Off and Running.

My first week with IJM in South Asia has gotten off to a great start. I am staying with two long-term IJM interns from the United States who are taking very good care of me. They live in a flat just a short walk or rickshaw ride from the office, which makes the commute pretty manageable. We went to the market on Sunday, which was an experience in and of itself. I was very glad I had two tour guides to pretty much tell me what to get and where to buy it from – even buying things for me, which was very helpful in my very overwhelmed and sleep deprived state! We then went to a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf shop (one in the same with the West Coast chain), and ended the evening at a small church plant in one of the other neighborhoods of the city. It was a wonderful time of worship and fellowship with fellow believers. One of the songs had a line about every nation worshipping God. I have sung that song many times in the past, but those lines always have more meaning when they are truly being lived out. It was a powerful reminder that my personal world that I can get so consumed with is very small in comparison to the expanse of the world God is concerned with.

Monday was my first day in the IJM office and I was welcomed with open arms. The fact that I brought around 15 pounds of Snickers, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Butterfinger, and Twix probably helped out! I’ve had a steady stream of visitors coming through the office I’m using to get their hands on some of it. Basically, I’m bribing them into becoming my friends and I'm not ashamed of it. I visited this office a few years back when I was on staff with IJM and it has been fun to see how the staff has grown – not only in numbers, but also in expertise, systems, and effectiveness. I will probably use the word tireless many times over these two weeks, but I can’t think of any better word to describe the staff. Day in and day out they deal with extremely difficult topics, situations, and people. I know they get discouraged, but they keep coming back – with joy even. There is a lot of laughter throughout the office, showing their strength and resilience in the face of the ugly reality they interact with daily.

I got to meet all the aftercare staff on my first day and have since conducted a few interviews. I’ll be conducting a few more this week and will visit a partner aftercare home to interview some of the staff there later in the week. The interviews are going really well so far. I’m getting lots of great information and feel like a whole new world has been opened to me to better understand what aftercare actually looks like. It is so much more complex than I had realized. The problems seem much more insurmountable and the successes that much more sweet. Each life restored simply is a miracle. It is an honor to partner with and learn from such courageous people.