Let me tell you about India

It's intense. I can't think of a better single word. Frenetic came to mind, but it's not aggressive enough. Chaotic certainly caught my attention, but that would be letting my understanding (or lack thereof) cloud the picture. There are rules and patterns and whatnot, I just didn't get them, or not for a while, and even when I began to they were still intense.

A picture: Tom, Steve, and I walking through the city of Jaipur (google it) at sunrise carrying everything we own in backpacks. We've just passed a group of rickshaw drivers, and each, having heard our rejections of his peers, asked us if we wanted a ride. We didn't. Steve has a stomach issue that makes him gag if his heart rate rises. He begins gagging, spitting bile by the side of the road - no one even looks. On the other side a grown man squats, moving his bowels with complete nonchalance. Looking down at my sandals I walk around a puddle of foul smelling liquid. One never knows.

India, I said at the end of a long day, just keeps coming. Each interaction is almost vicious in its tenacity. The shopkeeper wants your money, the rickshaw guy wants you in his cart, the man on the scooter wants you out of the way. And they all want it now. And they are everywhere. As soon as you finish with one, or before you finish, another demands your attention - all of it. Horns honking, always honking and swerving and cutting off. But no one minds. Bright saris flow down the street, wrapping women in color and letting old midsections sag in the thick air. A camel passes, pulling a cart.

A woman carrying a child taps your arm incessantly asking for money. But how can you give it to her when you didn't have any for the lepers yesterday? She looks healthy enough. She keeps tapping, you keep saying no. She taps. She's walking with you, tapping you as a shopkeeper yells at you. 'Hello! Hello!' they both are saying, the shopkeeper and the tapping woman. 'Hello! Yes! Hello!' The shopkeeper fades but the woman keeps tapping. A rickshaw pulls up alongside. 'Hello! Yes! Hello!' He points to his cart, motioning you in. She's still tapping. Another shopkeeper, 'Hello! Yes!' You want to duck into a Starbucks, or home, or the Embassy. You see none of the above. Tapping. 'Hello!' Pointing. 'Yes, hello!'

You're walking fast now. The woman can't keep up. You are running into Indians on the sidewalk. They aren't moving like Americans, the flow is different. 'Hello, my friend!' says the shopkeeper, the archetypical one that you keep seeing in peripheral. Another rickshaw.

In India you get very good at saying no. Just flat out, no sugar to coat it, blunt, unabashed no. Go ahead, ask me for something.

No.

No problem. No hard feelings. No.

Nepal Dispatch 2

THE PRIEST AND HIS BRIDE

There was a narrow trail leading down from the yard into some rice patties. She said it would take us past some houses and eventually back to the main dirt road that wound up her mountain. I wondered if she appreciated her view. Bright yellow corn lay drying on the ground in front of her house; vibrant purple and orange cloth hung on a line, undulating hypnotically. Only a few feet further the land dropped away into steep terraced hillside, leaving her and her family an open vista over the fertile valley below and her sister mountain miles away. The richest green you can imagine.

We said our Nepali thankyous and goodbyes and started down the trail, which dropped sharply, only navigable by various rocks implanted in the hillside like slick, chaotic stairs. My translator had been raised on such trails and seemed to float down the mountain. I was not so graceful.

The next house we came to was small and composed of the bright red clay of the local earth. Coming around to the front we found an old man nursing a dying cigarette under a tin overhang. He sat crosslegged on a straw mat looking out over the valley. His eyes held a deep resignation.

We sat down with him and he began to speak in rough Nepali, occasionally interrupted by his own violent coughing. He talked for a long time. He and his wife were both ill and had no sons to care for them – and they were getting too weak to do the heavy work of planting and harvesting. I only heard snippets that my translator relayed, but the story was heartbreaking. He was a Hindu priest, but his teaching held no hope even for himself. I explained to him the hope found in Christ and he said he wanted that hope, he prayed for it. But he couldn't leave his myriad gods. They are all he's known, and they are his only livelihood. I pray that the local Church will look after him. His wife came out and showed us her decaying teeth. They were loose and painful. But she sat on the little porch watching her husband admiringly, as a woman who has been loved well for many years. The priest's wife made tea with fresh milk (she led the cow out of the house shortly before she served the tea). I drank it quickly. We were supposed to meet the rest of the team down in the valley in ten minutes and it had taken us an hour and a half to walk up. As we took our leave of those lovely people the priest invited us back. I don't know if I will ever see him again, but I hope that my brothers and sisters will.

LIKE GOATS TO THE SLAUGHTER

Doshain, a festival devoted to appeasing a blood thirsty god, is the greatest celebration on the Hindu calendar. A time of family and drinking, gambling and swinging on traditional swings. And animal sacrifice.

We found ourselves in an ancient city square shadowed by an ancient palace and its sister temple. This is where Doshain finds its heart. Nepalis flocked to this center, many in more traditional or nicer clothing than is common. We happened upon a large, colorful, many-armed statue of the god Shiva (the destroyer), lit by candles and a large torch, surrounded by worshippers. It was an item merely of curiosity for our group until one looked down. On the paved ground beneath the statue was a pool of blood and entrails. The worshippers walked through it.

Suddenly it was all real.

Only moments later, as we walked away, four smiling men led a herd of goats directly past us. They would add to pool. A moment. Then a chain of several buffalo being led to a similar fate.

This more visceral understanding of animal sacrifice painted a crimson shade over Old Testament Judaism, but at least then it was done with repentance and an understanding of loss. Here it was with celebration. Bring the whole family out to see.

Nepal Dispatch 1

I sit here a little behind my eyes, forcing myself to act and react. Jet-lagged and just finished with my first day of evangelism in Kathmandu - my first day of evangelism ever. Door to door on the far side of the world.

I don't even like door to door evangelists.

But that's beside the point today, as I am beside myself wondering who this is that carries my body through the day. He is me, a new version, soon to be released. I am beta testing myself.

I got locked on the roof this morning after watching the sun rise over the Kathmandu valley. I might still be there but for Mala happening into the hotel. He unlocked the door and told me about his work for Campus Crusade in Nepal. He was friendly, and he speaks English tolerably well if you're patient.

But despite his best efforts he didn't end up as my translator. Tilak did.

Tilak is 31, looks 25, is married to a woman that God gave to him in a vision and has one son. If you ask his profession he says 'evangelist.'

We bussed to the suburb where we would be working, talking about these things. There came that moment - after the kamikaze bus ride and the Nepali prayer and the compulsory unloading and reloading of the bus - when the gate of the church swung open and we were commissioned upon the world. No more formula or theory or abstraction, just people talking to people about those things that most concern people.

They're Hindu, these proud Nepali people, and though they call it dead tradition they will cling to it in favor of Living Water. But we talked happily, learning of each other, me sitting in their world, in front oftheir tiny storefronts and repair shops, smelling the smells of their existence.

Over forty people repeated the salvation prayers of our group yesterday. I can't comprehend the ways in which their lives must change if they continue on this new, narrow path. Christ changing their hearts, families whispering, perhaps yelling, hundreds of gods falling out of their exalted places. The best things are often the hardest.

The Nepali pastors and translators that we work with sing joyful songs on our bus rides and echo each other's 'halleluiah's and 'praise God's with vigor. They are radiant. They give me great hope.

No Place Like Home for the Holidays

It was a trip, or a series of them, these last two months. But I'm back now in the states, for better or worse, and so I will have a little time now and then to post something for the world (all four of you) to see.

Over the next couple of days I'll be posting some of the emails that I wrote from Nepal and India, and then, if the muse awakens in me, some thoughts on my experiences on the far side of the world. I hope you enjoy.