Snapshots

I sit here writing this blog with bindi all over my face, my hair in three pigtails, and a smile. The girls of the hostel just spent the last hour giving me a variety of hairstyles, finding my freckles, and experimenting with the best location for a bindi on my face. We talked about hair care and makeup and giggled a whole lot. Girls from both sides of the world just being girls. 


I am accepted and loved here. I came as a complete stranger, and now I find myself a part of the family. How exactly did this happen?


I am happy.

~

About a week ago, I was having my usual run in the yard of the hostel. Also outside is Midhila. Midhila never misses any class I teach. When I first came here, she told me that she was having dreams about she and I speaking in English together. She has big brown eyes filled with trust and innocence, and wears a pink and purple skirt that sometimes I see her twirling around in just to see it swirl around her like a flower. She is a precious child of God.

Midhila is standing outside the hostel to enjoy the last moments before she has to go inside. Her big eyes filled with awe, she stops me in my run, saying, "Look at the sunset! Look how beautiful it is." I stop and we look at the sunset together. A sweaty girl in tennis shoes and a girl in a pink flowing skirt watching the sun go down behind the golden clouds in the yard of an Indian hostel.

"Just think, Midhila-there's a new sunset every night," I said. "They're never the same. God makes it so beautiful just so we can enjoy it." As I said this, I realized that Midhila knows this better than I do:  she had, in fact, come outside just to watch the sunset. Have I ever done that? I wondered.

She said, "I think about God a lot, when I see the sunset, when I see how perfect everything is made."

"Yes," I agreed.

"Do you love God very much?" she asks.

"Yes. Yes, I do love God very much. God is the reason I am here." 

She smiles at me, her big brown eyes filled with trust and the setting sun.

~

"Chechi, I am boring!!!" yells Sherin through my door again. "Are you boring?!?"


I have to confess it's taken me a long time to correct her, just because I so enjoy her asking me if I'm boring or not. She means she is bored. Am I bored, too?


We find Lydia and go out into the yard together. It's a strike day (the seventh one since I've been here) so nothing is happening anywhere. Perfect time to break out the new badminton set and Frisbee! 


Sherin and Lydia are best friends. They walk everywhere together and know when to pass the salt to one another at meals without asking. Sherin speaks only Malayalam but has an extremely expressive face and her expressions constantly crack me up. Lydia, much shorter, has spirit in her step, a neat braid, and an ever-present smile. Sherin is a Muslim, Lydia a Hindu. I love watching the pair of them together.


We threw the Frisbee back and forth in the slight rain, laughing as warden watched us drop it continually. I thought about Lydia and Sherin's friendship, and how awesome it was that three different girls of three different faiths were playing Frisbee together. It hit me as I caught the Frisbee that neither of these girls know Jesus. As sweet and wonderful as they are, they do not know the Savior. This was hard to realize. Why hadn't I thought of this before? What exposure will these girls get to the Gospel? How do I represent Christ to them? Do they spend lots of time with other Christians? Do they wonder about my faith? Is playing Frisbee with them the best way of showing God's love at this moment? I decided it was. 

~

Last Thursday, I finally figured out the bell system at Baker. It was my third time teaching there, and as I was teaching, I realized that the bell schedule follows neither the printed schedule nor the written out "Thursday schedule" that had been given to me. After teaching the class, and the bell still hadn't rung, I came down to the staff room. 

One of the teachers was sitting there, and so I asked, "Do you know what time the bell rings? Did I miss it?"

She motions towards my watch, "Samayam endu?" 

"It's 2:18," I said, "The schedule says that class ends at 2:10. Did I miss the bell?"

And she promptly got up from her seat, rang the bell, and sat back down.

I finally figured out the bell system at Baker school!