It’s been a long time since we explained our lives here. Peregrine, Shakeenah, and I live in a one-room concrete-and-brick home in an average basti slum in north India. We’re lucky enough to have our own tap and no shared toilet (for just the second time in a decade), though of course we still take …
“When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For …
On April 3, the United States banned the export of personal protective gear, stating that our own supply was too important to ship out during the crisis. A few days earlier, India banned exports of essential medications including hydroxychloroquine due to manufacturing shortages. Hydroxychloroquine is used to treat malaria as well as autoimmune disorders. There …
Friday, August 30th "Alia is really sick. She's been having some trouble breathing, and now she doesn't even know what's going on around her when people come in." "That's serious. You should take her to the hospital right away. How long has she been like this?" "Since last night, but only the worst since …
I was gonna write something else this week but this one is stuck on my heart. Our dear friend Aslam was recently diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer. The shock came just a year after he got married, a month before his son was to be born. The news has been a roller coaster - the …
The tiny girl in front of me was learning to read with incredible speed. Though she only knew three letters when she started, by the second lesson she could identify ten letters and combine them to form words. By her 16th lesson she had memorized the entire alphabet (there are more than 50 letters in ours) …
Dèyè mòn gen mòn. Beyond mountains there are mountains. HAITIAN PROVERB ...And right action is freedom From past and future also. For most of us, this is the aim Never here to be realized; Who are only undefeated Because we have gone on trying… T.S. ELIOT, “THE DRY SALVAGES” Mountains Beyond Mountains is …
Last week Holly mentioned that plastic recycling is in trouble in America too. I found out from an article in the Atlantic that cities across the country have ended their recycling programs. Why? Because China has stopped accepting our soiled trash due to health risks, environmental damage, and increased labor costs. Without tens of thousands of Chinese …
Advertisers work to make us insecure, feel that our lives won't be good enough until we buy more things. Technology is designed to be obsolete within a year, to be replaced by expensive new products. Clothes go out of fashion by the next season. Consumer goods break down before the next holiday rolls around. Many …
"Nobody can serve two masters. They will either hate the first and love the second, or be devoted to the first and despise the second. You can't serve both God and money."1Do American Christians split allegiance between Jesus and our possessions? If someone from outside saw how we prepare for Christmas, what would their guess …
Stranger in a Slum 