The New Church

Krista and I visited Sari Bari yesterday, a four year old organization operating out of the Kalighat red light district and at work to change the lives of women being exploited by prostitution. The vision for this business is restoration, pure and simple. They foster relationships with women "working the line", they visit brothels and over the years have created a blossoming community in the midst of a very dark and hopeless place. Similar to the work of Freeset, this smaller community offers an alternative to prostitution through learning a trade and creating handmade products which are sold through the website. The name "Sari" (a word often strongly associated with women) and "Bari" (meaning home) is a beautiful description of the work that takes place here- old saris are torn apart and given new life and purpose.

The temperature here is climbing rapidly-even in the last two days we have noticed. The dusty grime of the sidewalks and streets mingles with sweat and by mid-morning you feel like you have a second layer of skin. We boarded the 45B bus and walked down the street to the entrance of the Kali district and waited for Brent and his wife, friends of Krista's who have been living here for a year now and working with S.B.  They appeared out of the crowd and ushered us through a series of small alleys and into the four white washed rooms of this non-profit.

The women sat on the clean concrete floor in a room with happy red trim and a fan spinning high over head- a calm, clean respite out of place in this district. They were strong and kind, ranging in age from late twenties to fifties. I cant explain the gravity that they have, a self posession that changes the way they walk and move. You feel like they are your mother- or your aunt- and it is clear that they are all your superior. Brent led a brief Bible study in bengali followed by an English lesson and then their work day began. The women are not only trained in their craft but educated- all of them learn basic math skills and are taught to read.

Krista and I and two other visitors sat outside and talked with a girl my age named Beth who is originally from the states and has been living here for four years to be a part of this organization. She gave us the background story and explained in detail how Sari Bari works, what they provide for women who are brave enough to step out of the line (401k, retirement plans,health insurance and education funding for their children!), and how relationships are forged and sustained within the community. It is a delicate process made possible only through the tears and sacrifices and courage of the small staff here. She said if she had known ahead of time what horrors she would encounter in the brothels here she may well have chosen another direction in life. Beth just signed another three year contract largely in part due to "the beating heart" of the operation- the Indian women I met yesterday who have undergone this "metaporphosis"  and make all of the agony worth it, who outweigh the bad with the goodness and light they bring to this work.

The poor understand limitations. The women here have no option, they are forced by whips of desperation and poverty into the shackles of this trade. Living in little more than cells inside the brothels-some of them never being permitted to leave their rooms, they are well acquainted with surrender. This is why, when given the hope of a new life through the hands of an organization like Sari Bari, the process of restoration is realized.

I don't think I fully connected the experience today until hours later I listened to a discussion called "Breathing Under Water", by Richard Rohr. He said,"The poor hold the seed of the gospel and in every age in so far as the church incorporates the outcast, those that it pushes to the edge, those that it hates and rejects-the church rediscovers Christ just where he said he would be- in the least of the brothers, in the little no-bodies of the world."

 "The real spirituality of the church is surfacing in the third world, not through the intellectualism of our society," said Rohr. The work of the preoccupied church is being executed and accomplished by other hands who are reaching out to broken women, to the elderly, to the abused, to the mentally handicapped, to the unlovely and the diseased."We always say there are no prostitutes who work at Sari Bari, only our sisters," Beth said. Unlike in my life and in many congregations, shame is never a part of the equation. Any one of those women in their apparent devastation have found a greater sensitivity for spiritual things than I have in all of my successes, and Beth who has chosen to give up three more years of her life to the hidden work in these narrow alleys will leave a richer mark on humanity than many who have acquired both wealth and power.

-Ev