We’ve been in India just under 2 weeks, and I’ve experienced more of the culture in this short time than I ever did in my 2 months in Africa. Each day we eat meals prepared for us by local women, and when you see their kitchen it’s hard to believe they don’t use magic to cook. The kitchen is a large room with one gas stove and a small fridge. Mary and Barathi squat on the floor and peel and chop vegetables for us all day, slowly adding them to a large pot of boiling water. While Veggies and rice are cooking, they make us chai or coffee, which they serve to us wherever we are in the house. They have the biggest smiles when they pour us hot liquid into tiny tin cups. In Telugu, there is no word for ‘thank you,’ which makes it difficult to show our gratitude. Being raised in America, we all say thank you, to which they reply with ‘thank you’ and a typical Indian head bobble. I wish I could convey my gratitude with words, but instead I give them a smile so big it hurts, and sip my coffee even though I’m sweating buckets.
Hospitality is incredible here. People are more friendly and ready to serve you than any other culture I’ve been to. I’ve met some very nice people in Africa, even a woman who helped my friends and I call a taxi and find an ATM when we were lost without a phone in Joburg, but nothing compares to India. Almost every week night we visit village churches and worship and share testimonies with anyone who makes it to church on time. After the service the pastor’s family always makes us a large meal and we feast like royalty. Thursday night was our first village visit, and in a church decorated for Christmas, the congregation made a long table covered with a shiny silver table cloth and set out chairs for each one of us. They gave us Sprite and fruit before the service, then more soda before dinner. The meal comes out in courses, first chapatti and chicken (which we though was the whole meal, and we were very content with that!), then rice and many curries, and finally more fruit. As you finish anything on your plate, a very eager Indian will come up with a steaming pot and offer you much more than you bargained for. My team has learned the word for ‘a little bit,’ but so far when we use it people laugh, then serve us 2 healing scoops, so we laugh too, and pass all the leftovers to the boys’ plates when no one is looking. I have been placed on a co-ed team for such a time as this.
Through this hospitality and generosity, I have seen God’s heart. People who have no idea who Jesus is, are serving more like him than most Christians I know. In my free time I am reading the book The Invisible Hand by R.C. Sproul, and in this book Sproul talks about when God asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac in Genesis 22. The theme of the book is God’s provision, and the author uses this story to illustrate how God ultimately provided a sacrifice for Abraham, but Abraham first had to trust God. Then he related this Old Testament story to the New Testament story of Jesus dying on the cross, saying:
“God took His Son, the One whom He loved, Jesus, and placed Him on an altar on that mountain. And this time nobody hollered ‘Stop!’”
Let that sink in for a minute (or a few days). God always has a plan of provision, and in the case of Jesus, there was no other way for him to provide us with atonement. When I see people pouring out their hearts for us, giving up chairs, food, money, and time, I see God and his heart for provision. We were created in his image, to be more like him everyday, and I can see his character in people who don’t know who he is (yet). What an amazing place India is.
