Summer in South India Part 1 (or the miracle of arrival)

The flight to India is long and crowded, the recycled air wafting the faint odor of stale curry and impatience. Fifteen hours of sitting in one place is enough to drive anyone mad, though some seem to get there sooner than others. The family next to me is from India but live in the United States now. Their daughter is in the seat adjacent to mine. She is maybe five years old and she is about the most adorable little girl I've ever seen (aside from my little sister, of course!). She loved to pretend to call people from the phone/remote in the arm rest between us. We watched Disney shows and she examined my Bible and books with great consternation.

Landing in New Delhi was a wave of surreal relief. Maybe I should backtrack some. Less than a week before I was meant to fly out for my month long excursion to India I received an email from Andy, the team leader, asking if I had my visa for India. The short answer was no, I did not. There had been an apparent breakdown in communication and I was not told I needed to get my visa in advance. It had not occurred to me that I would need to apply in advance. Every other country I have visited granted visas at customs, so, insofar as I had not been informed otherwise, I made the unfortunate assumption India was the same. I was wrong. So there I was, days from departure with no visa and no idea what to do. I spent two days scrambling to get everything I needed shipped off to Washington D.C. (including my passport!) to apply to the consulate for permission to enter their country. After being notified by email that they had received my application I was called to be informed that there was no possible way that the application would be reviewed and approved in time, despite my payment to have it expedited.

Many hours of prayer and frantic phone calls later I resigned myself to the fact that I probably was not going to be able to go to India after all. I felt very hopeless, but decided to turn it over to the Lord with the trust that if He is powerful enough to move mountains He is powerful enough to cut red tape, so, if He wanted me to go, He'd have to make it happen. He did. They approved my 10 year visa and overnighted it to me on Saturday so that I would be ready to fly on Monday.

So, when I touched down in Delhi, it was a miracle in my mind. I had no idea what to expect. I have traveled the world and the seven seas (because sweet dreams are made of these? ...now that song is stuck in your head, isn't it?) but knew that India would be an experience unto itself. I made it through customs with ease and Andy was there to meet us. We took an adrenaline filled taxi ride to a hotel (an actual hotel, not a restaurant, but more on that later) where I met JP, Andy's Indian best friend and then I slept hard. In the morning we awoke to Susan, Andy's wife, arriving with V.S. Uncle and Jessie Auntie. In India the term "uncle" and "auntie" are attached as a dyslexic term of respect and endearment, so everyone, our team included, is called as such. Indians have a hard time with the difference between the "d" and "t" sounds, so Andy was usually called "Auntie Uncle". When the children forgot my name I became "Jesus Uncle" due to my big beard and long(ish) hair. V.S. Thomas works for Emmanuel Ministries running one of the orphanages and he is with whom we stayed while in Ranni (or Ranny, depending on the sign). He is an amazing man of God who has been imprisoned for his unwavering faith in Jesus Christ and his willingness and determination to minister to the abandoned children of India. I have the utmost respect for this affable man and hope to someday be a man of God as he is.

We left our hotel to return to the airport so that we could fly to Kochin in Kerala (or Kochi, Cochin, Cochi... I really do not understand why they do not decide on a single spelling for cities and standardize it). Every time the taxi stopped there were emaciated brown hands reaching upward to our windows begging for Rupees so as to buy food, perhaps for the first time in days. The gaunt faces of hungry passers-by would stare longingly at my pale-skinned smile hoping that I would dole out financial assistance. I would have fed every one of them, if I could have. I never got used to the hollow eyes of infants desperately clutching their mothers as they were held up as props of poverty to break the hearts of tourists. I hope I never will.

During the flight to Kochin I finished reading The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne. If you are a thinking Christian, and I pray that you are (after all, Jesus commanded it - c.f. Matthew 22:36,37), I could not recommend this book highly enough to you! It convicted my lifestyle and made my own "activism" seem like a farce, a child's sandcastle built on the beach of a moat guarding an ancient stone fortress. I desire to live with such abandon for Jesus. I want to sell all I have and give it to the poor. Yet I am afraid. I have little faith. The "real world" of student loans, car payments, and health insurance premiums beckon my already seemingly meager bank account balance. Despite this, although I am still drowsy from its grip, I have been shaken awake from the American Dream, forced to see it for what it is, or, more importantly, what it is not. I am no longer able to see how the American Dream is in any way reconcilable with the gospel. To me they appear as mutually exclusive forces, pulling in opposite directions and leaving me with a divided heart. I cannot serve two masters. I feel as though my limbs are being wretched from their sockets as my heart and soul are extricated from the grip of my wallet.

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Stay tuned for more posts about my month in India! Thank you for all your prayers and support. You all helped make my trip amazing! Blessings.