or in a more physically comfortable place like my parents' home,
where I lived before going to Chicago and where I live now.
I often don't live in light of this reality, desiring comfort over meaning, but that doesn't mean I can't affirm its truth. This concept became very real to me at the age of eleven when I spent a week in a Nepali orphanage. The kids in the Christian orphanage had 2 pairs of clothes each, which we are washing in the picture, and little else materially. They ate porridge in the mornings, and rice with sauce (a rather thin dall) at lunch and dinner. Their only meat source, a single chicken spread out throughout the whole orphanage once a month. It was so cold, that after the first night, I curled up next to the heater off the bed every other night; the kids didn't have heat.
Despite the lack of physical resources, they possessed a joy and love in an abundance that I had never seen before. They were the happiest kids I had ever seen, loving each other, me, and everyone they encountered to a degree that had previously been exclusively theoretical for me. This could only be described as the joy of the Lord, something not manufactured by religion, but truly born of God. Of my first two decades of life, I can think of no week more important or joy filled than my week in a Nepali orphanage.
Other formative matters of note included my reading of "Submerge: Living Deep in a Shallow World," the inclusion of John Dewey's classic "Experience and Education" in my Wheaton curriculum, my participation in Invisible Children Displace me Chicago, my leadership of two Orphan for a Weekends, and my six weeks in South Africa with a team from Innerchange (http://innerchange.org/).
Link for Invisible Children Displace Me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3rrCqrJVbU
Links for Orphan for a Weekend: https://www.facebook.com/events/24159584832/ , https://www.facebook.com/events/64690487410 , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEjXTUonRl8 , https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=531042052188&set=a.530849932198.2039694.187700466&type=3&src=https%3A%2F%2Fscontent-a-iad.xx.fbcdn.net%2Fhphotos-ash3%2F5332_531042052188_1657493_n.jpg&size=604%2C453 , https://www.facebook.com/adam.b.garrett/media_set?set=a.515222409878.2031511.187700466&type=3
most of which I spent living in a black township by the name of Soshanguve.
Innerchange is one of a few groups discussed in another book, "The New Friars" about a move in Christianity today to live among the poor rather than to retain the lap of luxury of the first world while ministering to those in the 2/3 world. The team that I was apart of was, as far as the founder of Innerchange knew, was the first attempt of any American organization to move a team into any black township in South Africa. A pastor living in Soshanguve for dozens of years said that he had never heard of any white group from anywhere intentionally moving into Soshanguve as a part of that team's ministry. Many people did ministry there, but the vast majority of white people did not like to spend the night there. White people would sometimes go into the township for ministry or business during the day, but they would often want to be gone before dark. I met the first and only white resident of Soshanguve apart from our team one of the last days that I was there, because a neighbor wanted to introduce me to the only white person he knew that lived there. At times my team and I were pointed at and people called out "Maqua (white people)!" Black townships, where black people were forcibly moved some decades ago during Apartheid, were known as danger zones for white people, especially at night. White people spent decades cultivating fear and animosity between they and their black brothers, and so a degree of apprehension to being there at night as a white person was warranted. One man living in Soshanguve told my team leader, "Thanks for not being afraid."
Fear was indeed a prospect for my team during our time there, but God was wonderful in clearly showing me that I was supposed to be there. Keep in mind that I never felt led by God in a way that I knew was clearly God's leading and not just an "open door" until I began having more depth of prayer life and giving my life over more to God and recognition of my inadequacy apart from Him. Within the context of a longer sequence of events where I felt led there, I'd like to point out a short recounting of some of them. John Hayes, founder of Innerchange, came and spoke at chapel at Wheaton College, which I was attending at the time. I slept through chapel. Later on that day, I said hi to John at the water fountain, and he struck up a conversation. I already had other plans for the summer that I was thinking about, but I agreed to schedule a meeting with him. He shared about the mission to Soshanguve, and also shared about the great need for racial reconciliation there. He told me about his own experience with racial reconciliation, a story that appeared to bring about more reconciliation than any I had ever heard from anyone I had ever known. I agreed to pray about it for a week, and within the course of the next week, found myself in a field trip with a graduate level class that I was sitting in on. A man by the name of John Perkins spoke to our class. He was visiting from New Orleans I believe. He told me an even greater story of racial reconciliation, and I felt like God's leading was becoming clear. On the last day of that week of prayer, I did a one day fast. That very day, God put the cherry on top of His leading, when I discovered that the book that John had given me which he authored, "Submerge," had its foreword authored by none other than John Perkins.
One night in Soshanguve I was getting in much later than I had planned. I was arriving by somewhat of a cross between a taxi and a bus, and did not have a cell phone. As we approached the stop I was planning on getting off at, maybe a mile or so from where I was staying, another man asked me, "Aren't you afraid?" I replied that if I were robbed, it would only be some material possessions, and if I died, I would be on my way to Heaven. He asked me where I attended church, and walked with me most of the way home. On another occasion, when a girl on the team was being followed by a man on drugs within the township, the community responded by chasing and beating the man.
For those that have never experienced incarnational ministry among the poor in which you live with them, it may be difficult to fathom why I would ever do such a thing. Without engaging in it for yourself, it can be difficult to understand despite however much you read the rewards and the joy that can come from such experiences as one walks with Jesus as their source of life, hope, peace, joy, love, etc. The author of Hebrews writes of Jesus in Hebrews 12:2, "For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame." The tears of joy that I was to experience during eight weeks being intentionally homeless were more numerous than over a year of my life in my teens. In my teens my prayer life was rather insignificant, and I had yet to regularly experience the deep joy found in sweet times in communion with the King of Kings.
The following blog may give you a glimpse: http://adambgarrett.blogspot.com/2011/01/bittersweet-luxuries-dream-of-orphan.html
Ministry while living among the poor is indeed different from ministry down to the poor from a position of tangible social superiority during the time of ministry.
The first time that I was ever spending time with my next door neighbors in Soshanguve, two brothers in their early 30's, one of whom used to box for a living, one said something that I hope to never forget. He said that me living next door, and chilling with them right now, was "a dream come true."
Incarnational ministry is something that Jesus did for us, as described in Philippians 2: 5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!
While you may or may not receive a specific calling to something radical in regards to Philippians 2, what could abiding by this mean for you, or what has it meant for you? As you seek the Lord regarding this, please remember me in your prayers in the same regard, remembering John 15:5 as well.
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