Our time in India was full of color, culture, Jesus, and laughter.
Indians LOVE serving. To say we were well taken care of during our time there would be an understatement. I think I made the joke: “If my husband does treat me like this then I don’t want him” a few times. ANYWAYS…. Back to what I was saying.
You greet someone? They’ll ask you if you ate. You’re standing around, they’ll make you sit. No room on the mat? They will get up and sit on the ground. evrryones sitting on the floor? Theh will insist you sit in an empty chair. Hungry? They’ll feed you. Not hungry? They’ll feed you. Need to throw something away? They will take it before you even ask. I’m not kidding when I say that the hospitality, care, and effort they give to anyone and everyone who walks though their door is incredible.
So throughout the month we wanted to figure out a way to love our family well and serve them. We came up with the idea of serving them dinner. We knew it would be difficult to get them to agree because in their culture, the guests are served first and sometime they’d eat with us but often would wait until we were done for them to eat. Most of the time our host mom wouldn’t eat until literally everyone else has eaten.
But one night we FINALLY got them to let us serve them. We were SO excited. My teammates and I were in sarees so we were getting the full experience, diving right in. Awesome right? …. not so much. Trying to find the dishes was hard, washing dirty plates as we scrambled to find enough was chaotic. We were grabbing pots and pans without knowing where the spoons were to serve them. Water cups.. WHERE ARE THE WATER CUPS?! Haha everything was hiding from is it felt like. Mean while, Mom is looking at us in pain that she couldnt help. the Four of us serving were squeezing past each other to serve dinner to everyone. Trying to move in sarees was an undertaking, let alone trying to not get them dirty. We got to ask them if they want seconds and still give them more even when they said no (a common occurance at every meal). Eventually everyone got served, and everyones bellies were full.
Maybe it wasnt as graceful as we thought serving them would be. Maybe it was awkward. Okay yes it was awkward, but it was so beautiful to love them well just like they loved us throughout the month. Even though it was uncomfortable on both sides, we all found joy at the end of it. Those awkward moments are something I’ll look back on and laugh about… we even laughed with the family while it was happening. After the awkward and uncomfortable beginning, our family started to help walk us through how to serve a meal oroperly. We will probably never be as efficient or nearly as graceful as Mom is while serving ever meal, but experiencing life on their side of things opened doors that I don’t think we could have imagined. It helped me appreciate our family and their culture, and all that they did for us. Serving them, learning their language, and spending time with them showed our family that we genuinely wanted to learn anout them and their life.
So serving dinner to your host in India, awkward. But would I do it again, absolutely. Immersing yourself into a culture is ones of the most rewarding things you can do m, whether your just visiting, on the world race, or With another short term mission trip. The world is BEAUTIFL and so unique, and it’s beyond worth exoeriencing.
