During our team devotion time, we picked a few songs that our team would sing for the service tomorrow. One of the ones we picked was Your Love Never Fails. Befitting, I think. Also, a couple of the girls came up to give our team henna tattoos. Henna goes on like puffy paint. Quite a bit of it actually sits on your skin for a while before you peel it off. It leaves behind ink that stains your skin, but you have to let it dry on you for hours. When it's dry, you can peel off the top layer and it will leave the design. Mine was done by Nazarene. She's been one of our translators for the week we've been here, and I've really enjoyed being around her and getting to know her.
She did the most amazing henna on my arm and hand. It's like she kept my personality in mind while she was doing it. There are flowers and leaves all over it with little bits of paisley mixed in. The detail is amazing. I hope it sticks around for a long time. It's a visual reminder of the mark the love of these kids and the love of God has left on me while I've been here.
After lunch, I ended up with Inder again. We sat out on the front porch of his dorm with his guitar and sang more worship songs. I pulled out songs out of his binder that he didn't even know and helped him learn them. Balaji showed up after a few minutes and the three of us sat out on the front porch, watching the rain fall and praising God.
The singing was interrupted when I realized that I had just left my camera out in the rain. I did have the presence of mind to wrap it in my poncho before setting it down, knowing that it was going to rain sometime. I ran over and grabbed it and it was still dry, thankfully. When I rejoined the guys, I noticed that Balaji was had gone back into his dorm. He came back out with a plastic bag and a little paper bag with handles. He took my camera, wrapped it in the plastic and stuck it in the little bag. I gave him a hug and told him that I always feel very taken care of when I'm around him.
After an hour of sitting with these guys, I realized that the henna on my arm was ready to come off. I began peeling it off, but it was hurting some because the hair on my arms had dried into it. Balaji noticed my predicament. He stuck his hands out in the rain for a few seconds and then sat down next to me with water in his palms. He sprinkled the water on my arm and very gently began taking off the extra henna off of the entire intricate pattern. He had to make several trips back to get more water in his hands. It would have been easier to have me walk the 3 feet to the edge of the porch and stick my arm in the rain, but he didn't want me to get up. I thought he would give up after a while, but he was perfectly content to sit next to me and gently pull all the henna off of my arm. I was amazed. This was was truly serving someone. I was really touched by his simple act done with a great amount of love.
That afternoon, the girls from Jubilee 1 and 2 came to Ashagram. We had planned quite a bit for this. We put together a few games, chosen shirts individually to give to each girl and put together care packages. Melvin had been in the kitchen most of the day making the dinner meal for both the Jubilee girls and the whole of Ashagram. This was quite an undertaking.
For the first game we played, we gave each team a bunch of long balloons you would use to make animals and a pump. The girls had to create a costume for one of the members of their team using inflated balloons. This was hilarious. At the end of it, we had 4 girls standing in front of us that were absolutely covered in balloons. One team had created a skirt, another a ridiculous hat, and another was so covered we couldn't tell what was going on with her outfit.
We then had a 'wheelbarrow relay", where one girl would hold up one girl's ankles while the other walked on her hands to the other side of the room like a wheelbarrow. This was really funny to watch. We had girls "running", giggling and squealing all the way to the other side.
We then had a relay where the girls had to pass eggs down the line using only spoons. I, being an experienced youth leader, was afraid of this one. We were playing on a marble floor. I was afraid that the eggs would explode, and there would be screaming. Egg doesn't clean up as well as you may think it does. It gets everywhere, and it lingers. We got really lucky though, and the girls were super careful. They didn't drop one! I was impressed. My own youth group kids would not have been able to pull that off (no offense guys, but really. If I put all of you in a line and did this, there would be egg everywhere. You know it.)
We then gave the girls a few pieces of chalk and told them to make murals on the floor. This was not one I came up with either. In my experience of youth ministry, when you make a game that makes a mess, you get to clean said mess. I saw them creating all of these amazing and beautiful designs, taking up half the dining room floor with their murals and thought, "Dear God. I know how this is going to end. It's going to end with me with a mop. I just know it." I prayed that I would just get over it and have a good time taking pictures of them, which I did. I laughed with them as they created ever-expanding murals of creativity.
We then sat the girls down and announced the winners, giving them crowns. The other teams got things like bubbles, candy and plastic jewelry. We put all the tables and chairs back in their places and the girls sat down. We called each girl by name and gave her the shirts we had bought for each of them individually earlier in the week along with the care packages.
The entire team then went back into the kitchen to serve the food that Melvin had been preparing. This guy had somehow managed to make Chinese food for at least 300 people. There were huge amounts of rice on trays everywhere. There was a massive vat of soup cooking on the stove. I don't know where they were hiding the chicken when I went back there, but he had also made enough chicken to feed that many people and he had made teriyaki sauce for it from scratch. I was hugely impressed. We were assigned serving stations and got ready to serve everyone their meals. We started with the soup because it was ready first. It was interesting trying to serve soup into metal bowls without burning myself or the girls we were serving, but we eventually came up with little metal plates to stick them on so nobody would get hurt. We then served the rice and the chicken to the Jubilee girls. As soon as they went through, the Ashagram girls and guys came through. I had a lot of fun serving everyone. They were thankful and told us that no other team had served them a meal like that.
After all the kids had gone through the line, we sat down at our usual table and they brought us Melvin's creations. They were really good! As usual, half the boys in the dining hall were packed around our table and my camera vanished. I simply sat and enjoyed their company.
Alok kept playfully glaring at me from across the table. I tried to make him feel awkward and said, "I know you think I'm pretty Alok, but you don't have to stare." This did nothing to deter him in the slightest. Inder was at the end of the table, talking to Casey. For most of this week, we had been teasing Casey that she was going to end up marrying Inder. Watching the two of them talk that night made it really seem like a wonderful possibility. They were off in their own little world, surrounded by a dozen people.
At some point, I actually realized that my camera was gone. I put my hand on the table where I had put it last and accidentally swiped the handle of Melvin's spoon, still in his soup. I managed to catapult half of his soup on the table and all over me. In this moment, I found my camera. Santosh had it, and he was taking a perfectly brilliant picture of me with soup in my lap.
I could only laugh. Sunil appeared behind me and handed me a box of tissues.
When I got up from the table, I picked up the scarf I had placed next to my plate and found that I also had gotten soup all over it as well. I was bummed. This scarf was one I had bought in the Indian market in London (I had been coming home from a mission trip to Zambia, and I was shopping for the sari I mentioned in an earlier post). It was a really pretty shade of dark blue. I wasn't sure how I was going to get it clean. I was looking it over and surveying the damage. I glanced up and saw Sunil watching this happen from across the room. He walked over to me and asked for my scarf. I didn't know what he was going to do exactly, but I gave it to him, knowing it was in good hands. I tracked down Santosh to see what kind of pictures he had gotten. He had gone into the kitchen to take pictures of the guys that worked there and had awesome shots of the kids acting goofy. There were also a dozen pictures of me sitting at the dinner table with the guys that I hadn't realized he had taken. These were really awesome pictures! I told him he could steal my camera anytime.
Sunil returned with my scarf around his shoulders. He had taken it into the kitchen and washed it for me. I was beginning to wonder how this guy was so good at catching when I needed something. I realized it was because he was paying really close attention. I could definitely learn something from this guy. I may not be able to respond like that for everybody, but I could certainly pay more attention to the needs of others.
He was now standing in front of me with my scarf on his shoulders, looking up at something on the ceiling. I cracked up and snapped a picture. He looked like he was modeling my scarf.
He caught on and held out his arms to wear my scarf like wings. Another hilarious picture.
He then pulled the scarf on top of his head, held out the edges away from his face and grinned right at me.
He about knocked me out. I surprised myself with my own reaction. I was not expecting that one, and I almost forgot to take the stinking picture, but I would be really glad that I did. (This is how I remember my dear friend: laughing and smiling, acting like a complete goof and loving every second of it.)
He then pulled out a chair for me at the nearest table and sat across from me. As I was sitting, one of the smaller boys came over and jumped on me. Sunil smiled, but looked slightly bewildered. I gave the boy a hug and sent him on his way. I suggested to Sunil that we go and sit on the outer ledge of the dining hall where it was quieter and I could actually focus on what he was saying. We walked back and sat down. Somewhere along the way, Sunil had picked up my camera. I noticed that he was better at keeping track of my stuff than I was.
A few moments after I sat down, a set of hands covered my eyes. I put my hands around the mystery person's wrists and found one bracelet on his left arm. From that, I was able to figure that this was Kartik, and I called him out on it. Sunil snapped this amazing picture:
After Kartik left, Sunil started telling me his story again. Not only was he being beat up on the streets, but he also got addicted to drugs at 12 years old. I could not believe what I was hearing. He told me about how he wandered around in a drug-induced haze, just trying to get more drugs. He eventually ran into one of Bombay Teen Challenge's feeding ministries, and that eventually brought him to Ashagram. He stayed for a while, but didn't really buy it. He didn't have a personal relationship with God. He eventually returned to Mumbai and fell back into drugs. He eventually reached a point of desperation and prayed, "God, if you're real, show yourself to me." God did. Sunil told me that he was down by the train tracks and almost fell into an oncoming train, but God pulled him back and saved his life. Then, he was almost hit by a car stepping off a curb, but God saved his life a second time. He prayed for a second chance, and ended up back at Ashagram. He pursued God for the first time and turned his life around. He learned English, started going to school and learned how to play the guitar. He then told me all about how he ended up joining the worship band and eventually became the worship leader.
I wanted to grab him and hug him. I wanted to praise Jesus that this amazing young man was alive and sitting in front of me. My wonderful friend, with his amazing gentle spirit of great strength unlike anything I had ever seen, had been rescued from the hell I saw in Mumbai.
I tried to tell him all of this, but I had to stop. I ran out of words, and shortly thereafter, the ability to speak at all. Instead of trying to fill the silence, he picked up my hand. I looked up at him and saw the divine healing that God had given to him written all over his face.
In that moment, I knew that a huge chunk of my heart was going to end up staying at Ashagram.
He continued to tell me stories from his life and childhood. He eventually told me that while he said he was 21 at Ashagram, he found his birth certificate when he was reunited with his family and found that he was actually 22.
At one point, Inder pulled up a chair. He gave Sunil a strange look and I realized that he was still holding my hand. I didn't really care, but I made a mental note that this was a little out of the ordinary for their culture and probably would make the other guys a little uncomfortable. Inder started singing the chorus from Oh How He Loves. I picked it up and sang along softly with him. He asked, "You know this song?" I said, "It's one of my favorites!" and started singing the first verse.
For a while, they were both singing with me. I eventually noticed that Sunil wasn't singing, but I was off and running, worshiping with the song. By the time I got to the chorus again, Inder had stopped singing too. I wasn't about to stop, so I just kept going right into the second verse. I hadn't initially been aware that I had an audience beyond the two guys, but I looked over Inder's shoulder and noticed that Balaji had picked up his guitar and was playing along with me. By the time I got to the end of the second verse, I didn't care about what was going on around me. I was just singing to God. I was aware that other people were singing with me, but I didn't know that it was everybody else who was still in the dining hall. The melody everyone was singing was strong enough for me to pull out some harmonies, so I sang some higher parts. When we finished the song, I looked at the two young men I was sitting with. They both gave me tender and loving smiles. Sunil looked a little surprised, but this was nothing new for Inder. I felt so blessed to be sitting in the same room and singing with such amazing guys, and I was especially glad that I could bless these guys with something I could do as well.
I have started to relearn how to worship because of these guys.
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