Email: John Stanger

Hello loyal Friends and Family,

I have started to write this final newsletter many times, but given up before putting my fingers to the keyboard. I kept thinking, “I’m not in the right frame of mind to close this journey.” However, it has recently occurred to me that I will probably never find the “right” frame of mind to interpret what this year has meant for me as an individual and those who were a part of it with me. I could wait to write until I am back in the States. Or I could even keep you updated for months to come as I continue to process all that India conjures up for me. Nevertheless, I have decided to write you for the last time in the midst of packing and saying goodbye. Afterward, if you’d like to hear me ramble about which curries I miss (and which I don’t), we can talk over coffee or you can follow my blog, which will be updated more frequently now that I won’t be splitting my personal writing between multiple audiences.

As my final weeks here crept up on me, I worried that as I started thinking about my transition to seminary, seeing family, and all the comforts of America, I would begin to withdraw my presence from relationships here. But I certainly don’t think that has been the case. June and July have been wonderful months of rain, reading, and relaxation, but July in particular has felt like a gift. Over the last few weeks I was able to visit some of my closest friends’ homes, see them where they are most loved, embrace their families, take part in their local customs, and generally soak up a few more newly discovered intricacies of Kerala.

Today I taught my last class and have therefore formally said goodbye to four of six institutions which I have been a part of for varying amounts of time since last September. Saying goodbye to each school has varied greatly in difficulty. While I am thankful for the closure of my relationship with some, others are much more difficult to say goodbye to. Monday was probably the most difficult, as I said goodbye to a school that had embraced me so fully as one of their own. As I spoke to the students, faculty, and staff during the farewell function they organized, I tried to express what their love and openness to me as a stranger has meant for me and how it will shape me for years to come.

In the same way, I am trying daily to express to those individuals I’ve grown closest to how much I appreciate the friendships we have forged despite our cultural, religious, age, and class boundaries. I am also learning that it is impossible to fully express all of my emotions in simplified English. Yet even during emotional goodbyes, I find myself truly thankful for the time that I have had here. I realize that so many will never have an experience like this. It still hits me at times that I actually did this—became a part of India for a year. I can only attribute that to God. There have been plenty of things I have been excited to do in life, but not followed through with. But a sustaining Spirit has pulled me through every step along this path.

My room is currently a mess as I sift through everything I have accumulated to judge which possessions are worthy of the airline’s weight limits. While going through all of my material belongings I see many that made the journey from America and will come back with me, those that travelled here but I must leave in India, and those that I have accumulated since planting myself in Kerala. I think it’s much the same way with who I am as a person, but it is certainly more difficult to identify and classify the changes. What I do know is that in many ways I am coming back a different person.

Not by any great achievement of my own, but simply by being here, I have lost my fair share of ignorance and naiveté about people different from myself; I’ve learned what it means to be a part of God’s global family, and to some extent, what it means to be part of a minority. I also have accumulated many meaningful relationships, a little bitterness toward the indifference rich nations and their citizens often show to those struggling, a love for the diversity God bestowed upon the world, and a passion for working with others to honor that diversity.

Before I came to India I had this idea that this year would kind of refine me, and I would return to you a man that knows exactly what he stands for: I’d know what I believe the political and theological answers to Earth’s problems are. I thought the refinement would mean a more focused, more certain John. I feel this year has not refined me in the way that I once hoped, but I am thankful for the more honest “me” it has uncovered. Even if it has revealed a lot less certainty, I hope it has created a new kind of openness to a broader spectrum. If anything, I have picked up plenty of questions that I will be hauling to seminary in September. Even there I do not know that they will be answered, but I am looking forward to wrestling with them.

I would like to express one last time how incredibly thankful I am to all of you who have journeyed with me in spirit. Whether you read my newsletters, sent me books, care packages, or emails, prayed for me, or contributed financially, your support helped sustain me, which means you share in this journey with me. I should also acknowledge how wonderful my parents were in dealing gently with me as I struggled with how to express through the phone the internal struggles I faced throughout the last eleven months. I am looking forward to seeing many of you soon and being able to reconnect face-to-face. Please keep me in your prayers as I continue to say goodbye to those closest to me here before leaving August 1 to say hello to those of you in the States.

Love,

John Stanger