl went forward to talk to the kids. At once, all little girls pooled around her and then Heather, Veriety and Helen followed suit getting the kids all the more ecstatic. I was busy taking snaps of this impromptu interaction that I did not know what exactly transpired between them. I was not even sure if the kids could converse with them in English.
Yet they were wide-eyed and shaking hands with them. In their urge to entertain and impress the visitors they started to sing action songs. They even wanted the visitors to visit them at their orphnage. Most of the little girls were partial or complete orphans from an orhpnage nearby.
Just seeing and being with the white-skined girls was so special to these kids. It was amusing to me as to how these girls did not have to do anything at all to make themselves special to the kids there. Just their 'being' close was special to the little girls.
I am getting a little philosophical and more objective here. The difference between these two group of girls (the little orphaned girls and the white-women) is that one is relatively more marginalized and the other is more previlaged. Now the question is about why one is previlaged and the other is marginalized and how the dynamics of their relationship work.
With previlage comes the Christian obligation to make the marginalized feel special and previlaged by making them worthy of the time of the already previlaged. It was not without reason that God sent His Son to live among the marginalized and make them previlaged by considering them worthy of His time and efforts.
When the pastor bid us goodbye, he said that often when folks come from abroad they go to bigger city churches rather than some village church and that he was happy that we had brought them to the village chruch of his.
It was my mother's brilliant idea to club a village church service with our picnic plans. My sister and I were not really excited by the idea but then on retrospect, there was a pretty profound lesson there.
The lesson being that the ones that are previlaged by race or by birth or by intellect or by riches have in them an obligation to make the underprevilaged feel special and previlaged by making them worthy of their time and efforts. And in that we imitate one important aspect of Christ.
What was special about the weekend was that we hosted four Angel's friends from Ottanchathram Mission hospital, three British girls and an American one. We went to the Manimuthar falls on Saturday and on Sunday we went to Kanyakumari (hoping) to watch the Sunrise, then we went on to the cape and then to the falls Thiruparapur. All places were memorable, sceneic and beautifully overwhelming. But off all moments there was one that was most profound and it is about that I want to revel about.
On Sunday at a Village Church, we were the cheif guests the girls sang some songs and I had to preach. The village folks were enamoured 'watching' the girls sing. After the service was over. I saw the little girl sitting in the front and it seemed to me that one of the kids wanted to talk to the white-women that had accompanied us, I told Angel about it. In the meantime, Becky the British girl went forward to talk to the kids. At once, all little girls pooled around her and then Heather, Veriety and Helen followed suit getting the kids all the more ecstatic. I was busy taking snaps of this impromptu interaction that I did not know what exactly transpired between them. I was not even sure if the kids could converse with them in English.
Yet they were wide-eyed and shaking hands with them. In their urge to entertain and impress the visitors they started to sing action songs. They even wanted the visitors to visit them at their orphnage. Most of the little girls were partial or complete orphans from an orhpnage nearby.
Just seeing and being with the white-skined girls was so special to these kids. It was amusing to me as to how these girls did not have to do anything at all to make themselves special to the kids there. Just their 'being' close was special to the little girls.
I am getting a little philosophical and more objective here. The difference between these two group of girls (the little orphaned girls and the white-women) is that one is relatively more marginalized and the other is more previlaged. Now the question is about why one is previlaged and the other is marginalized and how the dynamics of their relationship work.
With previlage comes the Christian obligation to make the marginalized feel special and previlaged by making them worthy of the time of the already previlaged. It was not without reason that God sent His Son to live among the marginalized and make them previlaged by considering them worthy of His time and efforts.
When the pastor bid us goodbye, he said that often when folks come from abroad they go to bigger city churches rather than some village church and that he was happy that we had brought them to the village chruch of his.
It was my mother's brilliant idea to club a village church service with our picnic plans. My sister and I were not really excited by the idea but then on retrospect, there was a pretty profound lesson there.
The lesson being that the ones that are previlaged by race or by birth or by intellect or by riches have in them an obligation to make the underprevilaged feel special and previlaged by making them worthy of their time and efforts. And in that we imitate one important aspect of Christ.