So, before coming to India, I thought I knew what my favorite part was going to be. I knew I liked the food. For all of college, you could have easily found me at any of the Indian food restaurants in Oxford. I’m a huge fan of the food here for sure! Now, don’t get me wrong, Rama makes some awesome Curry, but the food is not my favorite part. The people are. Everyone here is so friendly and wants so much to be your friend.
Earlier this month, the girls got traditional Indian dresses made for church. The tailor lives and works right across the street from Asha. Since, she’s been saying hello to us everytime was passed. This week, she invited us over to her house to teach us how to make Chi, the tea we drink all the time here. We ended up staying over at her house and hanging out, playing with her kids and looking at her wedding photos.
Everyday was pass the same little old man who sit outside of his house on a cot on our street. He’s constantly super cheery and always says hello. This past week, Rachel had an encounter with the monkeys here. They’re super nasty, don’t let Aladdin fool you! You can read about it on her blog. When she screamed, that little old man came to her rescue, throwing dirt and yelling at the monkeys.
Last week, we went into the city to celebrate Cody’s birthday. After our first rickshaw driver dropped us off at the completely wrong spot (they do that here), we got picked up by Sanjeep, the most awesome rickshaw driver. He drove us all over the city, waited for us while we ate, shopped or stopped at the travel agency. When we got lost, we gave him a call and he came looking for us. He even bought Cody a cake! We got to share with him what we were doing in India and we learned so much about his life during our day with him.
While traveling, there are so many opportunities where we get to interact with so many different kinds of people. So many times it’s easier to just smile and be nice, but so much more comes from really being friendly. It’s so easy to be missionaries at our designated place and then tourists everywhere else, but so much more rewarding to treat life as one big mission field. Everyone deserves the love of God, not just the little kids we were assigned to love on. And we get so much more out of it, we get that love back when we do.
