Venu and Kavia

I wish I could transport you to India through my eyes—but just as you are able only to watch a love story (until you’re in the middle of one!)—I can only make India as real to you as my stories let me. But there is power in this—knowing another’s story—and I invite you in warmly.

India makes me think of joy, because that is what the Lord carries over them. He sees them, as they are, and loves them just there. I am one who often forgets grace and certain cities evoked that feeling—being in New Delhi was especially hard for me because of the striving atmosphere present there—but as I walked with the Lord through His country, I was overwhelmed by His love for them.

Venu and Kavia best describe India’s beauty for me and her longings. Venu was a shopkeeper—beautician by trade—and Kavia was her little daughter. They spoke English well and in the hour and a half that we spent in their shop getting henna done they became our friends. They went so far as to invite us to their home the next day.

Their house was out in the country, a swaying bus ride away. Indian music—how I love and miss that happy jangle—made up just a part of the cacophony that is an Indian bus: overcrowded seats, collecting of rupees from passengers as we were moving, the whistles and beeps issuing from the worker’s mouths, each indicating to the driver a different signal: “time to close the doors”, “get this bus moving”, “stop, someone wants to get off”.

The place where we finally stopped had a magnificent view: their house overlooks a deep valley, filled with tea and other crops. They invited us in, (“shoes off, please”) and the fun began. We were given a tour of the house, introduced to all of Kavia’s stuffed animals, met her older brother and then discussed all sorts of topics, from the components of our two religions to what school systems were like in India. All the while Venu, just home from work, was preparing our meal. She brought her cooking into the same room we were in, just wanting to be with us.

The evening was filled with the joy of just loving being together. We learned their story in great detail, especially why Kavia, a ten-year-old wanted to be a neurosurgeon someday. Before she was born, her mother (Venu) and father, a mechanic we met that day, were in a motorcycle accident that nearly cost him his life. Kavia has grown up wanting to become one of those who can perform such surgeries and save others as her dad was saved. This bright, sassy kid (she spoke perfect English and knew just how to joke around in it—a sign of intelligence, to be witty, especially in your second language) will no doubt become exactly what she imagines.

We had more fun and learned more from each other than any government would allow. It was late at night by the time Venu ushered us up the road to catch the next bus. Her last words to us were, “I’ve never felt so loved.”

I have travelled the world longing for that praise to be reminiscent of me, but always for the wrong reasons. A human wants praise, recognition, for someone to look at them and see their ‘worth’…except it doesn’t work. You can never get enough from a human, not matter how hard you try; and I have seen the truth of this time and time again. A heart set on filling the longing will always fall short when it tries to find its issue from an unkempt source. And a human heart is unkempt, bereft, it wanders of its own trying to fulfill itself and muddying its own water with desires. We cannot find what we need within ourselves.

But God: God is something else. God sees us, where we are, and loves. Loves, though our water is muddy. Loves, though our motives are impure. Loves, though it kills Him daily to see the pain we bring on one another. Loves, though even when the wisest among us would say it is not worth it.

Love, love that issues from God, is something more than our minds can grasp. It is, in itself, actually unearthly. It has no origin originating here and therefore breaks up all our dispensations toward itself. It is the unseen other that was put in bodily form in Jesus Christ.

And when you, there, are operating out of love: finding in Him all that you needed to get by—and even more, which you can freely give away—the world notices. They sit up for a minute, glance at you, then back down at whatever was troubling them. But then it happens again, this blip on the radar screen that is unmistakable: what was that? They have to stop, take off the glasses of self-defeat and wonder for a moment: what could that have been? Could that be for me?  If it happens often enough in a life—and that person takes the hint and gives up trying to make sense of God and just starts to want to know Him: the miracle happens. They get swept up into His love too.

            I am praying for that for Venu and Kavia—we go to spend the last few days of our time in a town in South India called Ooty with these precious ones—and they, raised into a system which tells them there are many gods and gives them rituals to follow, glimpsed grace and love in us, something they had been looking for without knowing it. I don’t know the end of their story, only to pray for them. I did get to, in the brief beautiful moments that I was given, love them as Jesus loves me—so unreservedly. And we all were changed by it.

If I have learned anything from going to India, it’s that grace is a powerful, beautiful, living thing. I glimpsed Jesus working in and through me even in the midst of my pain and mess—He let His name be known, His purposes accomplished, His glory shining, His love which overflowed. As the India government clamps down on followers of the way and anything having to do with the name of Christ—as those who work under His name continue to be uprooted from that country, pray. They, the Indian church, are stronger than they know—this I saw, travelling among them. Pray that they lean into Christ as their source—they and I are on the journey of learning just how good He is, how able. I pray that we, as a body which encircles the globe, will be grateful for the goodness of our God and continue to seek it, in whatever circumstances we find ourselves in.

He can lead us through anything. Pray and usher Him—and all His purposes, as we yield—in.