Saturday, December 6, 2014

Our last month in India!

We've had a couple of cool experiences lately living in India.

My favorite experience so far happened a couple weeks ago week. We have been using the same auto rickshaw driver throughout our time in India. Although he speaks almost no English, we have become very good friends with him. He calls me his little brother. He gets out of the auto to pick up biryani for us when we are in a part of town less suitable for Sarah to be in so that she doesn't have to get out and be stared at. He informs us when we do something culturally inappropriate. He just takes good care of us. His name is Ali.


Ali and his wife have had multiple pregnancy difficulties over the years, and even lost a child a few months after she was born. About a month and a half ago, he told us his wife was 8 months pregnant. We told him all the time that we were praying to Isa al-Masi (Jesus) for his baby and wife. Finally, last week, he called and told us that his baby had been born, a baby girl! Two days after she was born, he was driving us around and asked us what baby names we liked. We replied by asking him what names he liked but he really just wanted to know what names we like. We had very limited knowledge of Indian Muslim girl names, so we told him we like names from the God's Word. He wanted to hear some names so we prayed about it, looked through our copies of the Word, and tried to pronounce to him names of women in the Word with a Hindi flare. When we told him the name Tabita ("Tabitha" who God through Peter raised from the dead in Acts 9) he stopped us and told us he really liked that name. I told him (in very rough Hindi) that Isa raised Tabita from the dead in God's Word. He loved it and decided that Tabita was going to be the name of his daughter. The next day he invited us over to his humble, one-room home where his wife had given birth to their beautiful baby girl just a few days earlier. We drank chai and told them how beautiful their baby is. He is grateful to God for his precious daughter. We are praying that he would recognize it was Isa al-Masi who has protected Tabita and will continue to make her healthy if he asks Him. 




We were very blessed this week to visit the Taj Mahal. It was extravagant. The main structure is about 240 feet tall. It was built between 1631-1653 by an emperor named Shah Jahan as a resting place for his late wife. It took 20,000 laborers and 900 elephants 22 years to build. The building is made completely of marble inlaid with thousands upon thousands of hand-cut precious and semi-precious stones creating beautiful designs in the marble. By all human standards, it is truly a glorious structure. Sarah and I couldn't help but imagine, if man in his limited ability and resources can create such a marvelous structure, the beauty and splendor of God's dwelling place that cannot be built with human hands (1 Kings 8:27). 






Sarah was finally able to experience the Indian overnight sleeper train returning from our Taj visit. Our train was scheduled to leave at 4:20pm, but ended up being about 6 hours late. As we waited, we had some interesting interactions with the people at the station. A teenager approached us (he was obviously under the influence of some sort of substance) and reached out to take my bag away from me. He had no idea what he was doing. I told him to go as he was making both of us very uncomfortable. Later I watched him reach into the bag he was carrying, grab a strip of cloth, and inhale whatever fumes the cloth was soaked in. He couldn't have been more than 16 years old. It was so sad to see him hopeless to the point of numbing himself with drugs at such a young age and with so much of life still to be lived. But its the reality of lostness in this place that this child does not know the truth of forgiveness and hope in a new life lived with God through faith in the Son. Even more heartbreaking is the thought that he might never here that truth because so few have that knowledge here, and even fewer are willing to share it with others.


We met a different man at the station who was also going to the city we live in. He worked in the public transportation sector of the city. He was extremely excited to hear that two Americans were living in his city and begged us to skip Bhopal and go with him straight to his home village about an hour outside our city to meet his family. A crowd of about 20 men, one by one, pressed in to listen to our conversation (which, very understandably, made Sarah quite uncomfortable) as our new acquaintance become more and more excited at the prospect of us coming to his place. We didn't go with him, but the interaction reminds us of how much we can learn from Indian hospitality. Hospitality here can almost feel overbearing considering how private our culture is and how little (at least us personally) we really open up our homes and lives to strangers and foreigners. Sarah and I hope to apply this command so clearly taught in Scripture much more intentionally when we return to the States in a couple of weeks. 


When the digital screen finally flashed that our train number was arriving, we were thrilled. An announcement was made that our train was coming, and though we were a little confused that our train name wasn't matching, the numbers matched and that was enough for us. We got on the train to find our beds empty, so we sat down. We began talking with the men across from us. One happened to be a police officer from our city. The train attendant came to check our ticket and asked me to follow him. He informed me we were on the wrong train and would need to get off at the next station, which was still 2 hours away. When I was unable to work out any way for us to remain on the train (since it was going to our city anyway) our policeman friend also tried to speak to the attendant for us, but was unsuccessful. So we got off the train at the next station at midnight and waited for our train to arrive. Thankfully, we only waited about 30 minutes before our train came. We shouldn't have simply relied on the electronic information at the first station; instead, we should have checked the number on the actual train. As chaotic and seemingly unreliable as the system here can be to us, everyone else seems to have it figured out. In many ways this culture is not wrong, just different. 


To end with, we have been spending a lot of time with our new Brother and Sister. They are our neighbors and our really great friends, some of the most generous people we know, and so hungry for the Word. God has totally blessed our short time with them.


We only have about a week and a half left in India. We are so sad to leave but feel totally blessed by the things we have seen God do here and the way he has aloud us to be apart of them. We are so undeserving but so grateful! The Lord has really been so good to us! And of course, we have many exciting things to look forward to as we return to America. Continue to pray for our transition! We are so excited to share many of our stories with you all in person!