Back from Goa: Part 1.

Goa: I could probably talk for 12 hours and more about this area in southwestern India, though it is the smallest state in the country. Located on the coast, Goa is tropical paradise with palm trees that tower over white sand beaches, flowers exploding from bushes and branches and weaved into necklaces, cashew stores dotting market streets (one of Goa's main products), and fishing boats lining the ocean's edges. However, the state also has the highest percentage of sex-trafficking in India, and Goa's Red light district was anchored in a slum area called Baina until the government tore down several brothels in 2005, scattering over 2000 prostitutes across the area... and it just so happens that the view from the Rahab's Rope apartment building where I lived for the past week---was Baina slum.

I woke up the first morning at 7 AM to the "Call to Prayer" that bellowed--more like blasted from the mosque that stood 50 feet from my window, wiped the sweat from my forehead and reached for my water bottle, wondering why the sweltering heat refused to subside and how it was even possible for the temperature to be in the 90s already. Turning on my side, I worthlessly tried to give the wet cotton shirt that clung to my back a chance to dry out, but for 6 days straight I woke up feeling like I had just hopped out of the pool and was laying on a damp towel. I usually laid in bed and listened to packs of dogs that roamed the slum outside barking to each other, roosters proclaiming the sun had risen, the pitiful fan that hummed as it struggled to propel through the thick air above my head, and the little voice inside my mind that begged for an escape from the heat and threatened to shoot the animals outside if they didn't shut up in the next 30 seconds. After the third morning, the chorus of yips and yaps and cock-a-doodle-doos and man's voice that chanted arabic from the speakers on the mosque did not frustrate me, but instead reminded me of the lives outside my window and provided a backdrop for my mind to think and pray for other people who were waking up to the same sounds... but waking up to such a different world. Though I was sweating on a foam mattress in an apartment, the precious girls I was with during the day before were waking up on the concrete floor without a water bottle by their bed, without a clean pair of clothes to put on, without knowing what/ if they were going to eat that day, without protection from men or gangs in the slum, without a basic education, without opportunity for change, without hope....
and as I thought about the waves that crashed onto the beaches littered with plastic bags and bottles and pools of sewage oustside, I prayed that the humility and compassion of Christ would crash onto me, washing me clean of my own desires and selfishness, breaking down any pride in me, tearing apart any self-centered thoughts, and create in me a new fountain that spews love and hope and joy despite my circumstances, overflowing with grace and concern for those around me....that some how, some way, each day I spent with these sweet people, that I may offer comfort for their hurting hearts and share with them a gift of Hope and Healing...

more on Goa tomorrow :)