'Spiritual' brain-drain!

I am sometimes perplexed when I see so much of ‘spiritual’ brain-drain to the West that is happening these days (not a recent phenomenon, though). I have to comment, even though I know it may ruffle a few feathers and cause a few heartaches, especially to my Indian friends out there. However, please take it as a gesture of love and concern.

Now I know that God is not limited by place or time. He works in ways we cannot see. Let me reiterate at the start, that I am not making a blanket statement to condemn all those who have left the shores of our great nation. Many have gone out of sheer desperation of not finding a proper job here. There are many who are earning well and playing a great role in supporting mission work back home. Others are influencing their adopted nation in a number of ways and it may all be part of God’s strategy of ‘evangelizing the West’ all over again. What a way to humble the proud and overthrow ungodliness!

What still concerns me is that the saints do not pause to think twice before making a beeline for the West. The demand for nurses as brides has to be seen to be believed! Among our christian friends, of course.Everything can be spiritualized, if given a chance, and I am disturbed that we are not laying it on the altar as we should.  When there is greater need for the Lord’s work in our nation, we have to be doubly sure that God has a purpose for leading us away from this place.

Also, this aspect of emigration and ‘settling’ in the West (more to the East, nowadays) is still unnerving to me. I can understand saints who are there for a time and for a reason. The most common reason I have heard people say is that they want their kids to have a good future. It still shakes me to the core. Our kids cannot survive in India. Our kids should have no role in pulling our nation out of its mess. What is worse is that we are unconcerned and we want to pass it on to our children. Decades ago, even secular people had only one purpose in going to the West. To be trained and come back to serve their motherland. Do we have people with such noble motives today? Among the saints at least?

Yes, we all want to live better lives. We all want to have neat roads and clean cities. But we stay in our country to serve. We should have a mindset to give and not merely to receive. Is it wrong to think like this? Is there not a selfish motive somewhere in planning to spend the rest of our lives in places which is most convenient to our flesh? I have heard people say after going abroad that it is more hectic there than back home. But no, they have no plans of coming back. Even the traffic jams are orderly.

The saddest part in all these is that many have no money to save. Or send something back home. “We have too many bills to pay. We are trying to take extra jobs. Our family life is not worth mentioning. We will do our best however…”