What is the churches’ task in the world? What does it look like to bring Jesus Christ to a community? A city? I received a glimpse of that through what turned out to be my favorite book of the year —  Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity. She reports on three years of her life lived in Annawadi, a slum 200 yards from Mumbai’s Airport in India. 3000 people from different castes, cultures, regions of India, and religions live there. Most go through rich people’s garbage to make a living. It is a true “undercity” as most do not have the language skills, education, social connections or caste privileges to find stable work in the “overcity” of Mumbai. By focusing on this relatively “undercity,” Boo provides a brilliant look at the complexities of poverty in global cities by examining just one small enclave. New York too. Read more.