Living Hope

Driving through Kolkata we enter Salt Lake - the up and coming IT district of Kolkata. All around us are shiny office blocks and new build flats in different colours. Hundreds and hundreds of young adults head for work. We drive on, through more building work, glimpsing lives that feel the closest to the UK cities that we have been since we've been here... Between the office blocks and high rise we have a glimpse of another world - old Kolkata - where people live in traditional small houses made of brick, mud and corrugated iron. Living in the shadows of the commercial future.....

We cross a bridge over a small stretch of water and we enter that world that lives in the shadows of the shiny new. As we walk down the mud path we pass through a settlement of small houses. These are brick maker's houses and the houses of people who collect useful rubbish to make stuff from or sell on - their poverty is clearly evident. We attract the normal stares that a group of white westerners attracts and the silence contrasts with the busyness of the Kolkata traffic jams we have just left. 

At the end of the track is a small building, built by the villagers themselves - the New Hope School - a school for local children. Set up by a visionary couple who are hands on in running the school alongside two young men from the local community it gives the children opportunity to learn where they might not have before. It is a place where they can hear about the Gospel and see people actually act out the Kingdom of God Jesus talks about. Some children are encouraged by the school to go to high school so that they can take their education further and their lives can be transformed from the poverty they now live in. It focuses on the development of the community.

There were four sewing machines in the room - strange for a school of young children. it was explained that they were trying to reach out further into the community - giving women the opportunity to stand on their own feet by teaching them a skill. Again the women are taught about the love of God and that love is demonstrated through the actions of the people who are teaching it. 

Of all the schools this one spoke to me most - working in the community, for the community and with the community, embodying that community with the love of Christ. Sometimes it is easier to take people out of where they are familiar with to change lives. This was about changing from within - transformational love. 

After visiting the school we made a surprise visit to William Carey's church. It was established in 1809. We got a chance to stand in the pulpit where William Carey had preached from. It was exciting to see some of our Baptist history right in front of our eyes. William Carey has inspired me from when I first heard about him as a teenager and when you see the impact he had in Kolkata and around it inspires even further. 

Inspired, humbled and probably slightly overwhelmed we were taken out for dinner to a Chinese restaurant. We couldn't help but see it as a sign of the contrast of our abundant wealth compared to what we had seen earlier in the day. 

Tourists in a city of contrasts

Today we were proper tourists with the look of proper tourists. Here is Andrew looking like a tourist.

We were dropped off at the Victoria Memorial Hall. An impressive building that was built in 1921 in memory of Queen Victoria (which you'd expect!), driven by Lord Curzon. It suggested a British stamp of authority and grandeur on a city that was increasingly rising up against British rule. A man asked me if I was from the US, I said that I was English - he told me that I had built this, I was sort of embarrassed because of everything it represented....  It was interesting reading the history of the British rule and the uprising that led to India's independence. William Carey was mentioned as the compiler of the first Bengali dictionary, which was exciting as we are here with the BMS. 

We then tried to go to St Paul's Cathedral and Louise was up for doing a mock up of the occupy protest, but it was closed 12-3, so we were disappointed. We ended up eating our lunch beside a statue of Indira Gandhi, who was assassinated in 1984. While eating our lunch an Indian family tried to take surreptitious photos of us as strange westerners but then stopped being secretive and asked us to stand with them for a photo. Slightly surreal.....

Our journey took us next to the Museum of India, after travelling through lines of mouth watering street food stalls which we avoided (for fear of illness) but I craved after. The museum of India is like across between the British Museum and the Natural History Museum, but smaller, hotter and less well looked after. A bit 'Night at the Museum' especially as the Cheetah's glass had cracked where it had clearly tried to get out. By this point we were flaking out and needed a rest (here are Andrew, Louise and John resting!).

We then braved a trip to New Market, where we split up into pairs to try and avoid being conspicuous. It didn't work as immediately on entering the market area Jon and I were followed by at least 3 'guides' who were working on commission. While Jon was buying presents one of the guides looked me up and down and said 'you need clothes' and proceeded to get out piles and piles of shirts...... an experience I was expecting but wasn't expecting at the same time. We caught an auto rickshaw home to Hotel Heaven, which had it's scary moments, but we wanted to do it to get a feel for a 'true' Kolkata experience after being driven around all week.

It was good to spend time seeing the sites and doing our own thing, but you still never get away from the poverty and the amazing varieties in people and what they have and what they are doing. We were dropped off outside a shiny landrover garage and then walked past people sleeping on the street as we went back to the hotel. 

A city of mind blowing contrasts..... 

I loved this image - at the gates of the Victoria Memorial Hall. It reminded me of the story of the Happy Prince which speaks of a self sacrificing care for the poor, very relevant for the things I have seen this week.