So the story you are about to read doesn’t have much purpose other than to let you in on the chaos that is my life sometimes on this trip and maybe even make you laugh a bit. I have been in India for about 2 weeks now and am currently working on a blog that will explain more about what my squad is doing and how the Lord is working, but in the meantime here’s a little story, which pretty much exemplifies life on the race.
Clothes. In the US, if I don’t like a piece of my clothing anymore, tear it, or don’t fit into it, it usually finds its way to goodwill or a garbage can. That is NOT the case on the race You rip your clothes? – Sew it up. You don’t fit in your clothes anymore? – get a belt or a drawstring so that your pants will stay up. You don’t like your clothes? – too bad my friend… that’s what you’re stuck with. My point is, each piece of clothing I have on this trip holds a very important place in my backpack, and new clothes are pretty much unheard of.
I only brought one pair of black jeans on this trip. The other pants I have are cloth, baggy, “Aladdin” type pants that I picked up in Indonesia and have had to sew them a few times. My black jeans are definitely my favorite pair of pants and every time I wear them I feel pretty fancy. The reason I’m telling you all of this is so that you might truly understand how much these pants mean to me, which sounds stupid, but when you only have a few pieces of clothing to choose from, your favorites become significantly special.
My squad and I spent the first week of India out in rural villages where it was a rare commodity to feel genuinely clean and therefore,when we moved into the city I decided I was going to buy another pair of jeans. Crazy. I know. I ended up going to a Levi’s store (actually pretty common in India) and picked out the most amazing pair of jeans I have ever had. I’m not sure if it’s just because it was something new to wear, or if they are actually that great but this pair of jeans fit awesome, felt awesome, and were basically my best investment on this trip so far.
Side note: I actually went back to the hostel we were staying at that night and showed the jeans to several of the girls who all wanted to try them on, and we found that they magically fit everyone who tried them! (All different sized people) Literally, they were a “Sisterhood of the Travelling pants” pair of jeans and provided some fun entertainment for us girls that evening.
Ok. So the pants were great, and my black jeans were dirty so I wore the new ones for a few days. Since being in India, we have been hand washing our clothes, and yesterday I decided to wash all of my clothes because I knew we were going to go on a 24 hr train ride today to I don’t know where, and I wasn’t sure when the next time was that I would be able to wash my clothes, so yesterday I did a bucket of shirts, then a bucket of underwear, and when I came to do the bucket of pants the water decided to turn off. Dang. So I didn’t wash my pants.
This morning I woke up around 7:30am, realized we weren’t leaving for the train station till 11, and decided I had time to wash my pants, hang them to dry on the roof, and pack them up. (It’s so hot here it takes about 45min for a pair of jeans to dry in the sun). I also told myself that there was no possible way I would forget them, so I decided to wash them. I then proceeded to go about my morning, eat breakfast, go to a meeting, pack up, say goodbye to the hostel owners (who had become our friends), walk out, get in the tuk-tuk, make my way to the train station, get settled at the train station, and wait for the train, which was leaving at 12:45.
Well, noon comes around when it hits me that MY TWO FAVORITE PAIRS OF PANTS ARE LITERALLY HANGING ON THE ROOF OF A HOSTEL IN THE MIDDLE OF SOUTHERN INDIA WHILE IM 45 MINUTES AWAY FROM GETTING ON A TRAIN THAT IS TAKING ME 24 HOURS NORTH.
Now, the reality of the situation was that yes, I could just buy more pants. But here was my reality – the black jeans were from home, my favorite pair of jeans, and I miss home. The new jeans cost me a pretty penny and were magic Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants jeans! And I only got to wear them 3 times. I wanted them back.
Here’s where the story starts to get good. My teammates and I then proceed to decide whether or not I had enough time to get back to the hostel, get the jeans, and get back to the train station before the train left. That idea was shot down pretty quick because I probably wouldn’t have made it and the next train out that wasn’t completely booked up was in July… so here’s what happened.
We wanted to call the hostel owner who had become our friend but our phones don’t work here so we ended up approaching a random stranger who luckily spoke a bit of English and let us use his phone. One of the girls on my team called because she was closest to the hostel owner and is really good at communicating well with people who don’t necessarily speak English very well (shout out to Kailey). So Kailey calls the number listed on the website and it is COMPLETELY the wrong number, and so she was trying to figure out from the man who picked up what the right number was.
At this point, I’m watching the clock tick, seeing our train pull in, and feeling pretty defeated at the thought of being so stupid that I forgot my two favorite pairs of pants on a random roof in India. It was then Kailey told me she got the right number, and was on the phone with the hostel owner who was willing to tuck-tuk the jeans to me. I guess I felt a bit relieved at that point that he was going to try, but it was 12:20. He had 25 minutes.
While Kailey is on the phone trying to tell the owner where at the station we were located, another teammate of mine, Anna, comes up to me and says a quick prayer asking God if it would be ok that I got my pants back in time. Not going to lie… I was doing the same thing. If I’ve learned anything on this trip, it’s that the Lord cares, even about the smallest things like forgotten pants.
Anyways, Kailey says he’s on his way and we start boarding the train. After putting everything on the train, I find out that the hostel owner is at the platform somewhere with my pants so I sprint off the train while Kailey waits at the door to make sure that they don’t leave without me because I only had about 5 minutes. Basically, I start running down this platform and quickly realize that the chances of me finding him were 1 in a million. For those of you who don’t know, India is one of the most populated countries in the world, the train stations are pretty packed, and the platforms are huge, therefore it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. After searching for a minute or two and not finding him I decided to just accept the fact that the pants were gone and I needed to make my way back to the train before it started moving.
As I’m hurrying back, Anna is standing in the doorway waiting for me and frowning because she realized I didn’t have the pants. I’m almost there, when I see her face light up and point behind me. I turn to see one of the hostel owners jogging down the platform waving a couples pairs of pants wrapped neatly in some newspaper.
Y’all. I cannot tell you how happy I was.
After thanking him about 1000 times I jumped on the train and we were off.
So there’s my story. Let’s just say it isn’t a proper World Race travel day unless something unplanned happens. In the end, I have two points I learned from this story:
1. This story is a perfect example of Indian culture. I have found that this is a dog eat dog world, and yet the people of India seek unity and work together with each other through simple acts of kindness and love. I have been completely in awe of the hospitality my team and I have been shown since arriving here, and everyone I have spoken to has had a genuine heart to help and serve each other.
2. God cares about the small things. He cares about the simplest of needs and desires. He enjoys it when we bring Him into the seemingly unimportant areas of our lives because He wants to be a part of it all. And yes, sometimes that means He even cares about a couple pairs of forgotten pants.
