"This is how a Rock Quarry workers family works"

I recently received this letter via Children's Relief International, the organization I'm partnering with, from one of the pastors who ministers to the people who work in the Rock Quarry outside of Rajahmundry, India. These are the very people and pastors we will be spending time with while in India. I found this letter gave me a better idea of what these people experience so I wanted to share it with you. Please note that some material at the end of this letter is horrific...but sadly true.

After 30 years of breaking the stone, crushing it, breathing it in as dust and coughing it out as disease, Nageswar has been left too ill even to walk upright, and too breathless to tell his story. He has been taking treatment for tuberculosis (TB) for the last year and a half, but the medicines do not work. His wife Laxmi. J ignores her own fevers and coughs. She refuses to get her lungs tested. "He gave up working two years ago. Where's the money for two people to be treated?" Nageswar and his wife Laxmi. J is learning to shrug it off. They tell, "We're broken; just like the stone we break”. Medicine keeps us alive. But there's a fine choice to be made between food and medicine. A week's dose costs Rs.100; our daily wages are Rs.20-25."

Workers attached to stone-quarries are more prone to some eye-ailment or the other, the most common among them being eye-ulcer, irritation due to deposit of dust, early incidence of short sight or long-sight problem. What is more concerning is that they are not aware of the ailment for a prolonged period. The workers are completely without protection for their hands, feet or eyes, and spent their days splitting rocks with hammer and chisel.

Buildings and skyscrapers are shooting up in every nook and cranny like mushrooms in the State. Flyovers are being built to accommodate the commuter traffic and in order to raise these structures, the raw materials are blasted, broken down by hand and brought from the granite quarries situated on the outskirts of Rajahmundry. Men, women and children work in these quarries filling lorry loads of granite, they are paid less, and half is taken at source to repay loans, many suffer dreadful injuries from the blasting and have no money or facilities for medical care.

Quarry work is one of the most flourishing businesses in the State where the owner reaps huge profits, while the laborers barely survive. They live in very primitive hut constructions with hardly any possessions. Their children are left to fend for themselves, there is no education for these children and when reaching the age of 10 yrs are forced to join with their parents’ stone breaking from dawn to dusk. At night the blasting is carried out and many injuries are sustained.

These people are from the downtrodden community. They are forced to take up the hard quarry work, due to the scarcity of water in their native villages. There is no irrigation water for their land so they are unable to grow crops, even to fetch drinking water from the open or bore wells; people have to walk many miles. In-fact there is no access to the basic needs of life; in desperation they migrate into Rajahmundry and became quarry workers called stone breakers, most take loans of money from the quarry owners at exorbitant interest rates, many to pay off previous loans or provide a dowry, and pay for their daughters’ marriage. They are now beholden to the Quarry owners as very rarely can they earn enough from their labors to pay the loan off. People, who take up this job, will have debts in their native villages or unavoidable family commitments. It is like a golden handshake for them, but it turns out to be their misery. They have to work in the quarry throughout their lifetime trying to repay the loan. They are at the mercy of the owners without any hope of justice in getting their wages.

There is no accommodation or basic facilities provided. Most live in almost Stone Age conditions, sheltered by temporary thatched roofed sheds around the quarry, when it rains there is no shelter. They have very basic cooking vessels and hardly any possessions. No medical or social help is provided and in all areas they are exploited. Their daily income depends upon the stamina of each person. If a person is healthy and all the members of his family work hard they may be able to repay the original loan. However, very quickly they are bonded to the next loan to pay for their food and survival. Often they fall sick, due to hard work, malnutrition, alcoholism, adultery, drug addiction, etc.

Many grow drugs and make rough alcohol they then become addicted to both drugs and alcohol to escape the bodily pain of illness, or the daily grind of hard physical work. Thus they become entangled in the vicious loan circle taking more loans for medical treatment or the pressing needs of the family. To clear these loans, the entire family is forced to work in the quarry. Alcoholism and drug abuse are very common in this community. They drink and take drugs in order to reduce the body pain caused by hard work in the quarry. These habits lead to increased debts, as well as many physical and psychological problems. There is no moral code in this community. Immorality is a common practice and prostitution has become lucrative and rampant amongst the quarry workers. Many are infected by HIV and AIDS, causing premature death and orphaned children.

The people living in the Rock quarry are exclusively Hindus. Their religious practice includes: idol worship, blood sacrifice, observing time and omens, regular visits to the pilgrim centers, and astrologers etc. These religious practices are very expensive and create a huge economic strain on the family. When a child is born into a quarry worker's family, the head of the family consults the Poojari (Hindu Priest) to find out whether the child has any evil influences. The Poojari performs the Poojas (rituals) in order to find the Dhosams (curses of Gods, Goddesses, or ancestors). If the Poojari says that the child has Dhosams, the father kills the innocent child immediately by putting the juice of a poisonous herb into his mouth. The belief behind this cruel act is that if the child lives, the Dhosam of the child will kill the father and ruin the family. If there is already a girl child in the family and the second child happens to be a female, they kill the baby without consulting the Poojari, because the girl child will be a burden to the family. This is how a Rock Quarry workers family works in the Rock Quarry.

There is a way to help end this cycle of bondage to cruel lenders, it is known as microfinancing. Children's Relief International has established a way to help families like Laxmi an Nageshwar by offering them loans in order to send their children to school and establish a business of their own. CRI is also comitted to educating these families on financial management so that they do not have to live at the mercy of unjust lenders. Please check out CRI's website for more info on microfinancing. And there is a way to help free these families from the bondage of the false gods they worship, which is found in the words of Jesus, "Come to me all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." This is why CRI is also comitted to supporting local pastors in this area and why we will be spending several days offering Bible and theology training for them.

Laxmi and her husband Nageshwar face so many problems in their family and in their society. No one is looking after them and not at all treating and them as human beings. After they get a loan from Children’s Relief International they are very happy. They are living like a normal human beings now along with their two kids.

Hinduism

Nearly 82% of the people of India identify themselves as Hindu. So what does it mean to be Hindu? Here are its basic tenets of belief (taken from, Dean C. Halverson's, The Compact Guide to World Religions):

• Impersonal Nature of Brahman: As a Hindu, the end goal in all of life is to arrive at ultimate reality, otherwise known as, Brahman. Brahman is "an impersonal oneness that is beyond all distinctions, including personal and moral distinctions" (Halverson, 89). Many Hindus see the universe as a continuous extension of Brahman. In other words, the world and everything in it is actually an illusion with no creator.

• The Brahman/Atman Unity: Most Hindus believe their true identity or existence, known as atman, is actually an extension of Brahman. Halverson offers a good analogy, "Just as the air inside an open jar is identical to the air surrounding that jar, so our essence is identical to that of the essence of Brahman" (89).

• The Law of Karma: This is the system which dictates the cycle of life, death, and re-birth for a Hindu. According to Hinduism, the main problem for humanity is that we are ignorant of ultimate reality, or Brahman, and our true identity with it. This problem is manifested in giving into our natural desires and longings, which results in a life that extremely focused on performing good deeds in order to achieve "good karma." In other words, what you do in this life carries over to how you're next life will look.

• Samsara (Reincarnation): This concept is intimately connected with the law of karma. Since Hindus believe that all of existence is connected to Brahman and that as humans we have forgotten that it is our true identity. Life is therefore an endless cycle of life, death, and re-birth (The Baker Pocket Guide to World Religions, 19). When we die, we are reborn into some other life form, which is dependent on whether you had good or bad karma in your previous life. So if you did good deeds and therefore have good karma, you may be reborn into a happy human. But, if you did bad deeds and therefore have bad karma, you may be reborn into an animal or bug.

• Mosha (Liberation): Since the goal of Hinduism is to achieve ultimate reality, or Brahman, and since all of humanity has forgotten their true identity in it, then the solution is to be delivered from the endless cycly of samsara (reincarnation). This solution comes by self enlightenment, realizing that all existence, including one's self, is an illusion. Hindus strive to accomplish this enlightened state in three primary ways: (1) karma marga (the way of action and ritual), (2) jnana marga (the way of knowledge and meditation), (3) bhakti marga (the way of devotion) (Halverson, 91). This is essentially what the character Neo, played by Keanu Reeves, and his entourage in the movie The Matrix achieved when they were liberated from the Matrix--"Will it be the red pill or the blue pill?"

So how does this differ from Christianity, that is, how does this compare with the reality that there is One True God, Father, Son, and Spirit? Let's compare it with the tenets of Hinduism outlined above:

• Personal Triune God: Like Hinduism, the Bible teaches that God is distinct from creation, which is clearly seen in the Genesis creation account where God is separate from the elements of creation. The apostle Paul also declares the "otherness" of God to the Athenians who worshipped many gods, including an "unknown god," which Paul identified for them as the One True God who, "being the Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all humanity life and breath and everything" (Acts 17:24-25). However, this God is also personal in nature, as the Scriptures indicate that God is one essence and three distinct persons with each person being fully God, which is known as Trinity (see Gen. 1:26; Duet. 6:4-5; John 1:1-4; Acts 5:3-4; 2 Cor. 13:14). God's personal nature is seen explicitly in Jesus Christ, the one who was fully human and fully God, who experienced humanity as we do yet did not sin (Heb. 2:14-18; 4:14-16). Therefore, all creation and creatures matter to God and God has made himself known to humanity, both in His word and His Son.

• Rule of Sin: Like Hinduism, the Bible teaches that how we live in the here and now affects our relationship with God. This is seen through the first man and woman's deliberate rebellion against God in the Garden, thereby altering all humanity's relationship with God; going from harmony to enmity because of their sin (see Rom. 3:11-12; 5:12; Eph. 2:3; Col. 1:21). Sin is the condition all humanity is born with, which means that all humanity's relationships with God (Gen. 3:8-11), self (Gen. 3:16), and others (Gen. 4:8) is marred. So, unlike Hinduism which says that karma is humanity's problem, Scripture is clear that humanity's main problem is sin or rebellion or enmity with God.

• Substituionary Atonement: Like Hinduism, all humanity is in need of being rescued from spiritual blindness (2 Cor. 4:4), yet unlike Hinduism which says that the individual is able to rescue him/herself, Scripture teaches that only the blood of Christ can rescue us. Because sin is an offense towards God commited by humanity, an appropriate price must be paid--death (Gen. 2:16-17; Rom. 6:23a). So, God did for us what we could not do for ourselves, he offered his own Son over to death, which accomplished four needs: (1) completely satisfied God's wrath toward all humanity (propitiation, see 1 John 4:10), (2) paid the death penalty of sin on our behalf (sacrifice, see Heb. 9:26), (3) restored the broken relationship between us and God (reconciliation, see 2 Cor. 5:18-19), (4) paid the ransom for our release from the bondage of sin and its Master--Satan (redemption, see Rom. 6:11) (taken from, Wayne Grudem, Bible Doctrine, p. 255).

It is clear that there are some similarities between Hinduism and Christianity, which seems to indicate that from the most ancient developments of man's understanding of self and God, Truth has always been corrupted by sinful humanity. While there are similarities, the differences are striking as revealed in God's superintended (inspired and inerrant) Word and through the incarnate Word (Jesus Christ). Because it is human nature to corrupt Truth, we are all in need of God's compassion; we are all in need of being lifted out of our mess and into His loving arms. This is why the people of the untouchable class in India are in such need of those who are first and foremost passionate about Christ, while at the same time, compelled to show His compassion to those who are in a very real sense, blinded.