Entrusting Myself to the Updside-Down Gospel

In case you aren't yet aware, I'm planning on spending the next 3 years living in a slum in India. I'll be living incarnationally with the poor and as much like them as I am able. I'll be trying to become a real neighbor and friend, and trying to do my best to love my neighbors.

I wish there were an easy way to explain this choice. But I'm failing to come up with one, so here's just a few of my thoughts that hopefully will help.

This has been a journey of trying to follow and listen to the Spirit. There have been many questions about poverty and suffering. More than anything, I think this comes from a desire to follow Jesus and his example as best as I can.

Christ's example is one of commitment, of risk, of dangerous engagement. He joined us in our poverty and our suffering. Jesus didn't come down from heaven during the day, heal the sick, teach, etc. and then head back up to heaven at night because we were too dirty, sick, or sinful to stay with. Why should missionaries or development workers retreat to middle class gated communities at night away from those they go to serve?

Maybe these will help:

And the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. (John 1:14)

The Message says the Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. Jesus joined us. He incarnated.

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich. (2 Corinthians 8:9)

And then he said, "As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world." (John 17:18) So we are sent, somehow, in the same way that Jesus was sent to dwell among us, poor and vulnerable.

I'll be spending the next 3 years or so doing my best to live up to that. I'll be living simply, trying to learn another language and culture, and trying to practice wholistic development and servanthood.

In just over a week I head to Vancouver for orientation, in November I'll be visiting India for a few weeks, and then, God-willing, I'll be heading out early in 2010.

In the mean time I'm in western PA raising support (and I'd love your help if you're interested), preparing, reading, and organizing my life to move to another continent.

We validate hope by showing our neighbors we entrust ourselves to the same upside-down gospel we proclaim. - John Hayes (To whom I owe much for the articulation of this post).