Delhi

Weston and Taylor at the
India Gate, Delhi.

I am back in Tennessee getting ready for Matt’s wedding.  When I went to church, I was gently reminded that I haven’t put a new blog post up in over a month! Yikes, time flies!

We've had a busy time since my last blog post.  Mike's job continues to keep him busy and challenged!  It's very different doing business in India compared to the US.  He's learning the ins and outs of it and what to do and not do.  

Weston and his girlfriend, Taylor, came to visit for 3 weeks in July.  Three weeks sounds like a long time, but it really isn’t.  There was so much I wanted them to see and not enough time to do it.  So, we decided to take them to Delhi/Agra and then to Kathmandu, Nepal. 

Besides the compulsory mall trip, in Delhi we visited the Red Fort, Qutab Minar, India Gate and the Lotus Temple.  We crammed as much into 2 days as we possibly could.  

Lotus Temple, Delhi

The Lotus Temple, the Mother Temple of India, is a Bahai house of worship.  It is open to people of all religions.  We didn't get to go inside because we were there on a Friday, which is the primary day of worship.  There were thousands of people waiting in line to get in.

Qutab Minar

Qutab Minar (Delhi) is the tallest minar in India.  Contruction began on it around 1200 A.D.  It was constructed as an Islamic monument, however there are many Hindu influences in the carvings on the walls of the buildings that surround the minar.  It used to be open for people to climb the 379 stairs to the top of the 238’ high tower.  However, in 1981, there was an accident when the electricity went out resulting in total darkness in the stairway.  Forty-five people (mostly children) were killed in the stampede. 

Carving on the walls at Qutab Minar

Close up of the carvings on the walls and pillars at
Qutab Minar

That was our quick tour of Delhi.  Next stop....Kathmandu!

My New Friend

I’d like you to meet my new friend.  I don’t remember his name, but I will never forget his story.  He is around 90 years old, although he doesn't know exactly.  He lives in a rural village in India with his daughter and her family and his son and his family. (He calls them his children, although we suspect they are actually his grandchildren.)  They live in a house that is smaller than a lot of master bathrooms in the US.  They have so little, yet they have more than most people on earth.  They have love.  Here is his story.

His village sits along a railroad track.  Back in 1952, as he was waiting at the tracks for a train to pass, a book fell off the train at his feet.  He picked it up and looked at it.  The book was written in his mother tongue, so he took it home with him and began to read it.  As he read the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, he became curious and had lots of questions.  So, he began walking to church every Sunday to seek answers and to worship.  Walked 12 miles (4 hours) one-way.

Rain or shine.

He began teaching his children, a son and a daughter.  Fast-forward 60 something years.  His children taught their children.   And so on. 

He became so old, that he couldn’t walk to church anymore.  He quit going, but he never stopped worshipping. 

When we met him, he told us that he has a piece of land in the village that he wants to donate to build a church.  His granddaughter said, “There are all these other temples and worship areas here.  We want a place to worship Jesus!”

I have no doubt there will be a church there at some point. It’s God’s timing, not ours. God planted the seed 60 years ago and has watched this man's faith grow!  How pleased He must be!

I am truly humbled by my new friend.  Ashamed, really.  They have so little, yet they have everything! They have true love.

"And He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury. And He saw a poor widow putting in two small copper coins. And He said, "Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all of them; for they all out of their surplus put into the offering; but she out of her poverty put in all that she had to live on." Luke 21:1-4

Sivananda Rehabilitation Home

Recently, I visited a school at the Sivananda Rehabilitation Center with a group of women from the Twin-Cities Expat Association (TEA).  We did crafts and sang songs with the children.  The children seemed to enjoy it a lot, but I think we were blessed more by them. They are so open and sweet.

The main reason for this post is that I wanted to give you a little information on Sivananda and what they do there, because I found it fascinating.  Sivananda Rehabilitation Home (just outside of Hyderabad) is a place of refuge for children and adults who are suffering or have been affected by leprosy, TB, and HIV/Aids.  I never really thought about leprosy still being an issue, but there were approximately 600 leper colonies in India as of 2008.

There is still a stigma associated with leprosy.  When a person is discovered to have it, they are often run out of their villages, then beaten and shunned.  However, Leprosy has a high cure rate if the person seeks treatment.  Founded in 1958, Sivananda provides free food, shelter, education and clothing for over 500 destitute people who, although cured of leprosy, have nowhere else to go. 

Sari Shopping

A friend took me sari shopping today!  It was overwhelming, but so much fun!  I'm so glad Jaya went with me.  Not only is she Indian, but she always looks so cute!  



The shop she took me to was small, but they had sari fabric from floor to ceiling.  There is no way to look through them all, so I told them the colors that I liked and they started pulling.  

One of the things that I love about India is that everything is so 
colorful.

This is the sewing room where they make the saris and the choli, which is the short bodice that is worn under the sari. The choli is made to your measurements after the sari is purchased.

Next they wrapped the sari for me, thank goodness. I kind of felt like
I was dressing up for a college
fraternity party.

This poor girl had no idea what she was getting herself into when she came to work today!

This is just loosely wrapped. It looks much prettier
than this when it's done right.

Th

I may have to hire someone to come to my house to wrap it.  I would hate for it to come untucked.  I can just see me with my sari flapping in the wind! Fortunately there is a skirt that is worn underneath, but still...

So, there were several that
I really liked.  How to pick
just one?  

Don't drink the water

I struggle sometimes with exactly what to post about.  I mean, my day-to-day activities here aren't that exciting.  Someone told me to post about them anyway.  What happens here is still going to be different than how it's done in America.

So, today I'm going to tell you about the water.  We do get our water from the city, but it is held in a cistern (in our case under the carport) and then pumped to a tank on the roof.  From there, it is gravity fed down to the sinks, showers, toilets, etc.  This is "grey water".  It's not for drinking.  We drink bottled water; Aquafina actually.  We also have a water filter on our kitchen sink.  We can drink that water also, but usually we only use for water that we will be cooking with.

A few days ago, we ran out of water.   We didn't know that because of it being summer here, there was a low supply/high demand for water.  Therefore, the the city was rationing the water from its supply.  We did have some in the tank on the roof, but the cistern was basically empty.  So, one of our guards (we have them mainly to keep people from wandering onto the property) took the opportunity to clean it out.  Now I understand why we don't drink it.

In case you're wondering, we had water delivered by a water truck.  We had to pay a "service charge" for speedy delivery (i.e. next day, not next week or maybe even never at all), but we didn't completely run dry.

Don't you love the bamboo ladder?  I do!

Tirupati, one of our awesome guards.

That brown stuff on the floor is dirt.  It was all over
the walls, too.  At least there was no mold or critters. :)

Village Church

We visited a small village church Sunday.  It was great, even though I didn't understand much of it!
Everyone was very friendly and interested in the "white" people.  I'm sure some of them had never seen one before.

Update on a previous blog post...

This is an update of a previous blog post, Expectant Hearts (February 24, 2013).  In that post, I told you about a 1 1/2 year old baby boy who lost his eyesight at 6 months old due to a high fever.  You can read about him here.

We revisited the village and saw the mother and baby again.  Guess what!!!  He is beginning to get his eyesight back!  He can now see light and shadows!!  The mother hasn't taken him to a doctor since we last saw her.  She said she was trusting God to heal him.  Isn't He good???

Romans 10:17 (NASB) "Faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ."

She is 18 years old and married when she was 16.  I've never met her
husband.  He works in the "village" during the day, but I don't know
what his job is.