Washim, India -- Vivid colors rushed around us in a flurry of motion. Sounds and syllables not understood went in one ear and out the other. You could almost taste the humidity, and the heat provoked sweat in an instant.
As the 14 Americans on the LoveWorks India Team entered the Mumbai airport after a 30-hour journey, we found ourselves standing before Gandhi's words, “You must be the change you want to see in the world.”
LoveWorks is the short-term mission program of Point Loma Nazarene University (PLNU) in San Diego, California. Teams of students and trained leaders travel to locations worldwide with the goal of encouraging and supporting ministry work. Our team of pre-medical and nursing students had been assigned to Reynolds Memorial Hospital and Nazarene Nursing Training College in Washim, India. This is our story.
Our team spent three weeks involved in many tasks at the hospital. The highlight, however, was our visit to the burn unit.
As daylight faded and the heat of the day dissipated slowly to 36 degrees (96 Fahrenheit), our LoveWorks team entered with guitars and voices ready to sing. The lyrics “Our God is an awesome God” echoed through the hospital as we traveled from ward to ward singing in unison with one voice and one hope. Walking up the stairs to the burn unit, our team anticipated a bittersweet time of worship with the patients with whom we had built relationships. I watched as my teammates gracefully dispersed to ensure each burn patient was greeted with a smile and a touch of love.
As I reached out my hand to join with a little girl whose body was covered in dressings, I felt the very real pain of this broken world. In those few moments, we felt pain together. However, more profoundly we shared love, and we were united in that. It was a unity that only God can create through a love that only God can conceive. In our solidarity, we were present; we were simply BEING.
Our last night in Washim included a final celebration. We could feel the songs in our veins. We could smell the movement of people. We could hear the laughter amidst music. We could see joy on the faces of the people surrounding us. There was no other way I could describe it than a celebration of relationships through dance. It had only been three short weeks, but the nurses, students, and doctors of Reynolds Memorial Hospital were no longer strangers; they were people we had journeyed with for the past three weeks. They were no longer unidentified; they were known by name; they were a part of our story. They had welcomed us into their lives with open arms. They loved us as brothers and sisters in Christ and showed us what is meant to be the body of Christ.
As we danced beside them on our last night, we did not celebrate three-week friendship, but we celebrated a permanent family. We will always be connected. No matter where we are we are the body of Christ, and because of that, we are changed.
As I walked back into the Mumbai airport, Gandhi’s quote again caught my eye. I summarized it in my head to two words: “Be change.” God used India to teach me the powerful implications of those two words. First, to simply BE, to be present and in solidarity with those whose pain, runs deeper than bandages and bleeding. It is a necessary idea because it drives us to the next part: CHANGE. To enact change in the world around us we first must be willing to be: to be with God and to be with others.
Here is the crazy part: In my three weeks in India, I do not know that I was change. What I do know is that I WAS changed. I was changed from the moment I stepped off that airplane into a world of color where people welcomed me with arms stretched wide. I was changed by the touch of a little girl on the burn ward whose beautiful smile lit up the room when she heard music. I was changed by the body of Christ, the tangible experience of being in relationship with my brothers and sisters worldwide. I was changed by the powerful and intimate presence of a God who allowed India to be a part of my story.
-- Rachel Keeny (pictured in above right photo, is on the far left) is a student at Point Loma Nazarene University.