My friend Bill Haley, who is much more articulate than I, said it well:

"Literally millions of street children in Third World cities every day beg for food and steal for bread and turn to primitive drugs for some escape from their circumstances. Every day millions of women struggle for survival after being abandoned through death, disease, forced prostitution, or simply being disowned. But every day, God is loving these millions of people. Every day, God is caring for these women and children in miraculous ways. Every day, Christians around the world are taking care of the outcast, abandoned, and forgotten. Every day, Jesus is somehow present in the most painful and broken places in the world."

Who is this Jesus that is present and even actively, lovingly involved in these awful struggles? Struggles of obvious horror in third world urban cities, but also in the daily personal or work struggles that you and I experience in Dallas, Washington, Denver, San Francisco or Cincinnati. Where is Jesus in our suffering?

In the last few years I have shuffled Jesus to a role of merely an old friend with whom I've been only casually related, and with whom I catch up only periodically. After all, work kept me very busy. In fact, my job pretty much owned my life for two years. I spent less and less time with Jesus, and and began to see attributes I didn't like: shallow, self-seeking, self-centered, worried. I could see them pretty clearly.

The Bible tells us to love Jesus "with all your heart, soul and mind," and to "seek first the Kingdom of God." What do these really mean? To truly understand will I have to shave my head or something? No. If Jesus is truly who he says he is, then this changes everything. He humbled the proud, he confounded the legalistic priests, he challenged the powerful and "intelligent" . . . all the while healing the lepers, caring for prostitutes and eating with tax collectors.. Clearly I need to get out of my comfort zone.

So I sent an e-mail to several trusted, travel-savvy friends about my notion of walking along side, helping out, and just listening to some wise and faithful servants working with those aforementioned in poverty. I have some negative qualities that need burning up, and by joining those who are humbling themselves in service I know that I'll gain a deeper understanding of Jesus's love. "Where should I go?" I asked them. Resoundingly (and separately) they all said one place: India. Poverty and flat-out need is perhaps nowhere more pronounced than in the urban slums of India.

I want to know Jesus by loving those of whom he said, "inasmuch as you've done it for the least of these, you've done it unto me." I'm not going to lie to you . . . I'm not in India for the express purpose of helping the poor (though that would make me sound noble). India is actually only a conduit and is incidental to my main purpose for this journey: to get to know Jesus better. And I endeavor to do so by respecting and loving the poor, the street children, the disaffected. Those people who have been forgotten by everyone . . . except Him.

Bottom line, I have no idea what I'm really getting myself into. This is truly a journey: I'm simply showing up and expecting to be disturbed . . . emotionally, spiritually and no doubt visually. I am confident I won't be disappointed.

In the weighty and daring words of that cultural philosopher / private eye John Shaft,
"Can you dig it?"