Mango Season and Holy Underwear.

Well it is beginning to be a wonderful mango season here in India. I almost got mugged by a falling mango the other day. I was on the phone, minding my own business when all of a sudden something fell to the ground next to me. I looked down and there was a green mango. It nearly missed me. At least a person is 99% likely to survive a mango falling on you. If it was a coconut or jack fruit I could be dead.

In India they cook with something called a "pressure cooker" and I personally am terrified of them. It is like a normal pot you cook in, except it has a cover that is fastened down with a "whistle" on the top which lets the steam/pressure out when it gets too much. I wish I was not afraid of them because it cooks things super fast! You can boil potatoes in no time with these pressure cookers!! It's quite amazing. However, there are so many horror stories of them exploding and people getting scalded and killed even. So, that is why I'm terrified of them. Anyway, the real point to this is my life feels like a pressure cooker right now. There is something building, and building, and I keep getting closer and closer to this wonderful thing about to happen, but it continues to be just farther than a hand reach in front of me. Just out of my grasp and so I move closer, and then it is still just out of my reach. My excitement is building up and my emotions are building up and very soon I will finally be able to grasp this thing and it most likely will be one of the best moments of my life! But living with the building pressure is the hardest thing. I just want to explode now and get rid of all this steam and excitement inside of me, but it is not time yet.

We have begun the prophets today. For the next three days we have class morning with a lunch and work duty break, then class in the evening also. It is sort of like the first three weeks of the school where we did that every day for three weeks. Yikes.

The students need to learn all the new ways to study the prophets. The foundation is still the same, observation of the text, interpretation of what it means to the original reader, and application of how to apply it to our lives today. But now they have new things to look for. Predictions, Oracles, Prophecies, and the constant cycle of sin, judgment, and restoration. They also need to know about the different types of literature throughout the prophets: poetry, narrative, apocalyptic writing. Also a review of the figures of speech.

Now we're getting serious. The Prophets are difficult, long, and basically all about the same two things. Going into exile and then the return from exile. It's quite easy to interpret if you know the history. Not very much is about Jesus and not very much is about the 2nd coming. Here are some statistics of the prophecies in The Prophets of the Old Testament:

1. Less than 2% of prophecies are messianic, or about Jesus Christ coming as Savior.
2. Less than 5% of prophecies describe the church age, or basically the time from when Jesus first came until his 2nd coming.
3. Less than 1% of prophecies have yet to be fulfilled. Basically, 99% of all the things in the prophetic books has already happened.

Hows that for interesting? Everything in the book of Daniel has already happened and is history. Same with most everything in these books.

Something rather peculiar happened the other day. It was one of those, "you never know what will happen in India!" moments that frequent my days, weeks, and months here... I really lucked out in the apartment I am renting. My land-lady and her two sons are catholic. They have no problem with what we are doing here and I am able to be completely honest with them about what I do and when I teach and what I teach. Now, the first time the oldest brother knocked on our door around 8:00 at night he started yelling at us because a friend of ours came over and did not close the gate and so the dog got out of the yard and was "thrashed" by a street dog. This was not okay with our landlord, and the dog's owner, because his dog is a pedigree labrador and he wants to breed her with another pedigree labrador! Heaven forbid she should get pregnant by some rufian, mutt street dog. Yikes. I had never seen him so angry. And after that happened they brought poor little Debbie (that's the dog's name) to the vet and got a doggie abortion. Yikes. But, this is not the story I wanted to tell you...Anyway, that's what happened the last time he knocked on our door. On Monday night around the same time we heard a knock at our door and were not expecting anyone so of course we are afraid that he is upset again for something we did horribly wrong!! So, I opened the door and there he was standing right there! He explained that every year on the day after Easter they have a priest come and bless the house and suddenly out of nowhere this Indian Catholic priest jumps out with this long white kurta-robe. He asked if it was okay for him to come in and bless our apartment also. I said, "sure! That's cool!" so the priest walks right into our house and begins sprinkling this holy water all over everything! He walks into all the rooms sprinkling holy water from this eye drop bottle (that's what it looked like, I can sprinkle visine over things too and say the name of Jesus). As he enters each room he sprinkles water, says something like "in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." you know, the usual Catholic blessing I suppose. In our bathrooms, kitchen, our bedrooms!! Good thing I didn't leave out my dirty underwear or anything, but I definitely had my clean underwear hanging on our clothes hanger inside the doorway to dry. At least now I know for the next week my underwear has been blessed and sprinkled with holy water. Thank you, Jesus.

Cultural Differences.

It is 100 degrees every day. Not a cloud in the sky. I will melt like butter one of these days and no one will find me and I will become like an unsolved mystery.

Yesterday I was walking home from the coffee shop I frequent, and the leader of my base was driving by...with seven children in his car plus one other adult. It reminded me how different everything is here (as if I could ever forget). But seriously, entire families drive down the road on one motorcycle. 3 year old child in front, followed by Dad driving, then infant, and finally Mama. AND if Mama is wearing a Sari, then she's riding the cycle side-saddle with the infant in her lap.

There's also this great "normal" thing to do for men who have been driving for so long and have to go to the bathroom. Pull the car over and pee anywhere you want in public against a wall! Totally acceptable. If I had a dollar for every accidental glimpse of an Indian man's private part I'd have at least 14 dollars right now. It's gross and disturbing.

The other most shocking and sad thing is the way people litter. They don't even think about it. They eat a candy bar and simply drop the wrapper to the ground. On trains they throw their garbage out the window, in cars, same thing. Walking down the street they just throw any garbage they might have on the ground. Even the "Christians" do it. It's so heavily engrained in their minds from when they're kids and in the culture as a whole, that even Christian people here throw their trash on the ground.

Sometimes it is hard not to let these cultural differences frustrate me. I could get so angry and upset that I never want to come back! Instead I am constantly confessing my bitterness and challenges with the culture. I am constantly trying my hardest not to flip the bird to passers-by who feel the need to honk and stare and shout at me simply because I'm white. It can be hard to look for the good things this country has in its culture, but when you find something which is inevitable, it makes you fall in love with the people and place even more.

I love how anyone will invite you to their home and insist you stay the night. Most people are more than willing to help you get where you need to go or pay the right price for something so you don't get ripped off (which tends to happen as a foreigner a lot). When traveling on trains people love to share their food with you and children want to know your name and why you are here. They love stories, so this country is the perfect place to share stories of Jesus or even in the Old Testament, Moses, Abraham, Ruth, Esther, all these are just exciting stories everyone loves to hear! I love their curiosity. I love that everyone stares at my lip ring like I'm crazy and asks what it is because they've never seen one before. I love that one aunty thought I was hiding a bag of Lay's chips up my sleeve because of my color tattoo. They have never seen color tattoos before either. I love that every woman in this country is beautiful. Literally, every woman. This place is so colorful. The houses, the clothes, the big goods carrier trucks, even the cows sometimes have colored horns! I love that there is a mango tree in my yard and it is almost mango season!

Sure there are so many things I could complain about and grow frustrated with, but if I just learn to focus on the good...if I just stop seeing myself as "superior" which most Westerners tend to do when they come here...then I only fall more in love with this place. I know this is my home. Now I just have to figure out what my purpose is in India.

Two down, One to go!

I had a lovely week vacation. Our Spring break is over and today marks the beginning of the third quarter of this SBS. Things are getting exciting. I teach the book of Esther in 2 weeks! I love that book because it is just like a real book, a story, it could be a movie, well, I think it is a movie. I like that it's full of irony. That wretched Haman who had it in for Mordecai so badly, but in the end all that he hoped to do to Mordecai was done to him and all that he wanted done for him was done for Mordecai. Isn't it ironic? Don't ya think?

For my Spring break I did what every American likes to do, went south. Only this is South India which is super hot and super conservative. I attended the SBS graduation ceremony of a really good friend of mine. I had a lot of fun and it was really nice to see another SBS house and how they run things and how committed these staff and students were. They all got along really well and were like a family eager to welcome myself and my friend as guest members of the family for a few days. I learned a lot and saw a few familiar old faces from my SBS a few years ago!

Also, it seems as though my immune system also tends to go on vacation when I have a holiday. Every time I have a break from school ever since I can remember, I always seem to get sick! The day after I came back from Mysore I was in bed all day trying my best not to vomit or poop my pants. Honestly, that's the way it is in India sometimes. You will get diarrhea, it is inevitable. Fortunately it was only a 24 hour "bug" but then on Saturday I started getting all these hives all over my body! At first I thought there was some phantom mosquito that wouldn't leave me alone, until I realized it's the middle of the day and that cannot be possible for a mosquito to bite me hundreds of times on both my arms. You see, I've never had hives before, and living in malaria infested mosquito Las Vegas I immediately assumed I was getting bitten at first. It came and went and came and went, and finally, after almost ripping my skin off to just get rid of the itching feeling, I got some anti-histamines, took one and then it was all better. Ahhh. It just sucks to know I have to go to the pharmacy to get something because I have to walk in that super hot sun, sweating, and I'm already going crazy with hives covering my body and so tired. Fortunately, I have a wonderful and very good looking friend who went and got them for me while I sat comfortably in Coffee Day studying Esther.

So this week it begins again. I hope and pray that this final quarter we all give our all and our best to this school and to this campus. That we wouldn't "check-out" which I am so good at doing when I know the end is near, but in knowing the end is near we would work all the more and get the most out of every situation, every chapter, every book, every minute. I cannot wait to see how I experience God this quarter and also to hear how my students and fellow staff members are experiencing Him. All I know is that I am done with stress and I am done with anxiety. I am ready to see the glory of God and to stop putting Sarah first.

Along with the hot weather comes sleepy heads. I could just curl up and fall asleep at any time these days. Getting back into the schedule of the week is going to be a lot harder than I thought. I better get to bed early tonight. Tomorrow is not so busy of a day, but still always have to wake up early for something. Always. It will be nice once i'm not in SBS any longer. Speaking of which, I am praying about my future here, about what to do after this SBS. I know I committed for two SBSes, however I am beginning to think that perhaps God is once again changing directions here with my life. I have decided (in short term vision) to staff the next Titus Project, at least the training phase, or first three weeks. Titus Project is the outreach portion of SBS that I did as soon as I came here last June. It is three weeks of training where you are taught how to teach and prepare lectures and sermons, then after three weeks of that you go out somewhere for 2 months and teach and preach! I will not be able to lead an outreach because I have to come home by that time again for another visa run. But this time I will not be coming alone!

Please pray for my dear friend who will be applying for a visa to the states. We are not sure which one yet, tourist or for an internship. Pray that one of them works out and that this person is able to get their visa on the first try so that they can come and experience our culture and another way of life and meet all my friends and family!

I hope this entry finds you well and in good health, unlike me. Enjoy your spring because I am so jealous of the nice weather and thunderstorms! There won't be a cloud in the sky until July most likely and it's only going to get hotter. It's already up to around 100 degrees every day by lunchtime. Yikes.