Just Different

And BAM! It hit me like a piano falling from 3 stories up.

That’s kinda how I felt yesterday morning as I walked down the road to catch an auto. After about 28 hours of travel, possibly 3 hours of sleep, loads of half-watched plane movies, and mediocre airline cuisine, I arrived at my friend’s house in the big city. And just as I have realized over the past year or so that i've been here, everything is just different from home.

After some much-needed but “I’m-so-exhausted-all-I-want-to-do-is-eat-something-tastey-then-pass-out” catch up time, I finally fell asleep. After a mere 5 hours of sleep I awoke again to catch D&V before they left the city. Busy people folks! Then lunch at Papa John’s, a very lost auto ride, afternoon coffee and walk, and then tuna mac&cheese (with tomatoes YUM!) I had finally made it through my first day back.

But that’s just the game summary. Many things have hit me since I’ve been back. Here’s a short list:
   1. Morning “let’s-see-how-many-times-we-can-hawk-a-loogie” sounds for an entire hour.
  2. The attack on my senses of sights, sounds, smells, and tastes. Talk about overwhelming!
  3. The dust and a feeling like I have ginormous boogies at all times (gross…I know!).
  4. Being the only white person and smiling at the young girls heading to classes as I walked down the road.
  5. Auto driver miscommunications.
  6. Nescafe instant coffee. Great but icky in the same.
  7. I didn’t see a single cow for the whole first day!
  8. Dodging traffic. (Seriously it’s exactly like Frogger).
  9. Being overwhelmed yet excited with all of the things we have to do this week and over the next couple of months.
 10. The genuineness and importance with Indians on spending time in relationship (the landlord stopped by for like 2 hours just for a little chat.
  11. Falling back into the habits of bobbling my head, not making eye contact with men, leaving my shoes at the door, and perfecting my Indian English accent.
 12. This is. Where I. Belong. (No matter if I want to fight with God on it or not).

A cool thing happened on the flight from Paris. I sat next to a well-educated (she had a nursing degree) girl around my age who was returning home from a year working as a nanny/house helper in Europe. We talked about so many things: living outside of India, the daunting task of arranged marriages and love, her boyfriend (of lower caste though well educated that she would never be permitted to marry), her ring that was a picture of a god, and finally who Jesus was.

She asked me to pray to Jesus for her, to pray that she would be able to marry a good man, but first return to Europe to work. I told her I would. I then asked her if she knew about Jesus. She said, “yes,” but didn’t really know him.

And then she proceeded to make a fist with her right hand and held her left hand palm-side-up, acting as if hammering her left hand with her right. She said, “it was such a bad thing. Soo sad.” I looked at her questioningly and thought how I would explain to her what it meant in terms she would understand.

“Do you know how when you go to the temple, sometimes people bring fruit, or coconuts, or at sometimes they kill a goat?” I began.

“Oh you know (about Hinduism).” She replied with a big smile on her face as if I had just said something profound.

“Only a little yes, I know,” I laughed. “But like that when you give something to your god to ask him to bless you, to forgive you from something bad you have done, or to gain his favor, this is like what Jesus did. But he did it only once for everyone so that we don’t have to make this payment for the bad things we have done. It is he has covered us so that we are perfect in God’s eyes. We can now go to God directly. He loves us soooo much he would do that for us.”

“Oooolala,” She replied using her Genevan phrasing. “But it was so bad.”

“Yes, but could you imagine someone who would die for you?” I asked her.

“Oh no. I don’t know,” she shook her head.

“Well that is what Jesus did for me and you and everyone.”

“Ooolala,” she smiled.

After that we talked about so many more things, but I pray that this small encounter would lead her heart to want to know more about this Jesus whom she asked of me to pray to on her behalf.

As I began to part ways with her at the airport, her mother came up to me and said, “Thank you so much for taking care of my daughter.”  I just laughed and said that I had really enjoyed it and liked her daughter a lot.

The thing is, you never know when you might get a chance to share with someone around the world what Jesus actually means to you. It’s quite exciting.