WHAT'S IN A NAME? Bothers Joseph & John

BROTHERS JOSEPH AND JOHN—WHAT’S IN A NAME?

I was sitting in the Volunteer’s dorm of Rising Star Outreach in Chennai India, when I saw one of the housemothers dragging little John by the arm.  The housemother was clearly not happy.  She had a look of hopelessness and irritation on her face that was unmistakable.  Little John was kicking and screaming and resisting with all his might.   She kept telling him he was going to “Time Out”, but he clearly had other ideas.

I called out to the housemother, “Kala, can you bring John to me? “  With an irrepressible sigh of relief she delivered the kicking, squirming boy to me and turned to go, but I stopped her with a request to stay and translate for me.

John’s full name was John F. Kennedy.  He was definitely a darker, scrawnier four-year-old version of who you and I have in our memories as John F. Kennedy.  Now I have no idea what the John F. Kennedy that we remember was like as a child, but this Indian version of him was incorrigible.  Several times the director of the Rising Star Children’s Home had approached me about the possibility of needing to send John home.  He was disruptive in the classroom and violent to the other children.  At this point we were such a small institution that we had no social workers and no one to oversee any behavior interventions.

Joseph Stalin

I looked at this little hellion--defiant, but with a telltale tear running down his face, and I wondered how I might find my way into this little guy’s heart.  I knew that his father was mean and abusive.  He also had another brother, named Joseph Stalin.  Yes, you read that right!  In India, several of the states have a Communist government, so in those places Joseph Stalin is actually a hero.  Interestingly, in this case, Joseph Stalin was a little angel.  One of life’s funny twists!

As I looked into John’s vulnerable, yet guarded eyes I asked, “John, do you know who John F. Kennedy was?”  He stared sullenly at the ground, gave my foot a kick and shook his head “no”.  Ignoring the kick to my foot, I said, “John Kennedy was one of the greatest Presidents of the United States in our history.  He is looked up to and revered by many, many Americans.   

 Actually, he is held in high regard by the entire world because he saved America from a foreign nuclear threat from Cuba, our next-door neighbor.  And he did it all peacefully.  He managed to protect the United States without even going to war.  He was a brilliant leader.”

I let this sink in.  By now John had lifted his eyes to meet my own and I held them there as I continued, “Today India desperately needs a leader like John F. Kennedy.  I’ll bet when you were born and your mother took her first look at you, she thought in her heart that this very baby might be India’s John Kennedy.”  By now I had his undivided attention.

I was leaving that evening for America so I didn’t have a lot of time to follow up on this.  I told John that as soon as I arrived in America I would look for a book about John Kennedy and send it to him.  “Would you like that?”  He nodded back enthusiastically with a big smile.

As soon as I arrived in America I went to a bookstore determined to find a book that little John could understand. Unbelievably I found a book about John Kennedy, replete with pictures, and written for a young child.  I bought the book, and delivered it to the next volunteer leaving to work at Rising Star Outreach.  Little John had the book in his hand within two or three days.

The volunteer intermittently reported back to me that John Kennedy had become inseparable with his book.  He loved showing it to everyone.  It went everywhere he went.  The miracle of this relationship is that little John Kennedy began to change, almost imperceptibly at first, but eventually everyone noticed the difference.

John Kennedy today

It made me reflect on the question, “What’s in a name?”  A couple of years later I arrived on campus for a visit and one of the volunteers excitedly told me that we had a new child named Karl Marx.  Very cool!  I asked where he was, so I could go and meet this illustrious fellow.  The volunteer replied with a grin, “He’s up in the boys dorm, making sure that all the boys are sharing their toys equally!”  Once again I had to reflect, “What’s in a name?  But even more importantly, what’s the power of the image we hold of ourselves in our hearts?  Does this image truly have the power to transform us?

It obviously did in John Kennedy’s case and seemingly in Karl Marx’s case, as well.  Joseph Stalin eventually dropped his last name of Stalin and went simply by John S.  He’s now graduated from Rising Star Outreach and is pursuing his studies in college.  He is a fine young man and I suspect he will be a much greater man by far than the original Joseph Stalin was.  He will bring honor to himself, his family, his leprosy colony— and I’m confident—to India. 

Little John F. Kennedy is no longer so little.  He’s also grown into a fine young man.  He still has moments that cause us to look at each other with a little askance, but generally he is a great kid.  His story is actually a little more complicated than I can tell in a short magazine article, but the important thing is that he is on the path to an excellent future.

In our many individual actions every day we all have a chance to confirm to others who we see them as.  Do we reflect back to them an image that they are inadequate, stupid, silly, or unworthy—or even worse--unlovable?  Or do we reflect back to them that they are a child of God?  In order to reflect an image back to them we have to have an image of them that we are willing and proud to pass back to them.  Do we see them as God sees them?  As eternal beings with unlimited potential?

If so, let’s all be generous to others as they struggle to find whose image is engraved on their hearts.  Disparaging, destructive words should never leave our lips.  May we be builders of others, speaking in terms of encouragement, belief and hope—never in derision.  We have no idea how a simple word or action from us can cause an image to be held in a person’s heart, transforming their eternal outcome.

Joseph giving a talk at the dedication of our school--talking about how
Rising Star had given him a chance to be all he can be!

There is power in an image, in a name and in small individual words.  In this day and age of relentless internet-based character assassination and social media bullying, let us stand forth with a shield rather than with a battering ram. Let us wield this power wisely and kindly.  Let us ennoble rather than degrade.    

MONSOON FLOODING IN THE COLONIES

HOW ONE PERSON TURNED THE TIDE

AND SAVED THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE

In November, 2015, the heavens opened up in Tamilnadu, India.  The annual monsoon came with a vengeance.   It was the wettest monsoon in over 100 years.  More than forty inches of rain fell in November.  One day a seemingly unbelievable 10 ½ inches of rain fell in one 24-hour period.  The entire state was flooded.

People were forced out of their homes—some of which were standing in seven feet of water.  The floodwater was contaminated with sewage, so water-borne diseases quickly became a real threat. 

Then on December first more than twelve inches of rain fell, making it the wettest day in three hundred years!

Ten million people were displaced.  But where could they go?  There was flooding on all sides throughout the state.  There was nowhere to go but up onto their roofs.  Almost overnight Chennai had more than ten million people on the rooftops.  

All roads were closed.  All schools.  All government offices.  All stores.  

There was no way to obtain food, medicines or blankets.  

Helicopters had the unenviable task of trying to feed millions of people stuck on their rooftops for days on end.

The campus at Rising Star Outreach was also flooding.  

All schools had been closed.  The children couldn’t get home to their leprosy colonies because all roads were closed.  All communication was down and the children were crazy with worry about their parents. Can you imagine having 265 children cooped up for days?

Our greatest concern was for the families in the leprosy colonies.  I knew that they no rooftops to which they could seek refuge, as they lived in small huts.  The colonies are in remote areas and I knew that the government would make little effort to help.

With all roads closed, our director, Dr. Susan sought a boat in an attempt to check on the situation, but all they could find was a rowboat.  In her rowboat she went to visit as many colonies as possible.  She reported that the situation was dire.  Some colonies had as much as eight feet of standing water.  The people had nowhere to go.  They were stuck in water over their heads!  They were starving—with many of them having gone for days without food.

But there was no money.  You can’t spend money you don’t have.  We put up an urgent plea on our website for assistance.  A whopping $200 came in.  We sent an email out to all our supporters begging for help. 

One supporter, Sandy Bertha, saw the email and within minutes the family foundation and other family members contributed $45,000 in to the relief effort.  This donation became a catalyst and people began to respond.  Soon we had raised $70,000!

Dr. Susan now swung into high gear.  They found a motor boat and loaded it with food supplies, blankets, bandages and medicines.  Over the next weeks they boated or rowed to more than ten leprosy colonies, some of which were more than one hundred miles away!

I worried that the environment was very dangerous.  Think of it—they were carrying hundreds of pounds of food through areas that were full of starving people.  When I cautioned her about their safety she replied she was sure God would protect them.  They were fearless!

They provided food and medical care to more than 3,000 people!  Dr. Susan wrote me the following note after reaching the Villivakkam Colony.  “The patients in the colony gave us hugs and were so happy for the assistance by way of medical help, rice, beans, and oil that we provided them.  I have never seen them welcome us in this hearty manner before. They had gone many days without food.  Many of the men who mostly would speak roughly were smiling and subdued.

In the last village a thin lady carrying a child had tears in her eyes when she thanked us for the medical camp, blanket and food supplies.  We had struggled to load our supplies into a boat and reach their village.  We carried all our materials in a tractor from the other side, along with the staff, and reached their school.  Just looking at her careworn, sad face, I was sure that all the terrible stress that we have all been going through was worth it all, many times over.”

One of our Rising Star students, Beulah, was from the Cuddalore Colony, more than 100 miles away.  Her family’s home had collapsed.  

Thanks to the relief money her colony was saved and her family home has now been rebuilt. 

The mother of two of our students, Vijay and Raghu, had been involved in an auto accident due to the flood.  She sustained a skull fracture, brain hemorrhage and contusions.  They couldn’t get her to the hospital.  Fortunately Dr. Susan got there just in the nick of time to get her to the hospital by boat.  She is now recovering.  Otherwise she surely would have died.

The mother of two other students, Mohanapriyen and Jagadeesh, was hit by a bus that was out of control in the flooding waters.  Once again, Dr. Susan was able to get her to a hospital by boat and save her life.

All in all, more than 3,000 people were provided with food and medicines, in many cases saving their lives.   And all this was made possible by the response of one woman who saw an email come in and decided to take immediate action, and another who took it upon herself to make a difference.

I am a firm believer in the power of one person to change the world!