I  made it.. India round 6.

I love people watching and airports are good for that... two airport watching moments I must share.

 1.   I love it when people catch me off guard and change my thinking.  First thing yesterday morning, a couple was waiting for a plane.  The husband, a tough looking older guy, long beard and deer print shirt leans over and gives his wife Eskimo kisses! Didn't expect that.

2. An older lady walks into that bathroom as I was looking in a full length wall mirror trying to do something with my hair.  She spoke no English but gestured to the mirror.  I figured she wanted to check her dress so I stepped to the side, thinking we could share.  She proceeded to walk straight into the wall.  I am guessing she thought it was the walkway leading to the bathrooms.. those mirrors can be tricky. : ) .. don't worry, I turned her around and got her heading in the right direction. 

Dear People of India,

You ask me all of the time to remember you.  Do you know how often  you are on my mind and in my heart?  I think about you all the time, I cannot forget.  I think about you when I do something that I love and I imagine how much fun we would have if you could be here doing it with me.  I think about you when I eat something delicious. I wonder if you would like it and I am guessing usually, that you have not tried it. I think about you when I am wasteful.  I wonder if somehow I/we were less wasteful or consumed less whether you would have more.  I think about the time you taught me to dance or showed me how to prepare tea.  I love the times where we speak without words....sometimes having conversations that look more like charades and other times just letting our hearts speak and our hands hold each other's for a minute.  I love how over time these little moments led us to be friends and I am grateful for that.  I think about those moments often.  I think about how excited you were and how hard you laughed when I tried to speak Telugu and I hope next time to know a little more.    I think about you when I feel ungenerous and I don’t want to share my time....I remember how generously you shared yours.  I think about how highly you value my prayers.....especially on the nights I forget to pray and I think it would hurt you a little bit to know that.  I think about you when I run.  I hate running so I try as hard as I can to picture being in your villages or at your schools. When I can picture being there I can enjoy the run a little bit (sometimes I hate running so much that it is hard for even you to help with that… but, it seems to help the most). I picture you when I teach my small class and when I see my cupboards of stuff.   I admire how you teach so many and that you choose to have big classes because you know the power of education.  I think about you when I get frustrated with children and people.  I picture the way I see some of you love and I want to be more like that.  I think of you when I get overwhelmed by serving and want to stop.  I think about your commitment to serve.  When the day goes too fast I think of you. At those times I think of how I am when I am with you how my pace is slower and my mind less stressed.  I like me like that.  I like being calm enough to see the beauty God has in that moment.....instead of worrying about the next.  I think about you when I buy things.  I think about how my living with less might allow someone to live with a little more.  Sometimes it is difficult to buy myself something new (I think this might drive my shopping partners a bit crazy but I can’t help it).  Sometimes I wish I could get over that part.  But really, I hope I never do. I want to stay changed.  I think about you when I am lonely or sad and I miss your company.  I talk about you to anyone who will listen.  I tell them how much I admire you and how much you mean to me.  Sometimes I talk about you so much that I fear it makes those around me feel a little bad.  I feel a bit sad for people who will never get to know you, never sit inside your home, and never hear your heartfelt worship and testimonies or be the recipient of your wonderful hospitality.  When I try to share - my words just can’t explain how it moves my heart.  It is hard to think about what my life would be like if I lived with you all the time.  I often wish I was brave enough to just do it but I am not.. at least not yet.   I wish that I trusted God the way you do. Many of you have given up much to pursue what you believe.   I wish I had faith like that. I admire you!  I think about you when I lay in bed since I know many of you who have never had a bed.  When I lie awake at night I pray for you.  I wonder what you are doing and if maybe God woke me up just to lay you on my heart because at that very moment you needed prayer.  You have changed me you are in me and I am better when I am with you. I just wanted you to know. 

Dear God

What scares me the most sometimes when I come back from India is the moment where my heart aches a little less or when my eyes stop tearing up every time I see a picture or re-play a moment.  I just want to stay in that place.  I want to lay in bed and pretend to walk in places again.  I still want the air to smell like a blend of tea, trash and spices.  I want to marvel at the contrast of the broken buildings,   and the beautiful people.  I want to stay in a spot where my heart becomes so overwhelmed with a joy that I can tangibly feel it move throughout my body.  I love this place - where the schedule and agenda are gone and I can quiet my plan enough to hear God’s and I become in tune enough with God that I learn to listen.  It’s beautiful.  In the loudest and busiest country my heart finds the greatest joy and I don’t want to become content with anything less than that.

Flying

Traveling Home

It took 52 hours from the time I left one home and arrived at the next.  If you add the time from the first missed flight till I got on one the next morning - it totaled 65 hours.  That is a really long time. (Usually it takes just under 24 hours.)  In D.C., (the last airport) the flight was first scheduled at 5:30, then 9:00, then moved up till 7:30 and then canceled. Later it was announced that it was back on again with a gate change (to a gate that never existed) and finally officially canceled.  We were told we would have to wait and fly out the next afternoon.  As we waited in line to be reassigned to a flight the man behind me, who was coming from Rome, spoke of his exhaustion. Poor guy had been flying for 15 hours.  My first layover alone was 14 so I was quick to point out how my travel time exceeded his. 

I would like to give a shout out to _____from Air India, who works in the Mumbai airport.  Thank you for your compassion.  I am sorry I was sobbing in your lobby and had to go to the bathroom twice before being able to collect myself enough to finally check my luggage.  I am not sure what caused it....I can usually  hold it together better than that.  But thanks, I love your country and was sad to go. Friends had been texting me all day, checking in, and your kindness felt like a final hug from them so thanks. I think, right then, your care was exactly what I needed.

Response

    I posted a picture on facebook (related to the previous post) which showed a village consisting of six families who were blessed by the generosity of a seven year old. At first I was upset by one of the responses.

  "Did you realize that one out of every four children in the United States are hungry? We need to help our kids."

   But you know what....she was right...after thinking about it for a few days I finally posted this response.

   "I always think about that. It messes with my heart to think about how much I have and how great the needs are in the U.S. and everywhere. Praying God teaches my heart ways to live more simply. In cultures that are so much "stuff" driven it is easy to forget how I live really could affect someone else in a positive way....if I am willing to do that."

  I hope you take her challenge....Do something..."No one ever became poor from giving."

 

A Feast

Dear Marc,


I am not sure if you will change the world…but for tonight, a community of people will go to bed with full stomachs, happy hearts, and giving thanks to God for the kindness of a seven year old.

Whenever I visited the ------- it seemed poverty was everywhere.  Families lived inside the broken remains of large pipes.  They made them into a dwelling by adding an additional cement slab brick room and maybe a little “patio” out front.  The living was simple and had been that way for years.  But this year, when I came back, all of the pipes had been destroyed.  Most of the families left but....for the few who remained, the conditions were much worse.  Now, they are living in homes made from cement and scrap metal.  There is no electricity and thus, there is no fan to move the air. The temperature in the rooms soar and it feels like an oven inside. Also, there is no water supply. The pipe company has closed but continues to promise future employment when they re-open.  Unfortunately, days have dragged to months, and those still waiting have no income.

Food, when they have it consists of rice and dahl.  They are hungry. So Marc, I know that you had hungry kids on your heart but I didn’t think you would mind if I made a slight change and included the adults. Tonight, they will have a feast.  Each family got 3kgs of rice, .5 kgs of chicken, and a small bag of vegetables thanks to you.  Additonally, they got a packet of milk, a few eggs, and some bananas.   I wish you could have seen their faces.  We told them all about you, your heart, your sprit, and your family.  They wanted to see your picture. I handed the oldest lady my camera and she kissed the image of you that she saw.  You may never meet them, but I know, that you and your family have a new prayer team that lives in a small village in a very poor section of India. We know that God hears the cries and prayers of the poor.  Marc, you have made a difference. 

Country Life

I have written about the clamor of city life but country life has a different clamor.  Days start early.  Hot water for a bath is heated over an outside fire (mine was graciously delivered in a steaming pot that was carried atop my neighbor's head each morning and right to my door).

While I was shocked the first day it happened....it was not uncommon for a herd of oxen to parade by on their way to the open grazing field, as I stood outside each day brushing my teeth (only feet from my bathroom, which was located outside the main part of the house and did not contain a sink).

By 8:00 am. I would walk a short distance to a teacher's house for breakfast.  The walk was short but as I took each step I carefully checked for snakes and made sure to step around mud puddles and oxen droppings. No matter how many successful walks I made I was always feeling nervous that a snake might be lurking somewhere (the number of snake killing stories did not help ease my fears).  Breakfast, lunch, and dinner was  served and prepared each day by the teacher's sister.  She was an excellent cook.  No meal was served twice.  Options were vada with corn....cilantro with coconut, and  tomato chutney for breakfast.  There was a delicious spiced carrot raisin dessert (I had no idea that shredded carrots could taste that good) and always a new curry to try for dinner.  Their  humble, straw roofed house was wonderful: two rooms in the main house and a washroom and kitchen out back.  The main room opened to a perfectly kept backyard which was a great spot for my morning tea. The walk to school was beautiful.  The sky always seemed to threaten rain; the clouds dark and heavy gave the sky a brilliant blue tint - providing a beautiful backdrop for the mounds of hay that towered above the houses' thatched roof tops.  Cattle grazed in people’s front yards and children in neatly laundered blue dresses waited to greet us. 

It was so much fun to spend a week living in the same village as the students.  It was great to meet their families and learn about their lives. I am so thankful for all the effort everyone put into accommodating me this week.  The teaching and time at the school could not have gone better.