May 2015 Newsletter
IN HER EYES
Calcutta Mercy provides free care through 14 Mercy Clinics and a general hospital.
We have a dispensary at Shishu Bhavan, a Calcutta suburb, where patients line up and we provide
medication. We see children with scarring skin rashes and fathers weary with hunger and disease. We see three-years-olds no bigger than six-month-olds, whose mothers could not get enough food or vitamins when pregnant. Diagnosis: severe malnutrition. Clinical treatment: vitamins and milk.
Animals and trash line the streets surrounding Shishu Bhavan. The smell of rotting garbage and human waste hits your face so strong you have to hold your breath. The people living amid the heaps are called the Untouchables. Of the four levels of India’s caste system, the Untouchables are ranked so low, they do not have a level. They are considered nothing. Zero.
Today, outside the clinic, there is a woman sitting upon broken concrete with her two children. She has bright blue eyes that look stunning against her dark skin. She smiles at volunteers and motions to her children’s stomachs. She is in need of love, help, and hope.
Can you see yourself in her eyes?
When you dare to see yourself in the eyes of someone considered the lowest of the low, you dare to let God pull the platform of your status and wealth out from under your feet. Pride evaporates. The ground is made level. Any walls between you and the other crumble, and love rises in its place.
To see yourself in her eyes is Christ’s daring call to be a servant - to touch an untouchable and let love conquer all inhibitions and fears. It is to see more similarities than differences, knowing you both are in equal need of the same Savior. What a privilege to be his hands and feet to the least of these in India.