Namaste! I'm Chelsea Megan, a twenty-something girl who wears a lot of hats. I've been employed as a receptionist, an editor, a journalist, an optometric technician, a singer, a blogger, a baker, and more. But the one thing I have always striven to be is a missionary. I try to show people the love of God wherever I go, be it in my own Northern California neighborhood or in a tiny village in rural India.
In 2007, I went to India for the first time to help with a free vision and dental clinic for the impoverished people of Andhra Pradesh. It was devastating to help give these people the simple medical tools and care that we take for granted--like a pair of glasses that enable a man to see well enough to do his job as a tailor, or a tooth extraction to eliminate debilitating pain. India captured my heart, shook it around, turned it upside down, emptied it out, and painted it with brilliantly bright colors. :)
I met so many people desperate for something more than the darkness surrounding them, people longing for light and joy, people who were untouchable. (For more on what it means to be untouchable, see this post.)
I wanted to help... that's the typical reaction of a soft-hearted Westerner to the poverty and oppression in a third-world place, I know. I'm no Mother Theresa, but anyone who saw what I saw--women beaten by their husbands with no way out, children who watched their parents commit suicide before their very eyes now starving on the streets, a 9-year-old girl ostracized by a community because of an injury that cost her one eye--would want to do something. I couldn't do much. I don't have much to offer. And as an outsider to the culture, I have to rely on direction from the Indian people I trust to know what is appropriate to offer. But I wanted to show these people love, whether that meant a smile, a pair of glasses, or a plate of food. Or simply being there. I look back at some of the most memorable examples of love in my life and realize that often just a person's presence in a situation is enough to show godly love. For the untouchable, being there with a spirit of love, acceptance, and humility can mean everything.
On my first trip to India, we took a short car ride to inaugurate a woman's small sewing business in the next village. After the speeches and ceremonies, an orphaned girl was brought to the pastor by an elderly woman from the village. The girl was dirty and looked tired.
"Her parents died from HIV. She's just been wandering around the streets. You have to take her," the woman said.
The pastor, whose children's home cares for many such orphans, did.
The little girl rode back to Chillakallu on my lap in the back of the car.
I will never forget that ride, or the way my heart broke for the small girl who leaned her head on my shoulder as we both watched the fields roll by outside. It changed me to be there for her, to hold her, to smile and show her that she would be loved even though she had lost everything. From that moment, I knew I wanted to continue my participation, to help in whatever way possible.
I have been back to India on three different short-term medical trips. Now I am returning long-term as a volunteer teacher, a writer, and a big sister to 120 orphans from many castes.
It's ultimately all about Jesus and what He wants to accomplish in me and through me. I am humbled to be used in any way to lavish His love on others as He has lavished it on me, wherever that may be.
Want to follow along with me? Writing has always helped me process things, and having a reader or two will hold me to it and encourage me to keep writing, keep remembering, keep recording.
Plus I would love to have your prayers! <3
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