it was on a bus to bangkok i realized i didn’t want to go back to india. if my plane decided to make a detour to the plains of kansas instead of to the smelly streets of delhi, i would have been okay with that. the two weeks i had been able to spend in thailand reminded me of what life was like outside of india and i forgot how much i liked it. i forgot the freedom my skin feels uncovered by layers of material and what life free of stares feels like. i remembered travel on highways and...
Read Moresome of my thoughts and ramblings from my two weeks in thailand as the rest remain between me, the pages, and the waves… …my jaw dropped as i stepped into the terminal. i had never seen this much steel and glass in india…er america…uh ever! is this real? does life like this outside of the third world really exist. i’m definitely not in india any more and i’ve forgotten what this life looks like. …so clean and fashionable, so modern and technological, so thin and small! i feel like an overweight giant in this thai world. if there is one...
Read Morejournaled 3 january i should be lifting off in my flight to bangkok and instead i’m sitting in a hotel room in delhi. seems there are fog problems and indian airlines aren’t exactly equipped to handle fog. all the other flights are going out…american, british airways, thai…but air india? grounded. the rumor is we’ll leave after lunch today, but somehow i doubt it. i’ve probably lucked out with traveling in this crazy country far too many times. i was due for some kind of delay. last night, my sleep was restless. we arrived at the hotel at 2am and i think my...
Read Morein a pluralistic world, a religion is valued based on the benefits it brings to its non-adherents. [111] to call the ch.n ch. ‘holy’ is to say something about its purpose, not its behavior at any given moment. the word ch. means those called out. holy means devoted to a sacred purpose. thus, the ch. is a community of people called out from the profane rush and secular hassle of life to be devoted to a sacred purpose. [222] what if we were to redefine protestant as pro-testifying, pro meaning ‘for’ and testify meaning ‘telling our story’? what if protestants switched their...
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if i seem to show too little respect for your opinions or thought, be assured i have equal doubts about my own, and i don’t mind if you think i’m wrong. i’m sure i am wrong about many things, although i’m not sure exactly which things i’m wrong about. i’m even sure i’m wrong about what i think i’m right about in at least some cases. so whenever you think i’m wrong, you could be right. if, in the process of determining that i’m wrong, you are stimulated to think more deeply and broadly, i hope i will have somehow...
Read Moreobviously, there are many things different about the everyday of india compared to the everyday of rest of the world…clothing, food, language…and eunuchs. yes eunuchs. perhaps you remember them being mentioned in the OT and maybe even recall hearing of them in history class. but their existence in the modern world of today? who would imagine? once again, the answer to such questions…only in india. a little background for you… eunuchs - castrated males - have been in existence since the 9th century b.c. the word is derived from the greek “keeper of the bed” because castrated men were in popular demand...
Read Moreif you would have told me this time last year that i’d begin 2007 in india, i might not have believed you. if you would have told me i’d be leaving shortly after for two weeks in thailand, i probably would have laughed at you. and as for next year? i’m not going to even try to predict. the past 12 months have been quite a whirlwind that i’m in the midst of processing… trying to look back on all that’s happened and where He’s lead, the words i’ve heard and the people He’s used. i don’t think we, in general, take enough time to reflect....
Read Morelet’s see. how do i begin to explain to you what my Christmas in india looked like? warm? yes. some 60 degrees so. entertaining? ha! you tell me if you could keep a straight face while trying to pull a present off of a 18′ ceiling with a bamboo shoot. my favorite part? i don’t like to answer favorite questions. busy? understatement. joyful? unlike anything i’ve ever known. fulfilling? you better believe it. beautiful? so much it brought tears to my eyes. i began the day with my ritual morning walk. usually it’s difficult to pull myself out from under the covers…more on that later. but not this morning. it was Christmas morning. though i...
Read Morefor most of us in the west, we celebrate christmas with a lower case ‘c’ . the music is all around us and we have no choice but replay the familiar carols in our heads. the stores are full of gifts and unbelievable sales and giving quickly becomes not a matter of if, butwhat. the colorful wrapping paper and carefully tied bows seem to increase our meaning and thoughtfulness. our trees are filled with tinsel and lights decorate our house. there are few spaces left untouched by the twinkle of lights. we don’t have to choose to celebrate christmas, it chooses...
Read Morethis has been one of those ’speak little do much’ kind of weeks. though work was officiallyover for the semester the 15th, i’ve been pleasantly busy with odds and ends filling my days. chai time with friends and cookie dates with a three year old. my eyebrows, though painfully, are now neatly threaded and i suffered a tragic loss involving half a dozen bananas and an arrogant monkey. [and you thought it was just on tv!] i’ve enjoyed early morning walks and late morning showers, extended time to myself and more moments processing a generous orthodoxy. and despite a not so minor burn on my foot...
Read More[finally…the last entry from my whirlwind three weeks of travel] india itself is a paradox of the very wealthy and the very poor…nothing here seems middle class. to every city, there are two sides and most of my time has been spent within the slums or at least on the falling apart side. i had expected to see the same in kolkata as eric, joel and i traveled by our shoelaces, so to speak. however, we were all pleasantly surprised. as traveling has become one of my favorite hobbies, i have learned the best way to see a place is through...
Read Morechristmas is going to look a bit different this year. 14 days away and i have yet to hear a single rendition of santa claus is coming to town. there are no lights hanging from the eaves of the roof nor sales tempting me in the store windows. it’s kind of nice. i’m not much of a decorator and become only mildly overwhelmed at gift buying. but the christmas tree? that i cannot do without. for as long as i can remember, it has been an integral part of my celebration. [pause] i interrupt this regularly scheduled post to ask you to please...
Read MoreIndian Passage | Mussoorie, India On my way into the village's market, I always pass this door. It belonged to the same man who carved wood on his porch and next to the children who always played under the colorful lines of laundry. I never learned where it went or what the chalked markings were left on its surface. But I imagine it leads to something mysteriously India, or a moment unique only to this place, or to people who would welcome me as family if only I would step through its door.
some events become famous for good reasons you never want to forget. others become infamous for bad reasons that you wish you could forget but you know you never will. my train ride from varanasi to kolkata was one of those infamous kind of events. it began, as a normal, sleeper class train ride… ahhh.. wait. let me first explain what this should entail so you understand why this one deviated so far from the norm. just like the caste’s of indian culture, the train is divided into multiple classes. it begins with first a/c which i must state for the record,...
Read Morevaranasi, home of shiva, the most sacred shores of the ganges, and ideal place for a Hindu to expire. that’s right, i said expire. that’s what they call it here. only one day spent there? yes and that was more than enough for me. this is not the india i have begun to love. people everywhere…buy this, come here, follow me, hey baby. argh. these people are not here to help, they are here to cheat, to make a deal, to get what they want for me. you may have fooled me a couple months ago, but not now. go ahead,...
Read Morewe’re surrounded by people in life for more reasons than i can name…companionship, collaboration, friendship, sympathy…etc… sharpening. yeah. sharpening. you know, the kind of thing that makes you stronger, that refines you, that grows you more into the person you are to be. i don’t really like the sharpening reason so much. i always like the end result, i like what i become. but it’s the process of getting there, the exposure of weaknesses and the vulnerability of being wrong, the process of changing that i could do without. hmm. let me explain. in your own bubble, a world all your own,...
Read Moregert and his wife johanna have always had a heart for children. they sponsored a couple of their own for many years and even came to india to visit them. but their sponsoring organization would not let them become involved as they wanted to be. samson and lalitha also have a special place in their hearts for little ones. they began and ran the school & orphanage for 25 years. but the board was being too restrictive, they cared little for the daily needs of the children. somehow, the paths of the two couples crossed and C.H.I.L.D. was formed. 36 sponsors...
Read MoreWashington, D.C. October 3, 1863 This is the proclamation which set the precedent for America’s national day of Thanksgiving. During his administration, President Lincoln issued many orders like this. The holiday we know today as Thanksgiving was recommended to Lincoln by Sarah Josepha Hale, a prominent magazine editor. Her letters to Lincoln urged him to have the “day of our annual Thanksgiving made a National and fixed Union Festival.” The document below sets apart the last Thursday of November “as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise.” According to an April 1, 1864 letter from John Nicolay, one of President Lincoln’s secretaries, this document was...
Read Morejournaled 8 november, 2006 i wonder what she’s thinking and i want to hear her story. she’s one of the older girls of the orphanage, 13 she tells me, and in the 8th class. every meal she helps serve us and our water glasses never stay empty for long. with her long braids hang behind her, her dark eyes always observing and i want to know her story. we were done working for the day and unwinding before bed. i heard the children singing on the other side of the wall and couldn’t resist sneaking over to watch. i pulled up a...
Read Morejournaled 5 november, 2006 can every day really be filled with such full life? with such purpose? we awoke early to the beginning day noises on the other side of the wall. we are being housed on the second floor of the children’s home, our seven in one half and their 36 in the other. i could hear them getting ready, clothing themselves in sunday’s best. all their possessions held in one single trunk, they folded up their mats and placed them inside. carefully, they helped each other stack them up in the back room, allowing the service to take place...
Read Morejournaled 4 november, 2006 someday, when my hair has turned a silvery gray and my knees don’t bend like they used to… when i spend my tuesday nights playing bridge and i can’t remember the last time i stayed up past nine o’clock… when i repeat phrases like ‘kids these days’ and talk about what life was like before the internet… even then i’ll remember this day. it started out as quite the day of travel. we were seven, our bags were twenty-one. living in india, i hadn’t realized how much i had learned to do without. i brought my three changes...
Read Moreindia has trouble caring for the living, but it perhaps reveals more of itself in how it cares for the dead. laws can be made and unmade with a stroke of a fountain pen, but attitudes must be crafted with time and unflagging will. in india the greatest barrier to class integration may well be the attitude of the untouchables themselves. the poorest and the least educated members of society, harijans, are often the most conservative as well. at election time they may vote to shake the tree in hopes of dislodging choicer fruit, but most would never consider chopping the...
Read MoreRight about now, Jill should now be hard at work finishing up her second project trip… this one in guntur, about midpoint on India’s eastern coast, only further inland. By American standards, not far at all from her former adventures in Machilipatnam; by Indian standards, not even close. After nearly a week of travel, she first met up with her incoming US team in Chennai, then on to the site of what will by g-d’s grace become a children’s home. Tucked in along the way was an invigorating side excursion to acquaint them with an existing children’s home. Meeting its...
Read Morefrom childhood onwards, an indian is exposed to more combinations of flavors and seasonings than perhaps anyone else in the world. their cuisine is based on variety, which, in flavors, encompasses hot-and-sour, hot-and-nutty, sweet-and-hot, bitter-and-hot, bitter-and-sour, and sweet-and-salty; in seasonings, it stretches from the freshness and sweetness of highly aromatic curry leaves to the dark pungency of the resin, asafetida, whose earthly aroma tends to startle westerners just as much as the smell of a strong, ripe cheese does indians. their spice shelves often contain more than thirty seasonings. the indian genius lies not only in squeezing several flavors out of...
Read Moreas i’ve been here these past few months, i’ve especially enjoyed extra time to read. most of the books i’ve read have been set in india or written by an indian author. in their vivid use of words and articulate sentence structures, they seem to describe this place far better than i ever could. in my absence, i hope to share a few of their descriptions for which i myself could never find the adequate words. india is everything human. it is all of our history: it is the past, it is the future. if it has been thought, experienced, or...
Read Morefor the next three weeks, i will most definitely be ‘out of the office.’ another project trip to the south of india calls. a 48 hr. train ride will take me there. gretchen, joel, and i will be spending a couple of days in chennai meeting up with the rest of our team of architects and engineers from the states. together, we will travel [yes, another train] to the city of guntur where we will spend the next week working on johanna’s children’s home [read more here]. after another train back to the hill station city we call home here in...
Read Moreheidi woke me up at 2am. ‘do you hear that thudding?’ she asked. i slowly came out of my disorientation. we hadn’t seen a living thing in literally two days…she must be hearing things. [insert ‘thud’ sound] hmm…maybe she’s right. my eyes cleared and i sat up only to brush my head across the wet, caved in tent. we peeked through the door…snow! a winter wonderland outside of our nylon abode. the ground was covered, our shoes hidden under a blanket of white. sheets of the white stuff had been falling off the roof our tent and making a ‘thud’ as...
Read Moreon this, my first backpacking trip, i quickly learned two lessons. one] natives aren’t trail experts two] ‘it’s kind of a path’ is a dangerous phrase about 5:30pm we realized we couldn’t go any further. a seemingly impenetrable rock ledge above our heads, a most defined steep cliff but a step away and darkness just around the corner left us with little choice. where did we go wrong? when did we miss the more traveled path? we didn’t have time to retrace our steps in our minds; night was upon us and our torches were now required. thankfully, just 20min before we had...
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