Hello from India! :)

Hi friends! :)

I apologize for the delayed post – I arrived safely in India on August 28, but I’ve been running around like crazy since then with orientation-related activities (including a 2.5-day “adventure” to northern India that I’ll tell you more about in a later post). Now that the jet lag has worn off and I have a day to rest and reflect, I wanted to share a quick update.

The stateside orientation (in Colorado) was AWESOME! There was clearly a lot of thoughtful planning that went into it, and I think everyone really bonded as we learned and lived together for a week. I can’t possibly tell you *everything* we learned, but there was one really neat tidbit I wanted to share:

Apparently sociologists have identified three different kinds of cultures:

1.) Honor – Shame

2.) Justice – Guilt

3.) Power – Fear

These three frames of reference describe what is fundamentally important in a culture. In Asian cultures (and many others), maintaining honor is extremely important; being shamed is an unthinkable horror that must be avoided. In the US (among others), maintaining justice is most important – those who are guilty must be punished and the law must be upheld, regardless of who gets offended in the process. In many military-controlled societies (as well as those with witch doctors), people are governed by power; a sense of fear dictates how they live their lives.

Now - here’s the really neat part - consider how the gospel applies to each of these cultures (the same gospel, mind you – just explained in different ways). In the US, we tend to focus on the Justice-Guilt aspect of the gospel: we were guilty before God, but Christ came and paid our penalty so that we would no longer stand condemned but would be in right standing before our Holy Judge. That’s amazing and true, but it doesn’t resonate the same way with other cultures as it does with ours.

But think about someone from an Honor-Shame culture hearing that God came to cover over our shame, and that he raised us up to be co-heirs with Christ. Or imagine someone in a Power-Fear culture hearing, “Yes, there are many kings and lords. But let me tell you about the King of kings and Lord of lords. If he is for you, who can be against you? You don’t have to be afraid anymore!”

Wow.

The concept of “the other 2/3 of the gospel” (as the speaker called it) definitely rocked my world. Praise the Lord that the truth and beauty of the gospel is bigger than our own culture. :) What an awesome God we serve!

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In other news, a fundraising update: last week we received a summary of (1) the total donations in our account, and (2) the total cost of our internship. The good news is that your donations added up to $5,955 (!!!!), well within the range I thought I needed based on prior EMI estimates ($5,500 - $6,000). The not-so-good news is that the cost of the internship ended up being higher than the estimate: $6,800 (not including my plane ticket to Colorado, visa fee, support-raising costs, etc.). Part of the discrepancy is because I’ve been assigned to work on two projects instead of one (and thus I’ll go on two project trips), and part is simply due to unforeseen changes in ticket prices and the cost of living.

The bottom line is that I still need around $800-$1,000 to fully fund my internship. I can/will empty my savings account to cover the difference, but I thought I’d tell you about it first and see if anyone is able and willing to contribute more. I would greatly appreciate anything you could send my way!

Above all, please keep praying that the Lord’s kingdom would be advanced in India and in my own heart. The physical poverty that is so prevalent here is a vivid reminder that (as Tim Keller puts it), “The gospel is only for the spiritually poor, and especially for the materially poor.” (see Luke 6:20, Matthew 5:3, and this podcast.) I still have a lot to learn about what that means.

Hugs from India,

David

[P.S. – for search engines: eMi = Engineering Ministries International]