Hello again from South Asia.
Sorry for the delay updating our blog. As you may remember from our last blog, we spent several days in Delhi at an orientation and working with other Company students, so we did not have internet for much of that time.
Orientation
Since we are partnered up with the Company program, we were asked to complete their 10 day orientation in Delhi. This was a great time of encouragement and fellowship for us, since we had been in our city for almost 3 weeks by this point. As for how we spent our time in Delhi, most of it was a way to allow the others in the program to get adjusted to how life in South Asia is lived on a daily basis. For most of the students, this was their first trip overseas, and so there was a lot of info regarding how to get an auto, how to get simple everyday things at the market, how to learn language barefoot, and so on. It was interesting to see how the other students reacted to some of the situations that came their way. After we had been there three full days we moved from a very nice company owned guest house into a simple Indian style guest house. While at the company owned guest house it was very nice. The beds were soft, we had internet and a TV. But at the other guest house we had none of these things. When Sheena was showing the girls around and showing them the bathroom, one of the girls nearly started to cry at the site of the bathroom. Now to Sheena and I, this bathroom came as no surprise because it was very similar to our flat (just a typical Asian style bathroom), but it was very different from what many of the students were expecting. Also during orientation, Sheena and I were able to meet up with the SBU team that had been traveling in India. This was a great blessing for us for it allowed us to meet some very good friends and hear the experiences that they had had on their trip and what our Father is doing. We were also blessed to be able to meet with many of the company people who were a great help to getting us connected in our city, and who helped guide us in some of the different ways in which we can share the Story. Over all, we were very glad that we got to go to Delhi for this orientation, if for nothing else that we were able to eat pizza and McDonalds. There is definitely no McDonalds where we live – or anything close, however an interesting fact – in India, McDonalds does not serve beef, it is all chicken products, and French fries are made with sunflower oil. (Btw: for delivery, their phone number is 66-000-666 or if you're calling from a cell phone, it is 011-66-000-666.)
Home Stay
After we arrived back in our city, life became very busy again for the first few days as we worked with our national partner and some of the company people in arranging our home stay. This is a very hard task because we not only had to find our people group but make sure that they would speak the market language that we are learning so we would be able to practice. Here, people speak the market language in the city (in all kinds of dialects) and their heart language at home (of which there are countless different heart languages, so to learn the heart language is a goal eventually, but the market language is of immediate importance.) In the end our national partner found the right family for us to stay with. The family consists of a mother who owns two shops, a restaurant and a movie/phone center, and her two teenage children who live with her, a son and daughter. It has been a wonderful experience and they are really great helpers with language.
The restaurant is one small room with 4 tables that are like picnic tables. You could probably fit 24 people at most in the room. Then, through a curtain, across the hallway, and through another curtain, there is a small room. This room is a bedroom, the shop, the dining room, and the kitchen (all in one). There is barely enough room to move sometimes, and friends may also come into this room to eat. Sometimes they sit on the bed to eat. The cash register is the mother’s purse. You cannot use debit cards or checks here in our town.
Last night while we were sitting in the back room of the restaurant (where we spend most of our time with the family) a lama (Tibetian monk) came in and sat down. Since he was friends with the family he was allowed to eat in this back room where all the food is cooked. While he was eating, he realized that we were practicing our language with the mother and daughter and decided that he would help. So after he had finished eating, he began to point to different things and ask what they were. Since our language is limited, he used much drama to emphasize his points. When we got something wrong he would close his eyes and hang his head and proceed to correct us, but when we did get something right he would get so excited. This continued and the questions would become harder and harder but it was some of the best language practice that we have had up to this point. Another event that happened last night while we were sitting in the back room talking about their culture with the daughter we started talking about caste and she asked what caste we were. This lead us to be able to share the Story with her and she seemed very open to hearing about the Father but sadly she is so very trapped in her religion without really knowing why she does this.
We also practice our language daily with a little girl who is about six years old. She is an orphan who lives in the same building. While we were practicing our language, she grabbed a chopstick and ran off with it. She knows she is not supposed to play with the chopsticks, so when she was in an ornery mood. When a lama they are close friends with walked by, she yelled out, “Lama is dog.” The word dog here is very derogatory name to call a person. So she should have been slapped by any other lama in this culture. But this lama acted with some kindness and forcefully picked her up and set her outside of the shop while she was screaming the entire time.
All forms of Transportation
On a more humorous note, Sheena and I have decided to use all forms of public transportation to get to and from our language class in order to save money and thoroughly experience culture. This includes, but is not limited to, bartering with taxis, standing on busses (these busses are like normal transportation busses in the US except all the seats are overfilled with people stacked upon each other), and without even standing room only). Another type is a microbus, which is like a minivan with US seating for 8, but here it seats 18-20 with two guys hanging out the side to collect the money (usually these guys range in age from 7-25, because children can move in and out of these small places more easily). Finally, there is the tempo, which is the smallest, and cheapest form of transportation (this is cheap for a reason). These are battery powered and do not run on gas. However, the battery must be recharged every night by plugging it in. Since we are currently in a power crisis where we only have power for 8 hours a day (for 16 hours every day our power is turned off to conserve electricity), the tempos are having problems recharging, so these are more difficult to come by lately. A tempo has 2 seats open next to the driver, and then 2 benches as seats in something like the back of a small pickup with the shell on the top. Here nationals can fit 10-12 people inside, and sometimes two hanging out the back.
Today, after we got off the microbus, the money collector, who was about 18 ran out of change to give to the passenger. When the bus stopped, he jumped out of the microbus and ran down the street to a beggar sitting alongside the road. He proceeded to “make change” upon the random assortment of coins that the beggar had collected. Then he ran back to the microbus and proceeded to disperse the change among the different passengers awaiting it.
Yarp Requests
- Cont. prayer for Sheena’s cough
- For the daughter in our homestay as we share the Story
- For language learning
- For health as we begin training to hike through the mountains in March
- That we will be informative on training a new brother
- Our supervisors had their baby girl in Thailand 3 weeks early. She had to go through surgery 4 day after she was born, and is now in recovery. Please yarp for their family during this time.
Praise
Our city feels more like home everyday. We love looking out in the morning and being blessed by the view of the mountains when the smog is not overwhelming. After spending two weeks in Delhi, we were able to compare cultures, and we realize that our city is a perfect match for us. The people are friendly and smile constantly. The day I got back home, I went to a fellow coworkers house to have lunch and discuss plans. When we were walking back before a party that night to watch American Idol (the highlight of our weekend) we met an old man walking down the street. When we started speaking to him in his language he became so happy we were speaking to him. He started laughing and talking to us rapidly in his language. When he discovered we could not fully understand him, he proceeded to pull my hand out of my pocket in order to hold it while we walked down the road together. This is not uncommon. What makes this odd, is that while we are here, I can hold any man’s hand I want to and feel secure in that, but this culture would not allow me to hold my wife’s hand. While we walk down the street, we have conversations constantly with people we don’t know. Even with our limited language, they are so forgiving of our mistakes. Children greet us, saying “Hello tourist” in English, and giggle when we talk back to them in their language. While we were in Delhi, we felt so homesick to come back here to work. While we are here, though we miss our friends in America, we have discovered this is our home, and we are content here, even with no power or no beef.
We should have more pictures soon. Thank you for continuing to yarp for us.