Sunday Night

It is ten p.m. on a Sunday night and we are caught in a traffic jam. But for the skill or lunacy of the drivers jockeying their autos through impossibly tight spaces, the street would be gridlock. There are three of us crammed into the back of a rickshaw. We are nearly home, chatting through a hot cloud of diesel and smog. A few moments before, we had been eating dinner at a friend’s favorite spot. Fifteen minutes from our apartment, the rooftop restaurant is worlds away from where we live: fine dining for a few dollars. It is only one more of the seemingly endless number of faces this city wears.

We stop at a red light, hemmed in by a sea of other ricks, coughing and sputtering as we wait. At first, I see them from the corner of my eye. The sight of white people had sent them scampering from their stations at the side of the road to flank our captive vehicle.

A small boy is on my left. He uses one arm to steady a pair of crutches at his side. The other moves in a practiced motion, bringing a phantom morsel of food to his lips over and over again. To my right, a tiny girl clamors for my friend’s attention. Her matted hair frames haunting dark eyes. Even streaked in dirt, she looked like a doll, or a character in Les Misérables—beautiful, tragic. Only there is no stage and no score. Just real life. Neither of them could be more than six.

I feel a hand on my leg. The boy is still motioning, more insistent now. My friend tries a few phrases in Hindi, saying hello and asking them their names, but their faces are unwavering masks. Misery. His hand is on my arm. I don’t know what to do, where to look, what to say. I have nothing for them and even if I did, I know that it would be immediately scuttled back to their handler who is lurking in the shadows and sending them out to canvas the streets.

The light seems to last forever.

Finally, mercifully, it changes. The rickshaw surges forward, nearly clipping the boy’s crutches as the children disappear behind us. It is only when I exhale that I realize I have been holding my breath. Two blocks later, we arrive back at our flat and climb the stairs in silence. I feel a devastating mix of relief to have escaped that moment and shame at how easily I can. I have seen this kind of poverty before. There have been other children in other countries clamoring for money and tugging at my hand, but somehow this sits differently. Here, there are no smiles or banter or practiced English phrases. Maybe it is the enormity or the normalcy of the need, but it makes me furious.

I can’t sleep.

Wide eyed in the dark, I lash out in my mind at any organization, nation or institution that should be doing something, anything about the crushing despair that defines this city. Most of all, I am terrified by the glaring reality of my own helplessness and the massive injustice I inhabit.

Then, gently I am reminded. I am reminded that Jesus knows their names, even though I do not. I am reminded that He has carved them into the palms of his hands and walks with them long after they fade from my memory. I am reminded that tonight I only peered into the story He is weaving over their lives. And I am reminded that his heart beats as loudly for me as it does for them.

An IJM colleague put it more eloquently that I, a phrase that has been etched in my mind and will likely find its way onto this page many times in the weeks to come: “We do not worship justice itself, but the God of justice.”

For now, that is enough.

- Lauren