Just thought I'd give a little update on how things are going here in India. We are keeping busy with our ministry sites each week. After this week, however, we only have two weeks of ministry left! That's crazy for me to think about. The third week of April, our last week in India, will be spent getting ready to come home and going on a trip to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. I'm really excited about the trip to Agra because I invited my friend Kiran who is on staff at Asha House to come with us. She is seventeen years old and we have gotten to be good friends.
The weeks all go by pretty steadily. Not too fast, but not slow in the least. I love Tuesdays and Thursdays which are spent at Asha House. I mostly hang out with Kiran and "help" her cook or do dishes or laundry. The staff there is really great and we have all gotten to where we love to joke around with each other. Sometimes in the afternoons I take naps with the little girls. I can't resist when they come tug on my hands and say "Auntie, you will sleep with me?"
The leper colony has been a little harder to create friendships because of the language barrier. Even though I know some phrases in Hindi now, my leper colony speaks a Southern Indian language called Tamil. So other than saying "Hello" and "Thank you" the rest is simply communicated by smiles and hand gestures. One of the staff members from Asha House named Rama comes to the leper colony with us to translate, but it's still difficult to have meaningful conversations. This week was very encouraging though. We really seemed to have broken down some of the awkwardness and are able to have more fun with the people. It sounds crazy but because the weather is getting hotter, they are more willing to sit down and hang out since it is too hot to do any work. Well, that, and the big Hindu temple they have been working on building all spring is pretty much completed. It's hard to see these people who have so little money and health spending everything they have and working so hard to build a temple to a false god.
My favorite part of the leper colony is spending time with two little Nepali girls from just outside the colony in the slum area. These two sisters named Mimbra and Sunita have captured my heart! They are painfully shy, but each time they require a little less coaxing to come and play with me.
We have developed a lot of good friendships in our neighborhood - with both kids and adults. I love to sit on the steps of our next door neighbors' house and visit with them. It's amazing the conversations we can have when they put in the few English words they know and we use our Hindi phrases. Of course, lots of smiling and head bobbing always helps too. I must admit that of all the quirky things about India, I have picked up the head bob. It's absolutely addicting! In America nodding means yes and shaking your head means no. But in India, bobbing your head from side to side means yes. However, I typically just bob my head during most of the conversation and let it mean yes or no.
All in all, things are going very well. I'm learning to just deal with it when I am forced to cook a meal with the power out, or spend a few days without water because a pipe burst. It's no big deal to wait for hours because people here are on "Indian Time" and not everyone has a cell phone so they can be quickly located. I can walk away from angry rickshaw drivers who want to rip off the naïve (or so they think) American girls. Though I will never understand why we are gawked at wherever we go simply because we are white. And I am learning that just because the internet café was open at 9am last week doesn't mean it will be open before 11am this week. Because that's just how they roll. And I like it quite a bit. :)
I am wrapping up my second week in India! This was our first full week of ministry and I think it went really well. Some highlights of the week included the relationships we started to build in the leper colony. Things were a little bit awkward at first. I'm starting to see that the way we minister to these precious people is so backwards! Instead of serving them, they love to serve us. And I must confess I find it a little hard to be grateful sometimes when I'm offered my fourth glass of chai and offered yet another portion of mysterious food. But I am trying to learn to be appreciative!
Due to some illness [thanks to the mystery food...] I was only able to spend one day at the orphanage this week. The majority of the day was spent with the staff while the kids were at school and/or taking naps. I got to know two young girls named Peru and Rama who help care for the children. They are so sweet! I'm really excited about getting to know them.
Today is Sunday, and I preached the sermon at church! How crazy, right? Every Sunday we kind of have to be prepared to sing, preach, lead Sunday School or whatever. We just kind of get put on the spot. But at least when you are speaking with a translator it makes your message twice as long! J
I am writing you from New Delhi, India! The week has been full of transitions and getting into the swing of things! Next week my team of fourteen girls will split into smaller groups and each go to our separate ministry areas.
This week all of us went to each site to get a feel for things we will be doing. We have visited three leper colonies and three orphanages. The leper colonies are hard to describe. It's really just a neighborhood of families. My highlight in the leper colonies was the first one we visited on Tuesday. The people are so friendly and loving. They got out mats for us to sit on and served us chai tea. It was better than any Starbucks chai I have ever had! J
The three orphanages were a good experience as well. The one I will be working with is small and has fewer than twenty children. To welcome us, the kids put on a program that involved dancing to Hindi techno music! It was so cute! I'm not exactly sure what all we will be doing there, but one of the things we will help with is teaching in their school. I'm glad they are young children though, because as I witnessed at the other orphanages, these kids are brilliant! I hope I will be smart enough to teach them! It is so encouraging to see that they are getting a good education!
The days this week have been long and tiring, but I think we will all continue to adjust a little bit at a time! It seems like we spend a lot of time simply driving to and from places. But believe me; car rides in India are anything but relaxing! It's impossible to explain the chaos of the roads. There are cars, buses, bikes, rickshaws, motor rickshaws, people, and of course, cows all over the roads! It's like a constant roller coaster ride! I love it!
Something that helps our team keep our focus is evening times of singing and reading the word. We also spend a lot of time talking to the father. It is quite an adjustment to learn how to all live together in the conditions we are in! But we are doing fine and will continue to stay focused on the reason we are here.
I miss you all and hope that you are all doing well.
I believe in love. I am guilty, just like many Christians, of adopting the mindset that you can love someone without liking them. This way of thinking is so very dangerous. It is very catchy and very tempting.
In John 15:17 Jesus said, "This is my command; love each other". He shattered the idea that life can be about what we want it to be about. Where did we ever get the idea that saying, "I love you, but I don't like you," is acceptable? Trying to love while we are focused on the unlovely is not going to be a genuine kind of love. I no longer have the excuse to say that I will only love or approve of someone when I feel that they are worthy to receive it. I can spend a lifetime praying for a difficult person. I can pray that God will change them and deliver them from their sin. But have I ever considered that I can spend some time praying to my Lord, asking him to change me?
I believe in love. I am convinced that some people are naturally lovely people. They are so full of love that they pass it on to others as normally as the air that they breathe in and out. This is not so of me! Loving is hard! I have grown up in a family where love is so readily given. And the logical thing to assume would be that I am around it so much that I am not only a consumer, but also a producer of it. Instead, however, I am ashamed to say that it is hard for me to love. I want to love those who are like me or like something I want to become. I feel like loving someone who I have deemed unworthy would be a waste of my time. How this breaks God's heart! And thank God that it broke the heart of one of my dearest friends.
I have a friend who believes in love. She sees the unlovely and finds something more than I could ever see. She pays very close attention to the direction of her life. She analyzes and sometimes worries over it. But she isn't worried about which college she will attend or what career path she will choose. The ultimate thing that weighs on her mind is that her life is a life of loving God and loving others. But those are my words, not hers. Because she is anything but cliché. Sometimes she focuses a little too closely on being unlike what she is expected to be. But let's be honest, wouldn't you rather be found at fault for imperfectly trying to love, or for never taking the time to care to love at all?
