March 17, 2008

News from Mary

Ainsi, votre foi ne repose pas sur la sagesse des homes, mais sur la puissance de Dieu.
Your faith, then, does not rest on human wisdom, but God’s power.
- I Corinthians 2:5

My parents suggested I sit down and share my perspective as a 17-year-old on our lives here in India. The above Bible verse is one of my favorites. It was not easy to pick up my life, leave my friends, and move to India as a junior in high school. However, I now love India and look forward to coming back here even after I go back to the United States for college.

Mary, Tara, and Pallavi (my closest friends from church) dressed in saris for a Christian concert.

Many people at my school are fluent in several languages. In my circle of friends there are speakers of Hindi, Mandarin Chinese, Arabic, Korean, Japanese, Nepali, French, Italian, Dutch, and Spanish. There are a variety of religions represented at my school, as well as people who have no religious connections.

In my youth group at Bethesda Presbyterian Church, one of the ways we used to share our experiences was through “roses and thorns.” Here are some of my “roses.”

Roses

I love our church youth group, which is older, mature, and so inclusive of me (ages 17 through young adult). We sing awesome contemporary Christian songs in worship twice a month with guitar and drum accompaniment. We organized a Christian rock concert with other churches, had a spiritual retreat, and worked at a booth for our church’s “fête” (annual churchwide fundraising event). At Christmas, we sang carols in peoples’ homes, where they fed us, loved us, and prayed for us. On my birthday, every single member of the youth group text-messaged me to give me their best wishes!

Mary Hudson and her friend Chali, who was brought up in Boston, Massachusetts.

I’m grateful for a diverse group of friends from all over the world. Their experiences and different ways of thinking challenged me to go beyond my sheltered views. I have been warmly welcomed into many groups at school. One friend, Chali, was new like me. We met on the first day of orientation and have been friends ever since. She is a senior, so I’ll miss her next year. She and I signed up to go on the same mini-course in the fall when we trekked in the Himalayas. Chali was raised in Boston by Indian parents, but moved back to India for her senior year of high school. Talk about a challenge! She’s an inspirational friend, like others who have taught me so much.

This broken water pump, located in a slum behind Mary Hudson's school, is one of three meant to serve 10,000 people.

Community service is really important, not just as something to fill college applications and satisfy CAS hours for IB, but as a way of becoming global citizens. Chali created “Initiative 21,” and I have joined her group. We visit the slum next to our school, which houses about 10,000 people who share 20 toilets. Presently, there are three water sources in the slum and only one is working consistently. Sometimes the government provides flour and rice to the people, but they don’t address the water problems. Lack of good drinking water is a leading cause of disease and death. We are collecting water samples and are in the process of studying the water content. We’ve also worked with an NGO to try and assess what might be a sustainable improvement in case the government kicks them out of Delhi. By buying rooftop water tanks, which are transportable, from the money we raise, we hope their water needs can be met.

Since my parents are here as PC(USA) mission co-workers in partnership with the Church of North India, our lives are a little different than most of my friends at school. The two worlds I live in are a reflection of the huge contrasts in India. All of us are forced to wrestle with the success of modern India side by side with rampant illiteracy and poverty.

I am looking forward to being in the United States for a few weeks this summer to see my grandparents, visit some colleges, and see my friends (and sisters!) too. We really do appreciate your prayers. They make a difference. We’ve received a few packages from churches and the timing of those deliveries has been fantastic!

Please forgive me that I am not quick to answer personal letters and emails. Writing papers takes most of my time! We love you all!

Mary (with Sue and David)

The 2008 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 87