A Story: The Conflict

So sticking with Donald Miller's definition of a story from his book A Million Miles In A Thousand Years, "a story is a character who wants something and overcomes conflict to get it".  We introduced our characters a couple of days ago and Travis did a great job of outlining what these characters want a few days before that. So what do we need to overcome? What's our conflict, our obstacles?

The Obstacles

Geographical:


We're here.



They're there.

A 10.5 hr time difference.
A 17 hr direct flight from Chicago to Delhi. And it's brutal.
Money:
 

Let's be honest. A PhD student, a college counselor and a nurse don't make that much money. And it takes a good amount of money to start a rehab center. Here are a few figures to keep in mind:

-An acre of land in Delhi is roughly 2 million dollars.
-Air fare round trip to Delhi is ~$1,500
-Staff don't work for free. Even in ministry.
-Each child will cost ~$100/month to support.
-So once we add up rent, travel, food, electricity, health, education, staff, etc. we get a minimum sum of:

$180,000/year to run Ashraya Mission



Feeling discouraged?

(Another self indulgent childhood reference)

Our obstacles are many, no getting around it.

And it's going to be easy to get discouraged.

But we believe because of God's grace and sovereignty that we're called to a better story-a story where children stolen from their homes and have the titles of orphan and prostitute forced upon them can find refuge, can find redemption and not be defined by those titles any longer.

"Sing to God, sing praise to His name,

extol Him who rides on the clouds-

His name is the Lord-

and rejoice before Him.

A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in His holy dwelling.

God sets the lonely in families, He leads forth the prisoners with singing."

                                                                                      Psalm 68:4-6





Thanks for reading.

Blessings,

KB

A Story: The Characters

A local university has asked me to come speak to one of their freshman classes next week about living 'outside the box'. As I've been pulling together a powerpoint (yes, I'm that powerpoint geek guest speaker), Donald Miller's book A Million Miles In A Thousand Years has been floating in the back of my mind along with obscure Patty Griffin lyrics. The two just seem to gel well together.

Miller's book has a very basic thesis: "A story is a character who wants something and overcomes conflict to get it."


So here's our story's main characters...



The Characters

Kati H: Closet Opera Singer



Travis: Snake Charmer



KB: Above Average Hula Hooper


 

Back to Patty's "Top Of The World". Thanks for reading.

Blessings,

KB

more practically

More practically. This is what is about to go down. The Kati, Katie and I...or as I refer to us...Katrati...will be going to India at the end of this year to lay some groundwork for this organization. There is a lot of steps that needs to be taken in India once we have the organizational framework set up here. We will have to go through the process of registering all over again in the state that we will be working in. Fortunately we have an amazing group of Indian friends overseas who believe in what we want to do and are just as excited as we are about getting this project off the ground. And this is all happening fast. A week ago this was only an idea. Now we are incorporated, are proceeding with getting non-profit status, and have friends in India looking at properties for us.
This is what will happen once we are in India. We will be meeting with local orphanages, community leaders, government officials, trafficking victims, and commercial sex workers to network and perform a needs assessment for our program. While we are creating a clear-cut plan for our work we want to adopt an approach that can adapt to the local needs and issues that of our community. Many development/aid organizations frameworks are contrived outside the country's borders and without sufficient understanding of local cultures and issues.
The plan for December:
Perform needs assessment in New Delhi and Calcutta for our children's rehabilitation center.
Visit and work with several centers, orphanages, and red light districts....take lots of notes
Drink my first real Indian chai tea
Meet and network with local community and government leaders
Visit communities and decide on a site for our first center
Look at and possibly purchase property
Begin organization registration in India
do some filmwork and photography so we can show our work in India back to our friends in America
Change lives

After this the Kati(e)(s) and I will be returning to the US to make preparations for a more permanent move to India. I will be completing the last of my PhD coursework (yay). Then we will return to India as soon as possible to oversee the program. We have set the goal, and I think realistically (although idealistically) at having a center running with 40 to 50 children within a year of startup (September 10th). We've got a lot of ideas for this program that I'm completely stoked about and to be quite honest, almost giddy about, that I will hash out next time. Lastly, we have some of the most amazing friends in India and the United States that anyone could possibly imagine who have really rallied around us and this cause and quite honestly blown our minds. We could not do any of this without you. We're so psyched about what is happening we haven't been getting much sleep the last two weeks. Seriously. Which reminds me. Its after midnight. Peace and love.

Getting To Know You

When taking on a project of this magnitude, it's best to know the people you're working with intimately. With all three of us living in different states, we take creative measures to get to know each other. Today we did a 'getting to know you' email-each person had to list 25 random things about themselves. This one still makes me laugh. Hard.

20) when I was a kid I though it would be a good idea to take a copperhead snake we had killed and put it in front of my little brothers room he was sleeping in. It wasn't dead. I got spanked.

Here we go

I'm sure that you have been where I am now. In a chair. One that is on a plane or in a car or on a boat or a motorcycle or even a train that is pointed in a direction that you don't know if you are ready to go. Your heart caught in the tension of the excitement and sheer terror of what you have done. Wondering how you got here. Knowing there is no way out. As if your mind is suddenly awakened from a sleep that your body did not recognize. Like when you finally jump off the side of the cliff overlooking the glassy water and fate gives you a few seconds to turn over your choices in your head. This time the temperature of the water is the last thing on your mind. Plane flights are cliff dives turned into hours. And jumps like this require months of suspense. All this to say: I'm not quite sure how we got here. But I am so excited. I think for me it somehow has to be blamed on a million moments culminating into one. I was sitting in a chair just like I am now. One that was on a boat. And maybe it was the combination of brain freeze from eating frozen yogurt too fast as an island was turning from a mountain into a hill into a dot on an ocean and a racing wall of water from the sky was erasing all my canvas and turning every color gray. There was nothing special about the moment. The yogurt was cheap. My skin was still cold and wet from me thinking it would be a good idea to go outside on a boat on an ocean in a storm. The painful piercing of the rain and the ferocity of the wind that felt like it could at any whim lift me from the deck was unlike anything I had ever felt. But sitting in that chair I somehow knew that the days of speaking of what I would someday do had ended. I felt a leap inside my heart. A leap off of a cliff.

So here we are. We--Kati Hultman, Katie Beth, and I (Travis Frugé)-- have all decided to take this leap together. We are starting children's homes in India called Ashraya Mission. Ashraya is the transliteration of the Hindi word for Refuge. In three months we will be in India looking at properties in Calcutta and New Delhi. We plan to have our first children in the program in less than a year.
Most importantly, we hope that our work will be effective in rescuing and restoring these victims and in representing the life Jesus lived. How are we going to do all this? (and that's just Phase 1). I imagine we will have to work very hard. I imagine this is more huge than I can imagine. But I also know that no one ever changed the world by thinking about how hard it would be. So. I hope you're in. Suffice it to say that we need help. Technically, all the help we can get. So if you're a film-maker. We need that. If you're a nurse. We need that. If you're a teacher. Definitely. It really doesn't matter what you do. We need your ideas and your skills and your support and your prayers. We can't do this on our own. And I don't think that we were meant to.

Habakkuk 1:5

"Look at the nations. Watch and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in them you would not believe, even if you were told.''

Habakkuk 1:5

I guess there's no better way to christen a new blog then with a verse that so well represents our dream.

Looking forward to the writings chronicling our journey from young people dreaming out loud to changing lives.

Blessings,

KB