Why on earth are we here
Our journey to India as a family was unexpected but providential. Our plan was to spend a year living simply, yet 9 months on, we find ourselves in the hills of Maharastra, awash with new experiences and encounters.
We will be based in Panchgani for 2 months at a centre called Asia Plateau (AP) where we will be supporting the community and programs of Initiatives of Change (Iofc). IofC is a global organisation dedicated to "building trust across the world's divides" of culture, nationality, belief, and background.
Both Tui and I have been exposed to the ideas Initiatives of Change as children, young adults and now parents.My first time at AP was as an 11 year old where my mum, sister and I visited AP for a reunion of a musical called Song of Asia that she was part of as a young women.
Travelling to India as a child, I remember India as arriving to a sea of brown faces. I remember the smell of spices, the pavements of Mumbai sprinkled with squatting men, ramshackle huts made out of piecemeal iron, colourful trucks, cows on the road and the occasional whiff of raw sewage. At Asia Plateau, I remembered the slide and the swing (which is still here today), a potpourri of accents. I remember the prayer room and times of peace filled silence, I remember the ladies with colourful saris in the kitchen making Roti and I remember playing with Anna, my newly made friend from Sweden.
As a child, I took these experiences at face value but internally it opened my heart to an awareness and openness beyond the paramaters of my world, my way of thinking and my needs.
At a beach in Mumbai we saw young children selling pinwheels for 30 rupees. The children asked why they were not at school.
There are places and people who think differently, look differently and see things differently.
As a 24 year old, life brought me back to Panchgani where I participated in a 9 month leadership program of Iofc called Action for Life (AFL) involving people from all around the world. We spent time reflecting on our lives, values and spirituality, we had daily times of quiet where we made room to listen,meditate and pray, we lived and made friends with people of different cultures and faiths , we shared tears over sharing our personal life journeys we examined our life choices and relationships and were encouraged to restore heal and put things right and we got to meet and be inspired by individuals, groups and orgnaisations that through inner leading, were able to affect positive change in their own lives and community.
The Mami, or prayer room, a place dedicated to finding peace, connection and stillness. In the middle of the room are books from the major religions.
This experience had a profound effect on my life journey. It ignited a desire to not only seek self serving means but to find a way to connect with groups and people who are contributing to improving and enriching the lives of the community they serve. It also helped me to bring this idea of social change to the personal. To make sure the personal relationships i keep, my character and my actions are kept aligned with my beliefs and values
Be the change you want to see in the world.
While volunteering through IofC,I met Tui in Fiji and shortly after we married. We settled in Auckland and the next 10 years we worked on setting up a comfortable life together in Auckland, NZ. We involved ourselves in the local church where we deepened our Christian faith. I was particularly struck by biblical teachings on hospitality; opening our hearts and homes to the broken, hurting and persecuted and how actively fighting injustice is a fundamental part of Christs teachings.
I was naked and you clothed me, i was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.....Truly i say to you, as you did it to one of the least of tese my brothers, you did it to me.
After 10 years of living in Auckland, the expectations, busyness and pressure of city living wore me down. It eroded the quality of my relationships with those closest to me and i realised i was pursuing things that were not of most value to me. While driving home from work, I was overwhelmed and in tears and how disconnected from everything i had become. Outwardly, we had a model life , with a home, good jobs, wonderful friends and family. Like a shining light, i had an idea to just get away from it all and move out of the city. I proposed the idea to Tui and to my surprise, he was keen. So we told our friends and family and made preperations to move to Karangahake, a small rural town 1.5 hours from Auckland. We converted adjoining cabins into accomodation and lived off grid which allowed us to live off very little. The change was huge but it allowed us to slow down, work less and focus on the things we valued most in life, connection.
Our little place in Karangahake has been looked after by a lovely couple Linda and Alistair who will care for our lang, 2 dogs and 5 chickens.
We gave oursleves a year of living simply with no idea that the opportunity to serve in India would arise. Although both Tui and I had extensive input and experience with IofC, since having children our involvment had been minimal.
Early this year, I had a conversation with dear friends of IofC, Peter and Glenys on how we would love to give back to the organisation that means so much to us, That when financially able, we would love to go back to India to support the community. By chance, there was an invitation from Asia Plateau to have experienced Iofc personnel help with providing hospitality and support to the participants of programmes . With the financial help of both the New Zealand and India Iofc, we were able to respond to that need.
We were lucky enough to spend some time with Glenys and Peter at Panchgani. This is a picture of us at the top of the plateau. Unusually green after the monsoon season.
Knock and the door shall be opened, seek and ye shall find
So we feel extrememly grateful to all those, espeically IofC NZ and India who have supported and encouraged us in this chapter of our lives. We also believe that the desicion to live more intentionally has allowed us to respond to opportunities we would not have been able to before.
Our children have already settled in and are enjoying the attention from many of young interns at the centre. My son Josua is particularly interested in learning the language and Ariana loves sitting with the young girls. Their school is adhoc homeschooling but I know that this experience alone will help shape their heart and minds in a way that no books can. At the moment we taking things slow as October, I have been told is a busy month with programmes being run back to back. We have already met and re connected with fascinating, smart and inspiring people.
We have been welcomed so warmly and have a gorgeous little cottage that we can retreat to if need be. We do feel so lucky and grateful to be here. here.
We do feel so lucky and grateful to be here. So our time here, as well as being of serviceclosest to me and i noticed myslef placin