After feeling dry for months and months (and I knew it too, I couldn't shake it), I suddenly stumbled into this massive oasis, not having any idea what I was getting myself into. Before my feet hit dirt here, the healing spirit of this place crashed over me and filled all the desert places in me. It has not stopped. I used to speak of this season in my life as being a desert. I don't know if this place will single-handedly bring about a change in the season of my life, but I'm certainly sensing a change on a deep level. I'm healing in ways I'm sure I'm not fully aware of.
The last place I grew a lot was Crystal Peaks in Oregon a few years ago. It was beautiful, difficult, and felt like hot purifying fire. Ashagram is beautiful, healing, and feels like the soaking rain that falls from the Indian sky.
I'm sitting on my bed in my room, surrounded by my mosquito net. I hear the rain falling on the jungle outside and the girls calling each other in the courtyard. I am the most blessed person in the world right now. I am doing something I'm passionate about. I'm doing something I'm good at. I can DO something here, because God has equipped me and continues to equip me as I go with whatever I need. I'm like a human toolbox. Whenever the kids need something, I can rummage around inside my 'toolbox of useless skills' I have accumulated over the years. The things I thought I would never use, like ballroom dancing lessons and that ill-fated aerobics course in college, surprisingly have uses here.
Lord, I want to find a way to serve you like this for the long term. This might mean missions somewhere, or it might mean going right back where I came from and giving everyone back home what I now have. I have no idea. But I want to take up the word that was given to me that I will bear fruit until the day I die. I want nothing more than to serve you and go where you want me to go. Even if it's nowhere.
I did get my daily "out of my comfort zone" experience. Trisha once again found one of those dwindling areas where I still have things I don't want to do or revisit. She found my musical tough spot.
Melvin has started teaching the guys in music classes, and the girls wanted to be taught too. He needed another leader to be in there with him when he taught his class for the girls (as per the general common-sense rules of youth ministry). In the DC airport before we actually left, he showed me a goofy little app he has on his phone where you touch the screen in a pattern and it plays a song. I picked Fur Elise and Turkish March and joked that I could play the songs again now. He asked if I played and I told him that I used to, but I don't anymore.
In truth, I took years of piano lessons. I can still read music. I remember chords, scales and music theory. I stopped taking lessons because I burned completely out. I felt like an utter failure with my piano stuff, and I quit with a vengeance. I was (and still kind of am) really hard on myself because I really wanted to be good. I just wasn't as good as I wanted to be. I actually told my parents that they wasted their money because I was so bad it it and I didn't want to keep trying. It is one of the few things I have ever given up on in my life, and is a really sore subject.
And Trisha poked it with a big stick.
She asked me to teach the girls how to play piano. I was like, "Really?" I tried to dance my way out of it. I tried denial. I tried to tell her I had nothing to teach. Melvin nailed me with my comment from the airport. I told him, "Just because I could then doesn't mean I can now! I haven't gone near a piano in over 10 years!"
They made me do it.
I tried not to have a bad attitude about it, but I was terrified. This was years of crap they were asking me to face down in the next 15 minutes. I walked over to the room with Melvin and was simply praying that God would give me something I could teach them. I had no sheet music, chord charts, workbooks . . . nothing. I couldn't teach them where to place their fingers for the few songs I can still remember how to play.
I started with middle C and showed them a few major chords as Melvin taught the other girls the chords on the guitar. I tried to show them where they would go on the staff. I showed how the chords can be found from major scales, and how to find the major scales in the first place. I taught 3 chords and their scales, and prayed that they would get it. After sweating bullets for 45 minutes, we left for lunch. I felt like there was no way I was going to be able to do that again tomorrow . . . but I also knew I had to.
After lunch, we went to the tailor to get our saris finished. I brought the four I had just bought and the one I had bought in London a few years ago. I was so excited, I actually did a happy dance. The team laughed at me and told me that I wouldn't wear them nearly as much as I thought I would. I told them to wait and see. I got to pick how I wanted the tops to be made, and I was measured for them. We'll pick them up later this week, and I just know that I'll put one on the second I get it.
Also today, we went Jubilee 4. This would be one of those more difficult trips. I had heard that half the kids in this one were HIV positive. What I didn't know was that most were under 12 years old. These were little kids!
Predictably, when we arrived, there was mass chaos. The kids pulled out every toy and book they had and sat us on the floor to read to them. They weren't interested in the words. They were interested in sitting on us and just being near us.
We played a few little games and sang a few songs. Then we gave them a bunch of little yo-yo balloons we had made. These were balloons with a little water in them on the end of a rubber band. The kids thought this was the best thing in the world. They ran around and hit each other with them, squealing and screaming. It was great to watch. It was also sad to see that there was one girl who was very sick. She couldn't walk, and sat on the side at a little table. Casey, being the observant and tender-hearted person she is, saw her and sat with her. We gave them a lot of love and left feeling tired, but like we did something that they really enjoyed.
When we returned for dinner, Kartik asked me to hold out my arm. He tied a green and white friendship bracelet on my wrist. I can make these, so I knew just how labor intensive this was. It takes hours. It was here that he mentioned that he didn't make it, but he had actually asked Santosh to make it for him. With a sheepish smile, he explained that he didn't have that much spare time (being the leader for the smaller boys), but wanted me to have one. I was overjoyed that he thought of me and wanted to give me one.
It was another great blessing on a very full day. I prayed that the days would feel long and that I would squeeze every drop out of them I could possibly get.
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