GURGAON, India — When the scorch of summer hit this north Indian boomtown, and the municipal water supply worked only a few hours each day, inside a high-rise tower called Hamilton Court, Jaya Chand could turn on her kitchen tap around the clock, and water would gush out. 

The same was true when the electricity went out in the city, which it did on average for 12 hours a day, something that once prompted residents elsewhere in Gurgaon to storm the local power office. All the while, the Chands' flat screen television glowed, the air-conditioners hummed, and the elevators cruised up and down Hamilton Court's 25 floors.

Hamilton Court — complete with a private school within its gates, groomed lawns and security guards — is just one of the exclusive gated communities that have blossomed across India in recent years. At least for the newly moneyed upper middle class, they offer at high prices what the government cannot, at least not to the liking of their residents.

There is a hunger for intimacy

a longing for oneness

twisting and turning

spiraling

between stomach and chest

between hearts,

between you and me;

DELEGATES attending an international conference in the Philippines capital may not see what they came to discuss: abject poverty.

A makeshift, temporary wall has been erected across a bridge on a road from the airport to downtown Manila that hides a sprawling slum along a garbage-strewn creek.

Recently,

we met several times,

but not for long,

just a simple greeting in the street,

your flashing smile,

like a neon ad for Colgate,

and that twinkle in your eye

that spoke of mischief,

impish laughter,

and your joyous love of life.

Is Asia harder than the West?  5 key things to consider in comparing Servants team contexts. Having lived and worked with Servants for six years in Cambodia and six years in Canada I have sometimes been asked which place is more challenging. Before attempting to respond, I have to make a disclaimer that I will be speaking in generalizations.  These are issues that I have personally found more or less difficult.  They may not reflect your experience in a particular context and they do not represent every situation.  

Let's Learn Tomato

"Kak Anna, belajar Tomat, dong!" Andini calls from my doorstep.  Her face pressed up against my screen door.  Kak Anna, let's learn Tomato!" She says.  What she means is, "Let's read Veggie Tales books again."

My guess is I am the first person to introduce Veggie Tales to Indonesian Muslim slum children.  The translation into Bahasa Indonesian is quite good- and hilarious.  Every day I read the children Veggie Tale stories; we learn counting (How Many Veggies are in the boat with Bob the Tomato?), shapes (Pa Grape creates different shaped wheels for his car), and colors (Junior Asparagus teaches us).  Saturday afternoons my three-by-four meter home becomes movie-theater for thirty children, and we watch singing vegetables tell silly stories.

No sparrow falls,

nor molecule decays

without you reaching out your hand.

No tear cascades,

no memory aches, or fades

without you conscious of it all

No last breath is drawn,

no lost love, forlorn

without you bearing all their pain.

"There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats children," 1993 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Nelson Mandela stressed. The frail 93-year-old statesman's yardstick resonates here where over 1.7 million children huddle in Metro Manila slums.

"State of the World's Children 2010" (SOWC) meets this issue head on. Released by the United Nations Children's Fund Tuesday, SOWC's theme is children in a world of "imploding cities." Impoverished rural migrants and children cascade into urban centers like Olongapo, Batangas, Naga, Cebu, Iloilo, Bacolod, Cagayan de Oro and Davao. That torrent hasn't ebbed.

They came to Britain illegally in search of a better life, but the reality turned out to be far removed from what they dreamed of.

Many houses in areas of London and the Home Counties have put up makeshift shelters in their gardens

The BBC has spoken to illegal immigrants who find themselves living amongst rats and rubbish in makeshift garden sheds and garages. They want to be deported back to India, but many are trapped in a bureaucratic no man's land without any documents.

A wall of words

that mostly serve

to keep me 18 inches from your face.

Do you understand my meaning

when I talk of mutual sorrow

(then quickly glance away),

that on this crazy planet

our mutual pain is sometimes

all we hold in common?

An international leader and beloved member of the Servants family passed away suddenly about midnight Friday evening after spending the week at our annual International Leadership Council in the Philippines.

I. My sister,

she lives her life

like the butterfly

searching for a garden

more beautiful than the last.

My sister,

she lives her life

on the jet plane

searching for a city

large enough to hold her heart.

Violent clashes and protests over a land-grabbing disputed have taken place in the heart of the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh this week, after a development company began to bulldoze the slum homes of 300 poor families. The destruction has prompted a wave of evictee protests at Western embassies, as victims hope to draw world attention to their plight—and perhaps inspire measures like the World Bank’s continuing freeze on loans to Cambodia,  after similar government-backed evictions took place at Boueng Kak Lake in 2010 and 2011.

here I stand

laden with your gifts

for you have given me

every good and needful thing

that I might live for you.

As people continue to migrate away from rural areas and into cities, cities that are growing to devour the land around it, the numbers of people living in slums, shanty towns and "informal settlements" are skyrocketing.

Currently, there are 200,000 of these communities across the world, according to the United Nation's Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, most of them in and around cities, and that number is growing exponentially. Even before the economic crisis of 2008, about one third of all city dwellers live in slums, slums which will grow in size by one billion more people within the next twenty years.

While 90 percent of the world's informal settlements are in developing nations -- such as India and Brazil -- they are a worldwide phenomenon and are in European capital and largest American cities. Here are the five largest slums in the world:

I must admit I am afraid to love you because you are broken.

I refuse to see you there in the street, lying in the stench of your whiskey
or beer. I turn from your crazed mutterings
on the subway, run from your weary veins
in the alley, ignore your priced body
on the corner.

Cooking dinner for your family should not cause you to contract diseases and die young. And yet according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), globally nearly two million deaths per year (mostly women and children) are attributed to respiratory diseases caused by indoor air pollution from open fires and simple stoves.

This affects many families in our community and region in north-east India, who use simple coal burning stoves. These stoves emit copious amounts of smoke and carbon monoxide, making them a real health concern. Essentially women and children can develop smoker's lungs just through cooking and being around the home.

Preparing food for your family really shouldn't be like this. So we're excited to see potential for real progress coming within reach of the poor. 

And still I hear it

on and on

in the hidden corners of my mind

that eternal scream

which echoes

down the corridors of time,

refusing to be silenced

it accuses me

of passivity, thus

an accessory to crime.

Dear friends,

First of all, thank you so much for your prayers, your kind emails, your phone calls.....your love and support! I have felt incredibly supported over the past week.

The fire was a week ago: Monday night, October 31st from 8pm-10pm (type in "Kampung Baru kebakaran" in youtube and you get some images taken from a cellphone). My house and my immediate neighbors were not touched by the fire, but we all had moved our important possessions to an area further away because we thought the fire would reach us. It was an evening of fear, tears, and trauma for most of our neighbors as we watched the HUGE fire.

Many of you have been following the story of our neighbourhood over the last month as we have found out about the looming eviction. As many in the neighbourhood were clinging to the hope it would all turn out to be nothing, others decided to move on voluntarily (and their houses were demolished the next day to make sure no one else moved in) Sadly, in the midst of this, an even greater tragedy has now befallen our community. Last night a great fire spread rapidly through the community hastened by the trash dump nearby and by the fact the roads are not able to take a fire truck so it took the firefighters a while to get to it.

The 7 billionth person on Earth will draw his or her first breath on Oct. 31, at least according to estimates by the United Nations. Assuming all systems are in working order, that baby will also create its first output that same day, in the form — to put it delicately — of a dirty diaper. That dirty diaper is only the tip of an iceberg of human manure produced around the globe every day. It might seem a reasonable question to ask how humanity will deal with this output of feces as the world's population creeps toward 10 billion by 2100. But that question presumes we have the poop problem under control now. Here's the bad news: We don't.

Dear friends.

Greetings from Asia, where we need your prayers. A month ago, three days before setting off to spend a few weeks with the team in Manila, rumors started flying around the neighborhood: eviction and demolition. Although a timeline is still unclear, it seems like the rumors are turning into reality. This land “officially belongs” to a company, although some of our neighbors have lived here for over 20 years! Yesterday (October 26) everyone received a letter from the company - informing us that we need to vacate the premises. Those who agree to leave peacefully will receive fifty dollars compensation.

Message from Servants Cambodia Co-Team Leader, Steve Tripp:

"Many of you may have read about the tragic flooding in Cambodia at present. So far 247 people have been confirmed dead throughout the country with many more missing. 270,000 families have had their houses flooded and 16% of the nations rice paddies have been destroyed."

You know me and you love me

even in the darkness of my fear,

you are close and you are calling

even in my wretched gut-despair,

you know me and you love me

and you ache to make me whole,

you take my million broken pieces

and mould them into one,

During fasting month we would often break fast with our neighbors, usually one family at a time. But one evening, we hosted a breaking fast party in our house where several women (and children) came. It was pot luck style with each person bringing a part of the meal. Some food there was clearly enough of (like vegetable soup) but some, when people gave it to us, we realized would likely not feed much of the crowd we were expecting. Almost as a joke, as we put the food in serving bowls we asked God to multiply the rice and soybean cake (like a cousin of tofu).

[This post is from Good Intentions: see link at the end]

If the unthinkable were to happen and you and your spouse, or one of your children and their spouse, were to die in a disaster, would your children or grandchildren be sent to an orphanage?

Most likely, before being sent to an orphanage there would be grandparents, aunts, uncles, godparents, and close family friends or neighbors would take care of your children. This is also true in developing countries where families often live even closer to each other and have a greater role in helping each other raise children. In reality there are relatively few cases where a child is completely without someone who could take care of them if they had the financial means to do so.

Poverty is everyone's issue. For those of us who live in wealthier nations with social welfare benefits for all, it is easy not to engage. We too easily forget that the poor in other nations are our poor – the people making our clothes, shoes and electronic goods. We believe that there is a need to be advocates for justice and peace in the midst of this situation; hence we came to live and learn amongst poor friends.

There were glimmers of beauty

in your tears of shame

that fell like silver

that fell like rain

Hastily constructed, often dangerous dwellings are springing up under the radar of London's councils

From the street, this semi-detached house on a leafy road in east London seems entirely unremarkable. Upon entering the front door, however, the sound of bodies stirring could be heard on every floor in the house. In a room immediately to the right – where you would usually find a living room or a kitchen – several figures rise from mattresses. Upstairs, seven young men in states of undress shuffle around in cramped rooms.

In the garden, a concrete, shanty-like structure stands against the back fence. Four young men emerge from the room rubbing their eyes. A smell common to such cramped conditions escapes, clothes are hung haphazardly on window ledges and door frames, and kitchenware and food is stacked amongst belongings. This so-called "super-shed", a poorly constructed building not much larger than an average garden shed, is one of thousands of similar structures across the capital that housing campaigners label London's secret slums.

Manila, Philippines: The rich elite in cities across the world want to clear the slums which are now home to a billion people. But many of those who live in shanty towns like that which lines the banks of the San Miguel canal, do not want to leave. Why?

 I had come to the Philippines to explore a theory but, as always, reality got in the way. I was standing on the bridge over the Estero de San Miguel, a slum in the capital Manila. My host was architect Felino Palafox and he had spread his blueprints across the parapet of the bridge and we were poring over them, with some street kids clambering around us. Palafox was making a big splash with the locals his Star Trek-style traditional Philippines shirt.

If you are looking for a role in a pioneering team in the most populous Muslim nation on earth, read on.  The existing Servants Jakarta team has been living and ministering in Indonesia's massive capital city since 2009. Having already had team members in Jakarta for the past two years combines many of the benefits of joining an established team with those a pioneering team. For example, current team members have already established options for attaining visas, acquired a restful team center, discovered good language schools, have already trained neighbors as personal language tutors, and best of all have become well-known and loved by the community! Yet this team is still prayerfully discerning how God is inviting them to specifically carry out Servants' vision of seeing their impoverished neighbors and community transformed by the power of Christ. The stability of established teams is combined with the creative dreaming of pioneering teams.

And unlike many foreigners, we try to give regularly to beggars. Here are a few thoughts about how we approach the topic of giving to the poor.

May I  introduce … Id ul Fitr

Everyone is celebrating today, even the poor, in whatever ways they can.

I am reminded of the touching story “Idgah” by Premchand, perhaps the most famous Hindi/Urdu story writer of modern times.  In the story the orphan boy Hamid who lives with his destitute grandmother, has only a few coins to spend for Id.  Like every child, he feels the excitement in the air, and sets off to the Idgah (the special gathering place used for Id prayers) with all the boys and men of the village.  After prayers the other boys all spend whatever they have on sweets and toys, but Hamid remembers how his grandmother often burns her fingers cooking chapattis (flat bread), and spends his only three coins buying tongs for her.  The story details the other boys ridiculing him, Hamid masquerading his tongs in various ways until they are jealous, the talk of the village on the boys' return, the rapid demise of the sweets and cheap toys of the other boys, and the special bond between Hamid and his grandmother.  Along with millions of Indians, I have read this story with both my sons in Hindi and in Urdu, as it appears in the standard primary school textbooks.  It brings tears to my eyes every time.

Marital Misery

In a poor neighbourhood, there are many sad stories.  Today I've heard about death, drugs, disappearance, and divorce.  Not that these are by any means special to Islam, or even to poverty – people of all religions and all economic classes fall into addiction, run into marriage problems, and run away.  We all eventually die.  But somehow these things are concentrated and accentuated among the poor, who have fragile hope, no holidays, and nothing in the bank.

May I  introduce... Faraheem

On the way to collect the milk each afternoon we pass Faraheem. Faraheem has an interesting livelihood – he sells goats! Only recently did I stop to hear some of his story.

Farahim hails from Bilaram village in Uttar Pradesh, the state adjoining Delhi. His wife died some time ago, so now he lives with his sister and Brother in our neighbourhood.

We already knew that while the biggest Muslim festival is Eid, (next week - at the end of Ramadan), the second biggest is 'Bakra Eid', 2 months after that. That's a festival celebrating Abraham's (near) sacrifice of his son (see below). For this festival many Muslim families buy a goat to sacrifice. The month leading up to Bakra Eid is thus the biggest earning month of the year for Faraheem!

May I  introduce … The trunk-shop man

I went to the nearby market to buy a steel trunk, for storing our excess books which won't fit on our limited shelf space.

First I went to the shop where I could buy my favourite soap, and had a fairly typical conversation with the shop-keeper …

Let us introduce ...Navaab

Navaab is our long-term friend. He's also our electrician! He's a likeable, honest, friendly, young man, with a load of responsibility on his shoulders. Like many young men, Navaab, originally from Budaun, a provincial town a few hours from Delhi , came to the city to earn enough money to keep his parents and save for his siblings' weddings.

Navaab has learnt the electrical trade form his older brother. He now has his own (rented) shop just opposite our place. From there he sells electrical hardware, as well as going to people's houses to install lights fans etc.

Dinner with Friends

I called round to visit a good friend one Saturday evening a couple of weeks ago. It was an unannounced visit. But as she is a friend that I know will always welcome me, there was no chance I would feel awkward about possibly interrupting something. It was dark and I typed in their flat number and rung the bell. I couldn’t see any lights from their first floor flat and I was starting to feel disappointed that I might have to return home without seeing Shanaz and her family. But then the buzzer went and I was let in. I climbed the concrete stairs to find Abdul and Abdul (her two sons) waiting eagerly at the open door. Shanaz called out "Hallo Marree" and gave me a big warm embrace. I was welcomed in and the excited chatter in Urdu around me felt strangely familiar. I am always amazed at how much we can communicate despite lacking a common language.

Telling Stories

The teenagers in the homework club at the Somali community centre were all given the same task. Write an article, in the style of a newspaper report, about a teenager who heroically rescues a young child. It was up to them to imagine a heroic rescue, and decide what had happened and who was involved.

Halimo's Homework Club

During the school term, Halimo ran a homework club at the local Somali community centre. For two hours every Saturday and Sunday, up to twenty children and teenagers came for extra support in English and maths, free of charge.

One Saturday, Halimo had a blazing argument with one of the parents. Later, in tears, she explained that the parent was complaining that the work given to his child in the homework club was too easy. Halimo tried to tell him that each child was given work according to their age and ability, but the parent would not listen and angrily removed his child from the club.

May I  introduce … Working Women

[notes from an interview with Anthony, who co-ordinates an empowerment project in a predominantly Muslim slum]

In the colony in the past few years we have seen that more Muslim girls are leaving the house and getting jobs—six or seven people are working distributing electricity bills house to house and other such jobs. A few years back, this would not have happened.

May I  introduce … Furkam

The Right to Information Act of 2005 has made it possible for ordinary Indian citizens to hold the government responsible by following up on applications for various government services and asking for reports on how individual government officials have handled (or mishandled) their cases.  The RTI has been particularly helpful to the Kari Project in obtaining government services for impoverished community residents.

May I  introduce … Blessed ones

Jesus stood on the bridge near Janta Colony in East Delhi and said to the masses gathered around:-

Rasheeda* had had enough. She had many children and her husband wasn't bringing in enough income for her to feed, clothe & educate them. Additionally, Rasheeda felt like her husband hated her and she feared he was seeing another woman. To top it all off, she also feared that her husband might be molesting her teenage daughter. Life was tough and Rasheeda had had enough. So she decided to finish it. One day in 2008, after yet another argument with her husband, she poured kerosene over herself and lit it !

The little kids in my neighborhood love baking pizza with me. Pizza is a foreign food that they've all seen on TV but for the most part have never tasted. Whenever I am willing to have a pizza making party, there are no shortage of happy participants.

Last week I decided to invite four of my pre-teen girlfriends for an afternoon of pizza-making and breaking fast together at Magrib (6pm). The girls were very excited, insisting on going to the grocery store with me to buy the ingredients. Giant, the local grocery store, is only a ten minute walk away, but it is a completely different world than the local markets. To the girls, the supermarket is an adventure, a luxury. There's AC, automatic doors (!), and rows and rows of food in colorful packaging!!

It was a funny mixture of cultures: making pizza in a slum in Indonesia in order to wait for the Arabic call to prayer to break fast together. It's a strange world.

"As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul longeth after thee," the familiar psalmist writes. This week that verse has taken on new meaning for me, as I join in the Ramadhan fasting. The verse has been contextualized in my head to be: "As the Ramadhan-fasting-person-in-Jakarta's-90degree-weather longs for stream of water, so our souls longeth after thee."

Thirsty.

THREE WALLS – AN ODE TO AAMAN

What stopped the oxygen, we'll never really know,

medical mismanagement, four long years ago?

Your plan? Genetic flaw? Or some random woe?

Baby born, damage done, on we must go.

A matter of months after this photo was taken, Sonam died suddenly of Meningitis. At the time, she was 18 years old, mother of two boys, and a third baby on the way.

When we first moved to this neighbourhood, Sonam befriended me and called me into her home, only metres from where we now live. I remember wondering whether her brother was on drugs (and later found out several of her brothers were). The house was tiny in floor space but built of brick, 3 storeys high, with a shop on the ground floor opening to the main alley.

My friend Shayra dropped in unexpectedly, and from the look on her face I knew she was either sad or not well. She told me abdominal pain was troubling her.

The conversation went on ... no she is not fasting, because of her stomach problems and needing to take medicines (so I get us both a cup of tea and some snacks) ... her daughters are both fasting ... Sayda was sick with fever, but is back working again now.

"Get your rear in gear and get down here"

we call to our dad

we're going to

the park.

Put on your shoes

grab the ball

we're going to

the park.

Mehruddin is a young married man - a carpenter by trade. As many young Indian Muslim tradespeople do, he normally works in 'the Gulf' (Persian Gulf states like Saudi, UAE & Bahrain). There the salaries are considerably better than can be had in India, so even though they're often treated as second-class citizens, they go and work for years, faithfully sending money back to their families in India.

Ateeq doesn't look like the widely recognisable stereotypical Muslim sporting a prominent beard, flowing white robes and prayer cap. He looks like an average young Indian guy – about 25, clean-shaven, moderately good looking, quick to smile, and usually wearing rather well-fitting pants and a fashionable shirt. That's not to say that he is not religious though. When I asked him about Ramzaan he has plenty to say ...

May I  introduce …  Arfa

Arfa lives around the corner from us in the crowded illegal squatter area we call home.  In talking about her life, Arfa explained that she used to live much more comfortably, but her husband was cheated of his life savings, and then died.  Arfa has raised ten children, only to see five of them perish as small children and two as adults.  She went on to ask me why God has cursed her?  It's hard to argue that God actually loves her deeply and personally – I know He does, but how can she know?  She is very devout in fasting during Ramzaan, in hope of improving her fate.

May I  introduce ... seven sisters

Reshma's 12 year old daughter Nilofa has been "gracing" us with her presence a little too regularly for our liking in recent months. She is a nice enough young girl in a tough situation, but she doesn't take a hint and can never leave our place without just saying one or two more things. She regularly asks for stuff, and comes at inconvenient times, despite our having given clear guidelines on these issues. I justify my feelings, "This is our home and our life, and we need to draw some boundaries sometimes ..."

Anthony and Babli make a very unusual couple. Anthony is our dark-skinned, Catholic-raised, South Indian, highly educated friend who was training as a Jesuit priest, but left before ordination to work at the grassroots with the poor instead of teaching in a Jesuit school. Babli is much fairer-skinned, Muslim-raised, and uneducated. She was married young but soon divorced because of quite extreme physical abuse. She became a community worker in the Catholic NGO Anthony used to co-ordinate in our neighbourhood. Anthony helped her family quite a bit, especially at the time of her father's sickness and death, and through all the court cases around Babli's divorce.

Miswah (girl ) and Uwez (boy) are cousins of Ateeq Husain and Waris (both boys). The older kids are both turning 3 soon, and the babies are about 1. (Back (L to R): Miswah and Ateeq Hussain; Front (L to R): Uwez and Waris) They are the youngest members of a big extended family home. The kids are blissfully ignorant of all sorts of tensions and problems being shouldered by the rest of the household, and they experience plenty of love and attention.

I decided to follow the Ramadan fast today, to understand what Muslims are experiencing at this time of year. It’s 3pm and I’m not feeling so good! I slept at our friend Rehana’s house last night. We were woken by a sound like an air-raid siren at 3.30am, signalling time to get up and start cooking. We’d been up until midnight: the adults talking; the children playing on the computer, with their pet rat, or holding a badminton tournament outside (badminton is the local Ramadan sport). The shouting and chanting from the nearby loudspeakers meant I couldn’t ease back into sleep. But Rehana’s 8-year-old son seemed to be able to nap through it all. Having only had 3 hours sleep, he needed to be forced awake with water flicked in his face, and eventually enough to drench his t-shirt!

Introducing Kaneez...

Servants works in a number of Islamic settings, including India and Indonesia.  This month is the month of Ramadan (also known as Ramazan), the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, which lasts about 30 days. It is a month of fasting, in which participating Muslims refrain from eating and drinking during daylight hours and is intended to teach Muslims about patience, spirituality, humility and submissiveness to God.  Each day this month we will be putting reflections, stories, and information about Islam on this website to help you learn more and pray for our Muslim friends.

Let us introduce Kallu...

Servants works in a number of Islamic settings, including India and Indonesia.  This month is the month of Ramadan (also known as Ramazan), the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, which lasts about 30 days. It is a month of fasting, in which participating Muslims refrain from eating and drinking during daylight hours and is intended to teach Muslims about patience, spirituality, humility and submissiveness to God.  Each day this month we will be putting reflections, stories, and information about Islam on this website to help you learn more and pray for our Muslim friends. 

Introducing Ruksana...

Porters were subjected to summary executions and torture, and were placed in the line of fire or sent to navigate heavily mined trails, "systematic practices" dating back as far as 1992, said the joint report by New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW)and the Karen Human Rights Group, based on Thai-Myanmar border. The porters were forced to carry heavy loads of ammunition, food and supplies for the army without adequate food, shelter and access to medical care, it added. Myanmar's military has for decades fought on multiple fronts against numerous ethnic rebel armies seeking autonomy along larges stretches of the country's northern and eastern borders.

Dozens of workers interviewed by The Associated Press and a document released by Nike show that the footwear and athletic apparel giant has far to go to meet the standards it set for itself a decade ago to end its reliance on sweatshop labor. That does not appear to explain abuses that workers allege at the Pou Chen Group factory in Sukabumi, some 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Jakarta – it didn't start making Converse products until four years after Nike bought Converse. One worker there said she was kicked by a supervisor last year after making a mistake while cutting rubber for soles. "We're powerless," said the woman, who like several others interviewed spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisals. "Our only choice is to stay and suffer, or speak out and be fired."

Hey Mr. Big Man

driving in your SUV

hid behind tinted glass

can you tell me what you see?

One thing I have asked of the Lord,

That will I seek after:

That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,

To behold the beauty of the Lord

And to inquire in His temple

Psalm 27:4

For a long time, this has been a favourite verse of mine. What a beautiful place to be, dwelling and resting in our Lord's temple, with nothing else to do but enjoy His presence. As a mum of two small children, preparing to move into and now living in a South Asian slum, quite frankly, this rest is fairly inviting. This invitation continues to beckon me further and further into His presence, but more recently I have come to see that rest and peace come from not only seeking His presence, but the reality of actually only having 'one thing' to ask of the Lord. As I have reflected, it has become clear to me that although I desired to dwell in the house of the Lord, I am unable to say it is the 'one thing I ask'. In fact, it is one of many competing things I ask. My actions, decisions and activities stem from many motivations, usually trying to please people or looking good in the eyes of others.

A recent Facebook post of mine about military spending led to what I hope will be a healthy conversation amongst some wonderful Christian friends of mine who hold differing views about the permissibility of Christ followers using violence and some other related topics. One friend, who has been a wonderful example to my wife and I of faithfully serving Jesus in Asia, told the story of a comment her husband's seminary professor made awhile back. This professor said in essence, "The test of whether you are really nonviolent is if you are able to say you would stand by and not try to defend your wife and child if they were attacked by invaders or raped. Then you can claim you are a non-violent person. Short of that, it is only a matter of degree and location."

Help us spread the news:

           

Laura Porterfield talks about Medical Self-Care when Living in a Slum.

The rain had started a couple of days before, slowly and steadily, but not heavily. Nothing very dramatic for the coming of monsoon, except that it took away the heat, which had been awful. But this day the rain began in earnest. It was coming down strong, occasionally in sheets with some big drops and some decent winds.

I smiled back and acknowledged that yes, it was raining..

So why, when trying to live it out, does it feel so complicated? As I spent my time in the slum here in Phnom Penh, which seemed like a pretty good solution to my desire to live simply, I was struck with how muddled my head still was. Was it okay to have coffee in a café? Am I not following Jesus well because I still have more than my basic needs? How do I balance taking care of myself and trying to live like my neighbours? All these were questions that swam in my head every time I tried to do or not do something. After reading a book called Freedom of Simplicity by Richard Foster, I got a clearer picture of why my effort to pursue simplicity seemed to cause more complication. Up until this point, I had only understood the following two scenarios:

The other night I was at a party. Bordering our slum on three sides (the fourth being the river/ place people throw trash) are nice middle class neighborhoods. On one of these borders there was a coming of age party (think bar mitzvah). It was an outlandish party involving 3 large tents blocking the road, multiple tables of food, a full traditional orchestra, singers, dancers, and a magician. Whew! And for all this hooplah...very few people were at the party. Let me rephrase...there were very few invited guests there. (Invited guests sit in the chairs).

Millions of people have poured into the Chinese capital Beijing from the countryside, but with not enough homes to go around, some end up living underground in old air-raid shelters, basements and tunnels. Even by Beijing's standards, a sprawling city of almost 20 million, it was not the easiest of addresses to find. We arrived at a 20-storey apartment building on the outskirts of town, where the subway lines stopped and huge cauldron-like power stations reared into view. But instead of taking the lift up into the apartments, we entered an easy-to-miss doorway, and descended a dark flight of stairs.

So often when I hear people talk about simplicity, they hold up some specific standard set by others. But the problem is, there will always be people who live with less. Perhaps we could do without another pair of jeans. But there are some with no jeans at all. Perhaps we could live in a cheaper house. But there are some with no house at all. Perhaps we could go without that extra cup of coffee, but compared with the global poor, even one is a luxury! It seems that the more we compare ourselves with others, the more likely we will either start to despair or cynically decide that simplicity is purely for those with a special calling.

How the industry ruthlessly exploits the developing world - its young, poor and uneducated.

More than half a century after scientists uncovered the link between smoking and cancer – triggering a war between health campaigners and the cigarette industry – big tobacco is thriving. Despite the known catastrophic effects on health of smoking, profits from tobacco continue to soar and sales of cigarettes have increased: they have risen from 5,000 billion sticks a year in the 1990s to 5,900 billion a year in 2009. They now kill more people annually than alcohol, Aids, car accidents, illegal drugs, murders and suicides combined.

On Tuesday, people around the globe will mark World No Tobacco Day – a distant hope. The West now consumes fewer and fewer of the world's cigarettes: richer countries have changed – from smoking 38 per cent of the world total in 1990, they cut down to 24 per cent in 2009. Meanwhile, the developing world's share in global cigarette sales has increased sharply, rising to 76 per cent in 2009. An investigation by The Independent on Sunday reveals that tobacco firms have taken advantage of lax marketing rules in developing countries by aggressively promoting cigarettes to new, young consumers, while using lawyers, lobby groups and carefully selected statistics to bully governments that attempt to quash the industry in the West.

In light of our busy, fragmented lives, Henri Nouwen encourages us to live in a simple rhythm of ministry, community and solitude. So as a community - living in Vancouver's inner city - that is committed to both inward and outward simplicity, we have carved out daily times for prayer and contemplation while intentionally fostering simple and just lifestyles.

On the Thursday before before Easter, in honor of the example Jesus had set for us on that night some 2000 years ago, I set out to try and find a way to wash my neighbors feet. But seeing at it would be exceedingly strange to walk around the neighborhood with a bucket asking people to wash their feet (and my foreign ways are already strange enough) I sought out a bit more of a creative way to achieve my goal.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — A manmade sand dune looms over Cham Pothisak's tin-roof and plywood shack, left by builders who want to transform the sprawling slum-like neighborhoods on the periphery of Phnom Penh's largest lake into fancy villas and office space.

Cham and his family are among 10,000 people who face eviction because of a questionable deal turning over some of the Cambodian capital's priciest real estate to a company reportedly owned by a close associate of the prime minister. Their predicament stems in part from a flawed $23.4 million World Bank program that was supposed to prevent such land grabs by strengthening people's title to their land. The problems illustrate how difficult it can be for well-intentioned outsiders to bring about change in developing countries plagued by corruption and entrenched interests.

At five you laughed and you danced,

dreaming that you were a princess

chosen to live in a castle,

surrounded by horses, knights and princes,

cocooned in your palace of dreams.

At five, your voice sang

like water flowing on a summers day,

your smile rivaled the sun,

and your chestnut charcoal eyes

blazed with beauty and with hope.

There will come a dawn,

when the years those leeches ate,

precious child-dreams destroyed,

will fill your eyes once more,

and you will learn to trust again,

for you are your Father's daughter,

your precious name written on his hand.

One day, as I was driving my kids home from school through Phnom Penh, a small band of street children collecting recyclables threaded their way across the busy road, just in front of us.  They were lead by a young girl, dressed in rags, dragging a large rice-sack of bottles and cans.  She looked to be the same age as my daughter Emma, who I had with me in our tuk-tuk. I wrote this down when we got home.

Help us spread the news:

           

"As it stands, the draft law inherently undermines its primary purpose, to 'promote the practice if rights and freedoms of Khmer citizens in registering associations and domestic non-governmental organization in order to jointly and lawfully protect personal and public interest'," 62 organizations said in the letter, which was made public yesterday.

"Restrictive, ambiguous, and allowing for unfettered discretion, the draft does more harm than good to associations, NGOs and the Cambodian public," it said.

The organizations emphasized mandatory registration, the lack of any process to appeal government decisions about NGO operations and a number of ambiguities in the draft as particularly concerning provisions.

The organizations said their good-faith engagement with the government had "failed".

They said, however, that they would "offer our full support" to a revised law that would be consistent with international human rights standards and include voluntary registration.

Nouth Sa An, secretary of state at the Ministry of the Interior, said yesterday he had not yet seen the letter and could not comment on proposed revisions.

He had previously told The Post that he would be sending the draft law to the Council of Ministers "the first week of April", yesterday, however he said he did not know when he would advance the controversial legislation.

The International Leadership Council of Servants met last week in Cambodia, for our annual leadership meetings.  A highlight was the teaching of one of our elders, Dave Andrews, on the Be-Attitudes.  Here are some of his thoughts....

The Wisdom of Stability – Rooting Faith in a Mobile Culture by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

"Maybe the single most important thing we can do if we want to grow spiritually is to stay in the place we are."

So writes Jonathon Wilson-Hartgrove in his new book, The Wisdom of Stability – Rooting Faith in a Mobile Culture. Speaking about family and the importance of place, this book is close to Wilson-Hartgrove's heart and not surprising considering he recently co edited a modern liturgical book of Common Prayer.

If there was any doubt about God's heart for the poor, widows, orphans and foreigners then consider this sampling of scripture.  A good way to start 2011 - by meditating on God's heart for those who are at the bottom of the heap in our world....

The other night I was coming home late. I go to night church and often by the time we let out, the buses have stopped running. So I, along with a few friends who live in my direction, share a taxi home. About halfway home, after dropping off our first friend, we were stopped at a large intersection. Frequently at these intersections, beggars approach the taxi. And this night, this very common thing happened. A woman came up to the car, shaking her home made percussion instrument (bottle caps nailed to a small piece of wood).

Jockin Arputham has been a slum dweller for 43 years, one of more than a million across India.

He shares a 30-hectare (72-acre) plot of land on the outskirts of Mumbai with about 70,000 other people, with communal toilets and self-built homes.

There's no such thing as garbage collection for communities such as ours. So it all just gets thrown into the canal.