Dear India,
Thank you….just THANK YOU! God’s Rainbow, my teacher of HOSPITALITY and HUMILITY…Always giving of your BEST. THANK YOU!
You forever have a piece and place of and in me. You claim 33,000,000 gods, but only one knows each one of your people by name…..with time that 1% claiming mine will grow. The ONE that loves you back and goes before and behind you, will win you over. I pray, “GROW!” No idol fashioned with material has the power found in one name, Jesus. They must bow… on, above, and under the Earth. Evidence of under, I saw everywhere. SHAME and HONOR two words we heard with each new day. My prayer for you. Call on one Father. Believe in Him as He believes in you. With your tongue confess and with your heart believe. He alone will heal your land. Life so different on your soil. Not wrong or weird, just different. Bucket showers and the ever famous Asian squatty…chances are, I’ll still throw toilet paper in my trash upon return. My daily breakfast a hard-boiled egg and a Dixie cup of coffee. Lunch delivered, a favorite chosen on our behalf. Dinner blessed, once again, blessed by your servants, those pouring into the children of whom I fell in love. Your people….breathtakingly beautiful. For your children’s eyes, I have no words. Your language, I love, the sound of worship on their lips glorifying to our God in Telugu. I sat in on a wedding, my team named a baby, and we felt the loss of a security guard we barely knew. We rode the waves of your ocean with strangers made brothers for 400 rupee, and walked the shores of your sea filled with crabs, beggars, and beauty. If there was a chair, it was ours, and when chapati ran out, your people, they’d choose rice. Parades of plastic chairs, treated like royalty….confused and humbled simultaneously. Challenged to do better and give of my best, when for me it’s the only reason to have….is to give. My body looked diseased, evidence of long nights ravaged by ants and mosquitoes, but not once did I fall ill when 3 teams told a different story. Reverence witnessed in Hindu temples, convicts us and put our reverence to shame. But it’s false and empty, so we press on, fail and fall at the foot of the cross. We prayed in your villages and taught your children how to pray for each other. Demons were cast out, and your people stopped us in the streets for prayer. They lined up, seeing Jesus, the Kingdom was nearer to them than they knew. So many hands, so many colors. Early morning chats and calls to prayer. I watched you wake up as I never seized to drip with sweat. Soaked my buff, slept two hours, soaked again, repeat. Sweeping storefronts, laborers hauling large bags, and sifters sifting soil. Cows, cows, and more cows. Everyone owns your streets and you communicate with each other desiring to share space. Each day another tuk tuk serenaded drive down your much loved unpaved and unmarked roads. Our wonder bench of memories made. Water balloon fights at dusk, the call for “Aka” never got old. Ramiyah Hotel, a luxurious escape, so strange to not cut my own food, being served to the max, left wondering if only Americans received such service. Sights, sounds, and scents. Punjabi, sari, chapati, and chicken-less chicken. Garlic naan, Oh, my garlic naan…I could write a song for you. Pearls to adorn, and more gold than I’ve ever seen in my life. The closest thing to a lemon shake up in a place that felt out of place in the midst of poverty…in search of anklets like the natives. The money in that place, broke me. Smiles and laughter, rules, and stares. Covered, so covered, His temple, His dwelling place, me, so covered. Rich and poor side by side they live, your women, always on, rarely found sitting still. Your trash, do you burn it all? It piled up for days and it broke my heart to play my part in the mess of it all. Your women and little girls, I always felt a heart breaking story in their presence, but in their presence I was honored to stand. The stories of your baby girls both haunt and move me. I pray, “Gendercide no more.” Each child a treasure, a gift from above. The flavors of ice cream a daily treat for my team and I, once discovered. Trouble really. A good problem to have, I guess. The corner store workers, how I miss them, the relationships built, handpicked by God. I never saw an accident while in your nation, but I will see 5 driving one exit in mine. It boggles me. But I learned so much, with my God as my teacher, no negative comments moved me as He. I stopped striving to figure you out, and sat at your feet as your eager student instead. A unique smell you have, one that makes you uniquely you. Others turn their noses as I travel and still find you, but me, I sit with a smile…visiting home in your scent. Cury a much loved and loathed dish. So many things that you do I will never understand, but of this I’m certain, you have forever marked my life for the better. I love you, your people, and your land. I pray, “Remember your people.” I can’t imagine beginning this journey in any other place. My prayer remains, “One God, clean water, every baby a chance at life, no shame, true honor….and that every child would know His name.” “As you wish” “Cool drinks?”and “Aka”…..a picture of real family and servanthood etched forever in my mind. Thankful, so thankful, for each man and woman pouring into His future warriors. Convinced and confident that God’s Rainbow will never leave my heart. Thank you…just THANK YOU! My jumbled mess of THANK YOU.
