January 30, 2013

It’s been one week.  It’s surreal to think that I was only here for one week last time.  It has flown by.

Wednesday morning came early, as I knew it would.  I had a sentimental moment when I put on the music that I had put into a playlist thinking that it would be great to play it for the mornings in India.  (You really should not be surprised that I did this.)  It was spot on.  I threw on a hoodie and jeans . . . it’s cold here in the mornings . . . and walked down to the courtyard.  I got one of the white flowers from off the trees, stuck it behind my ear and walked with the girls to breakfast.  We kicked off our flip flops (or slippers, as they call them) going into the dining hall and I got in line.

Ok, so my brain must have been really jetlagged, because I temporarily forgot: CHAI.  Oh, Sweet Jesus, the chai.  You really just don’t understand the amazingness that is the chai.  And it was every bit as good as I remembered.  I think there was some rice and maybe some bread or something too, but all this pales in comparison.  I sat in the dining hall, sipping my chai and about burst into tears.  The orange sunlight filtered through the misty palm trees as the girls and aunties talked and laughed around me.

This is exactly what I had been missing so badly for so long.

The boys came in shortly after, asking me if I was still jetlagged.  The answer was yes, but I didn’t care.  Later, I walked onto the boy’s compound for their free time and was met by a hyper little man, bouncing around like he may or may not have had 16 cups of chai that morning.  He was shouting Hindi like a machine gun, carrying a big red stick  . . . and a huge yellow snake that was as long as he was tall over his shoulders.  He was showing off the dead snake.  They boys explained: This was the general handyman/problem solver dude, and he had killed the snake on the girls’ unit.  It appeared that he had bludgeoned the snake over the head with either that red stick or a large rock.  While initially I was interested, it occurred to me that I was not, in fact, in a zoo.  This snake had been where I live, and there were probably more.  Wow, welcome to India.

This hyper little man then started speaking in my general direction, and it took me a second to realize that he was, in fact, speaking English and also speaking to me.  He speaks English in much the same way that he speaks Hindi: in rapid short bursts.  He doesn’t slow down for nothing.  He had to repeat himself a few times until I caught up but then I got it: “See?  Big snake!  By your house!”  Gee, thank you for the clarification.  I so needed that particular piece of information so I can be jumping every time I hear leaves crinkle near me.  Thank you  . . . for that.

I met with the staff about my schedule and what I would be doing.  They told me that we would be able to finalize my schedule for sure on Monday, because all of Ashagram was making preparations for Saturday.  It was Republic Day, or the Indian version of Independence Day.  Also, a professional baseball player was coming to visit Ashagram with his two daughters, and a news company was coming with a camera crew to do a story on it.  This guy had launched a major fundraising campaign for BTC, climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro to raise money.  We would spend the next several days preparing for the celebrations.  I was just fine not having a schedule for a few days.

After that, I got to open the 65-pound “bag of tricks.” 600 glowsticks, 24 backpacks from Brooke, envelopes and pictures from Trisha, stuff from Marla, Carole and the 400 bracelets Sami made.  They all just sort of stared at the bag and the sheer amount of stuff that kept coming out of it.  “I bring a lot of love from the states!” I said.  “Yeah, yeah you did,” they responded.  We made plans to distribute everything, including how to throw the techno rave with the glowsticks.

After meeting with the staff, some of them took us shopping in one of the towns nearby.  I say ‘town’ because it somehow managed to look like a town but it probably has over a million people in it.  I got myself some super-awesome Indian clothes at Big Bazaar (essentially, Indian Wal-Mart).  I bought a bunch of cotton pants that resemble MC Hammer parachute pants . . . only they’re not gold lame’ (because that would be lame.  As was this joke.  Humor me, people here don’t get my jokes.  I’m starved for laughter that doesn’t involve when I drop my scarf in the toilet.) 

We joined in the whirlwind efforts to get the entire compound ready for Saturday, which included the biggest weeding operation with the thorniest plants I have ever seen.  We are in the jungle, after all.

On Friday afternoon, I walked over to the Vocational center, where the girls make clothing and jewelry.  I found a whole bunch of girls (and Balaji and Santosh) making jewelry for a massive order (we’re talking thousands of necklaces here) for a company in the US.  I sat down and tried to make a necklace . . . and while I possess the skill, I do not possess the speed or meticulousness that these guys have.  It’s crazy.  If the necklace is a millimeter out of symmetry, they take the beads off and restring different ones until it is exact.  I eventually completed one, but I’m fairly certain that Balaji went back and restrung some beads when I wasn’t looking.

While I was sitting there, the 'principal' for the girls' side came over to me and asked me to lead a ten-minute devotion for the girls that night . . . in about 2 hours.  I told her no problem.  Then she asked me to share on Sunday.  I was like, “Wait, in chapel?  Like, in front of everyone?!”

That is exactly what she meant.  This was Friday evening.  The next day was completely taken up with Republic day celebrations with pretty much all of BTC being bussed in, and with a camera crew on the compound. 

So, I needed a relevant and helpful 20 minute message for ages 5 to adults that could be translated into Hindi on the spot, without an open day to prepare.  Oh, and did I mention that I’m terrified of preaching?  I may be able to write up a storm, but my preaching skills are quite lacking.

She didn’t realize it, but she was asking me to face down a lot.  And she was asking me to do it fast.

I tried not to panic because I know I can’t even think straight when I’m panicked, and I needed to hear from God, dang it!  I walked with Balaji over to the music room, rummaging through my notes and Bible for something . . . anything . . . that would help.  I sat outside the room while Balaji went inside with the other guys to rehearse for Republic Day.  After a few minutes of me shuffling through ideas, Sunil stuck his head out the door and said, ‘Erin, what is wrong? Do you have pain?”  I didn’t hear him.  Balaji came right up behind me and said, “ERIN!  Sunil is talking to you.”  Sunil cracked up and repeated his question.  When I told him what the problem was, he started laughing. “Oh no!” he said, “Go pray.”  I decided to take his advice.

At 5 the next morning, God woke me up.  He was giving me exactly what I needed to say: relevant, timely, challenging . . . and as an added bonus, I was preaching to myself.  He was asking me to speak on Gideon, on how to find the will of God and how God will provide what we need when we need it if we wait on him.  Trouble was, I couldn’t remember exactly where the story was in the Bible.  It was at this point that I discovered that the Bible I brought does not have an index.  God told me it was in Judges 6.  Turns out God was right.  Funny how that works.  I scribbled down enough notes to start the writing creativity percolating with the light from the bathroom bulb.

A few hours later, I was digging through my bag to find orange, white and green clothing to be all patriotic for Indian Republic Day.  One of the girls pointed out that I didn’t need to wear orange because I already had it on my head.  Hahaha.  I wore it anyway.

All the girls walked into the boys’ courtyard and found lines and dots for us to stand on . . . and laughed at ourselves when we couldn’t get ourselves into the lines right anyway.  Our guests and the camera crew walked in just ahead of the color guard.  It was at this point that I became acutely aware of my hair color, glowing even brighter orange in the early morning sun, entirely surrounded by black hair, standing taller than everyone else . . . and on camera, no less.  I’m certain I will not be hard to spot in that particular shot.  I probably should have been standing somewhere else, not with the kids.

A little while later, the kids taught the professional baseball player to play cricket.  This was pretty hilarious to watch.  You apparently don’t swing a cricket bat like a baseball bat.  The kids were all rooting for Uncle, who was pitching.  Uncle runs this place, and it’s pretty amazing . . . he’s like a father to them all, and they all love him.  We played volleyball and other games while our guests went on a tour of the entire compound.

The next morning, I was up early putting together the last little bits of the message.  I pretty much wrote it out word for word so it would be easier to keep track of where I was, and to make it easier for the person who would be translating.  Word choice is important, and you can’t always wing it with a translator.  I got my green sari halfway on, but then decided to enlist the help of the girls downstairs.  They pinned it on my shoulder and put my hair in a braid that was sort of like a headband.  My hair had never been done that way, and it was pretty cool.  I turned to go out of the room with a feeling of finality . . . God had given me what to say, and now I was as ready as I was going to be.

I got there early and stood off to the side to get my head on straight.  I wasn’t nervous.  God was holding me in and helping me hold it all together.  After the worship, I got up there with Nasreen, serving as translator, and just got to it. 

I started with an overview on the back-story: the Israelites had been freed from Egypt and Joshua had led them through the Promised Land.  When Joshua died, a new generation came in and took their place, but they forgot the Lord and everything he had done.  Because of this, God allowed them to be conquered by the surrounding nations. 

Enter Gideon.

I then told the story of Gideon’s call, how he took down the altars to false gods, and the fleece.  This was especially timely for the young men (that are all my friends from last time) as they seek God on the plans for their life.  I then went through how God told Gideon to go listen in on the enemy’s camp (7:13-14, it’s pretty hilarious) and how he got encouragement from that.  I pointed out that God will give us what we need, when we need it, even if we are not fully aware that we need it.  I then went through the strangest battle plans that have ever, and how God won the battle for them.

This is where things got interesting.  I’m standing up on the pulpit and I’m suddenly acutely aware that I’m speaking to myself.  I was saying, “When you ask God for guidance, you must believe that He wants to give it to you” and “God gave Gideon everything that he needed, right when he needed it.  Gideon may not have even known that he needed it, but God knew and gave it to him.  We must believe that God is everything the Bible says he is, that he is good and that he wants good things for us.  God will only give us just the next step.  The next action.  He won’t let us turn the page or fast-forward our lives.  But you have to do that next step, and God honors obedience.”

I then played the song ‘Give Me Faith’: Give me faith/to trust what you say/that you’re good and your love is great/I’m broken inside/ I give you my life.  I may be weak/your spirit’s strong in me.  My flesh may fail/my God you never will.

Yeah . . . preaching to myself.

Apparently though, it did have an effect.  Several of the guys came up to me and said that they appreciated what I said and that it meant something to them.  They also made a point to say that they don’t just say that to everyone.  All I could say was that it was God, because I didn’t come up with a single word of it myself.  I was just glad to be the messenger.

Also this week, I gave out the backpacks that Brooke sent with me.  The leaders of the small boys’ house had a blast handing those out.  I got to tell the story of how I found the huge box on my front porch and how much of an adventure it was just getting all the stuff in the bag.  Then, Akram hauled them out of their hiding place and into the room.  The boys flipped.  We snapped pictures of all of the boys receiving them individually, and then got a bunch of group photos of the boys holding the backpacks out, showing them off.  I’ve seen these boys carry the backpacks to and from school since then, and it’s super cute.

I’m settling into a pattern here, but the amount of food I’m eating seems to be a point of contention.  When I first got here, I took the amount of food I was served because I didn’t want to offend them.  But it would become really obvious to me after a few bites that I would never be able to finish as much food as they were serving me.  I threw some food out one night and the aunties literally glared at me.  I learned to serve myself after that.  But that brought on a new problem . . . they got offended because I wasn’t taking a lot of food.  I eventually learned to tell them that I was taking less so I would not waste food, so they seemed less annoyed at me.  I’ll take ‘less annoyed’ over ‘glaring’.  I’m really honestly not eating much at all here.  I’m not even eating a lot of the trail mix and goldfish I brought.  I’m just not hungry.  I don’t know what the deal is.

I’ve learned almost the exact pattern of when the electricity works.  The regularity of when the power goes out really is comical, and you can plan on it.  I don’t know if somebody’s got their devious little finger on the ‘power button’ or what, but there’s a schedule.  The girls know it too.  Sometimes, the power will randomly go out at night though, and they start yelling something about bugs and spiders and snakes.  The power usually comes back on after about 30 seconds anyway, which is usually just long enough for me to put my hand on my flashlight.

Also . . . that hyper chai-chugging man with the rapid-fire Hindi keeps turning up on the girls’ unit.  Apparently, he’s somewhat of a handyman/snake killing superhero.  Whenever something breaks, you call him.  If something is big, ugly, scary and/or needs to go away pronto, you call him and he’ll swoop in with his big red stick.  Our toilet is pretty much perpetually having issues, and one day it stopped flushing even when I dumped a bucket of water into it. I messed with it in every way I could think of all day long, but that night I finally got fed up with not being able to use my own dang toilet.  Exasperated, I marched out our door and yelled for him from our second-story porch, not having any clue if he was around or not.  I was lucky: he emerged from tinkering with the water system or something behind the building across the way yelling, “Erin Sister, you have problem?”  I got him and some of the girls in the hall outside up into our room and pointed out the problem.  He glanced at the toilet, grabbed the biggest bucket and dumped the whole thing in the bowl.  I anticipated the dang thing overflowing everywhere . . . but apparently this guy got the same handyman gene my dad has: his mere presence causes everything to miraculously come to working order.  “Ok, no problem” he announced, with an inevitable head bobble as I rolled my eyes.  It wasn’t like I hadn’t done the exact same thing 10 times that day or anything.

Next week, I start my teaching schedule.  I’m not really sure what that will entail, but I can probably handle it, whatever it may be.  At least, I think so . . . we’ll see what they throw at me.