Last night I fell in love with India. I was riding in a rickshaw "home" to the campus and it really did feel like I was going home. Sitting in a small rickshaw at night with my English friend, looking out the side of the rickshaw at people walking on the street and dogs laying in the middle of the road, that was the moment my heart melted for India. My heart grew 10 sizes that day. Like the Grinch, you know? I think I really was like the Grinch the last three weeks. Lazy, yet thinking of ways to ruin everyone's Christmas. Getting frustrated with honking cars, barking dogs, train horns, children begging. What's with all this noise, noise, noise, NOISE!
Last night I was able to go to one of the part-time SBS staff's home. She is from Australia and married an Indian man 10 years ago. They have a beautiful 4 year old daughter who is lively as a fish first out of water, only she doesn't eventually run out of breath and just lay there. She's always running around asking you to come up to her room and play with her. We got to watch CNN and BBC and find out the world is in some sort of financial crisis, also that the election is in three weeks, and I am actually wishing I had registered for an absentee ballot. Funny how three weeks over here is making me concerned about my country's leader for the first time ever in my life. Anyway, we got to do our laundry at B's house. Her name isn't really B, but I'm just going to call her that. She has a washer AND a dryer! I was so excited. Then we watched our first Indian film. We being the Norwegians, the British, and the American (a.k.a. myself).
Next week we are going through Mark. I just read it out loud today with the Norwegians. It only took about an hour. Can't wait for Isaiah's out loud reading. Or Psalms! Ay carumba!
Plans for going to Nepal seem to be way more complicated. I mean, I could get there fairly easily, but it's tricky once I'm over there, and I refuse to go alone, and the Brit can't necessarily come with because it's looking to be more expensive than originally intended. I mean, it's not that expensive, but she literally has NO money, and her parent's are not helping her in any way. So, if she can't go then I can't go because I am not riding a 30 hour train by myself to Delhi to get on a plane by myself to Katmandu to get on a 6 hour bus ride by myself. Pray she can go please, give money, whatever God puts on your heart. I really want to do this with her. We were going to go Trekking for 7 days in these beautiful mountains and this would work out well for both of us to make use of our visa agreement of only being in India for 6 months at a time. It would help us a lot.
I'm not feeling like myself lately. Physically. I feel sick a lot of times, randomly, and I don't feel like eating most of the time, although I still eat at every meal even though I don't feel like I can fit any more food in my body. It's so bizarre! I don't think I'll eat dinner tonight though, unless I'm hungry. Maybe I keep getting sick cause I'm eating even though my body is telling me not to.
Our first exam was on Friday morning. I don't know how well I did yet, but I am pretty confident I got at the very least a "B" on it. Three weeks ago I could not have told you what the main idea of Titus was, or why Paul wrote Philemon, or who Onesimus was, or what the culture of Ephesus was, but now I know it all! Crazy, crazy, crazy.
It hasn't hit me yet that I'm in India. I look around at this tropical environment full of Indian people and dogs and cows and trains and garbage, yet I still am not fully aware of my surroundings. I am not fully aware of what I have gotten myself into. Last night I wast talking to a DTS student and she simply asked me what my plan was after SBS and I told her music and she talked for maybe 20 minutes, but I don't think she was talking. God was talking through her. She said some really encouraging things and some things I never considered, or things I thought weren't for me so I never gave them a chance to grow or develop. She said I needed an open heart and mind for these things to grow in me. It was a lot to process,and I'm still processing it. I most certainly was not expecting God to show up in that room at that moment, but BAM he was there.
Okay, I could most definitely write a novel today, but I must stop and get yet some more rest before kitchen duty at 4. Having weekend work duty is actually pretty fun and I find myself wandering into the kitchen to hang out or help even if it's not my day. It's fun working in the kitchen with all the SBSers. I love life here. Right now I'm sitting outside on the internet writing in this. There is a cool breeze and I'm sitting in the shade of the classroom building/boys dorms. I can see a giant coconut tree in front of me. The coconut trees here look nothing like the ones in Vanuatu. Who knew there were even different species of coconut trees?
I found a guitar I am able to use quite regularly, and love, love, love when the DTS students are gone and I can just go into their classroom and sing. The reverb in the room would make even cookie monster's voice sound like an angels. It truly is amazing.
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