Family Portrait

Blunt-Trevor

I recently finished the book Crazy Love by Francis Chan.  The book isn’t overly complicated or long but packs a powerful punch with every page.  The book deals bluntly with the topic of being a lukewarm Christian.  The author addresses the topic of truly living your life for Christ.

Chan writes, “You have a distinct choice to make: to let life just happen or to actively run towards Christ.” I feel myself every day, even as a student missionary struggling to make this choice, I am comfortable with letting life happen to me or at least making my own plans.

Maybe it’s the fear of failing, or just my own obstacles, but I find myself fitting Francis' descriptions of a lukewarm Christian in so many ways.

For so much of my life I didn’t understand the desirability of God or trust in His love enough to submit my hopes and dreams.  I lived in a constant state of trying to be “devoted enough” to Him, yet I never quite made it, “writes Chan.

I know that God wants all of me but I fear what the complete surrender to Him will mean. You would think that while being a student missionary would be one of the best times to come to terms with what being a Christian is but it doesn’t feel that way.  Here I am in a foreign country, and I haven’t truly surrendered to the person I should be putting all my trust in.

I’ve given 7 months of my life and the comforts of home up, had amazing experiences and memories I will never forget, but so often fail to realize that I’m here for more than myself.

In Chan’s words, “Jesus, I need to give myself up.  I am not strong enough to love You and walk with You on my own.  I can’t do it, and I need You.  I need You deeply and desperately.  I want You.  And when I don’t, I want to want You.”

-T

Next on the menu: delicious homemade tomato sauce

Delicious Fresh Chunky Homemade Organic Garlic Tomato Sauce

First go to expendia.com and book a flight to Andhra Pradesh, India. (Tirupati or Hyderabad airports are good options)

[Hint: tuck a box of Mezze Penne pasta into your baggage]

Next, locate your local vegetable market and pick up some organic fresh tomatoes and garlic. Bartering is encouraged and advised (if you are white).

Next: THE SAUCE

6-7 Tomatoes (10 Rs per kg, or 0.20 USD)

8-10 pieces of Garlic (5 Rs per kg, or 0.10 USD)

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp Jeera (cumin) seasoning

1 tsp Black pepper

Salt to taste

Chop up 6-7 tomatoes into fours and put in a pot on the stove over medium heat. Add about a tsp of oil to keep it from sticking. Allow tomatoes to cook, stirring occasionally, until they are very soft and become nice and juicy!

Mince 8-10 pieces of garlic and add to the tomatoes.

Add sugar.

Add Jeera, black pepper, and salt for some extra flavor and simmer for a few minutes.

Make sure the tomatoes have cooked down until they are “saucy” but still have some chunkiness to them.

And you’re donzo.

Toss with some delicious mezze penne pasta sent from Seattle, WA of the USA and enjoy!

Indian style, delicious Banana Chocolate Protein Smoothie

Ever wondered how to make the best protein smoothie you've ever had? With just a few key ingredients, you can make a delicious smoothie full of nutrition that will leave your taste buds tingling!

We will begin this adventure with a few key instructions:

1. Pull out your blender (or magic bullet, or food processor if you are in America)

2. Make sure there has been power for several hours before beginning the smoothie making process so the freezer has had time to do its work.

3. Locate the following ingredients:

• 3-4 frozen bananas
• 2 Tbs peanut butter
• 1/2 - 1 scoop delicious chocolate protein powder from Costco (not sure what brand!)
• 1/8 C oatmeal
• 1 1/2 C ice

(ps. peanut butter and delicious protein powder must be sent in a parcel from America)

Add all of the ingredients to the blender and then add just a little bit of clean mineral water. Start small, you can always add more if needed! You don't want your smoothie to end up like a watery Indian milkshake.

Blend on multiple different speeds (just for fun) until all ice and banana chunks are smoothed out. And there you go! A delicious smoothie full of protein and flavor...

Makes about 4 servings. Save extra in the freezer for a special treat when you are sweating in the Indian heat and need something cold to refresh you!. :)

Thank you Peach Orthodontics for sponsoring this message!

ENJOY

-B

Blend

Today, after the church service, we went to Mr. Tirupati Reddi's house for lunch. Mr. Reddi is a Hindu man who donated all the land our school is located on and currently lives in the village directly behind us. He is a farmer and we occasionally see him around the school paying visits in his white dress shirt and white lungi with a towel thrown over his shoulder. This is the traditional attire for older men that we see in our area. So Mr. Reddi invited all of our staff and many of the villagers to his new home for lunch and served us all some great food. After finishing our meal, we were standing out front chatting with some of the staff kids and witnessed something I've never seen before. A man was standing outside the front door of the new house, holding a large melon of some kind that was on fire and moving it around through the air. He then took the melon and smashed it on the ground. Except it didn't break apart all the way, so he picked it up and smashed it again. Then he placed one piece at each edge of the stairs going into the house and someone came with a pot of blood that he poured over each piece. Actually it was colored powder mixed with some liquid, not blood, but it looked like blood.

All the while, we stood a few feet away watching with some major curiosity. Other cultures and religions are much more interesting to see in real life than they are to read about. What is the most fascinating to me, is that a Hindu man donated all of this land for a Christian school to be built on. And not only this, but he is active in the school and pays regular visits. Today he had all of the staff for lunch, and then provided dinner for all 450 students as well! And even more generous than this, he is paying all of the teacher's salaries now who haven't received  them in three months because the money from the division is extremely delayed. He is an incredibly nice man and it is awesome to see different lifestyles blending together, sharing food and space.

Lately we have been talking about how we feel like our time here is ending and that we should be going home shortly since we have passed the half way point. The only problem is that we really aren't going home that shortly...and we still have about three months left. It's hard to get rid of this mindset for some reason. But I keep reminding myself that this is a once in a life time experience and NOW is my chance to learn more, because there is always more to learn about and ways to blend with this culture by spending time with these people we have come to love so much. It's so important to live in the now. Every day we make a choice about what our attitude will be and where we will involve ourselves and if we don't put our effort into NOW, that time is wasted. And that time is precious!

-B

Let It Go, Bro - (Sidney)

During our 6-hour layover...

    The train station was freezing. We didn't expect a country like India to have temperatures in the realm of freezing, but just like everything else in India, things never go as expected. Fortunately we were prepared with coat layers at the ready and scarves at the neck. We bundled up nicely and I spent some spare minutes doing some extra breathing exercises so I could see my breath freeze in the air - the little things are appreciated when you go without them for so long. Trevor Carstens, Brooke Bauer, Evan Kinne and I scoped the neon red schedule board for our train number, "Uuuummmm - English Section! Bottom Left! Cool, there's our train number. Wait did that say Gorakpur or Gokafur or Gkeydufa?" After finagling around the Hindi we saw that our scheduled overnight train from New Delhi to Gorakpur was going to be about 6 hours late, meaning that it would arrive at the station at 3 in the morning. 6-hour layover? No problem. Realizing our unusual situation, we killed about ten minutes joking about the train being late. It's on a track right? Good. Only 5 hours and 50 minutes to go. At about this point we're all thinking the same thing - let's go get more food!
    Earlier in the day we had found this awesome omelet maker on the street in the center of the tourist beat area of Old Delhi and I knew that's where I'd be headed. Trevor is really good at researching things in the Lonely Planet guidebook so we knew most of the nicer restaurants around to set up camp for a while. We try to skip the ones titled "Food Plaza" or anything of that sort. That doesn't even sound appetizing. I think the place we finally landed at had a rooftop restaurant. Oh wait, every restaurant is a rooftop restaurant in Old Delhi, only a few aren't, and they all have the same menu. With two big pots of tea we were ready to wait out the duration.
    I was the only one craving omelets so l went out solo to find this omelet making wizard in the center street area. Dodging vegetable piles and fruit carts while rickshaws and motorcycles were dodging me I forgot about the bitter cold for a brief moment. Crossing the street in India is an adventure in itself. There was this one time in Bangalore where it felt like we were actually in a real life game of Frogger. Anyways, where wer- oh yes, omelets. I could only see part of the omelet stand around the giant rock pile that blocked my view. What is a giant rock pile doing in the middle of the city? I don't know, ask the thousands of people that walk by it every day and don't even give it a thought. Such is India.
    Arrival accomplished. The egg-crafty guru whipped out an enticing omelet display that included fresh vegetables and the latest combo of hot sauce madness. I thought that after three months here I had gotten used to spicy Indian food, until I realized my mouth was on fire. The kids around laughed as I choked down the omelet inferno. "Maybe a little less green sauce on the next one," I muttered to the omelet maker while next to him a scrawny and ragged man (his business partner maybe?) smiled back at me through a twisted collection of yellow and brown ivory chomps. I noticed the omelet maker was laughing too. He must've seen the incessant mouth fanning and look of horror on my face as my eyes desperately scanned the area for the nearest bottle of Aqua Fine - India's knock off version of Aquafina. "No I'm not crying." A few minutes after being an H2O vacuum, I was myself again.
    The city was starting to slow down and most of the shop owners had packed up for the night. We were halfway through our layover! It's amazing how a city with so many millions of people can shut down so quickly. I don't blame them for closing early though because it got uncomfortably cold, even with a coat. Seeking warmth I drifted over to a fire that three guys were building out of some random things like plastic trash, clothes, and cardboard – probably toxic. Getting into a good conversation with people in India is always a struggle, but always worth a try. It's not often you'll find the good English-speaking ones. I tested out some Hindi phrases I'd learned on a train as the three of them smiled happily in approval. We casually exchanged some choppy English dialogue and went through the list of routine questions. "Where are you from?" "How long you stay?" "What is your name?" Done. Usually these questions go in that specific order. Immediately after interrogation, we chose the privilege of silence.
    A break from the surrounding chaos and warmth from the makeshift fire lured me into a dreamy state. I joined the small circle on the gritty pavement as we sat in peace. We were an untouchable community of unfamiliar brothers, glowing on the inside and tired on the out, as thoughts of the day paraded through our minds. It was unusually surreal. Fifteen minutes felt like half an hour and those minutes have become cherished memories. Following this unexpected fellowship I had to depart. Saying a quick goodbye, I left the scene with not a care in the world, and it was at this simple moment while walking back to the rooftop restaurant I realized that things never ever EVER go as expected in this country. I should've known. I already knew. This was an interesting realization. It was like one of those lessons you already know, but you still have to learn. The fact that Indian schedules are all screwy and hardly anything goes the ‘right’ way, made me think.

    Thinking is a good thing, but if you think too much you'll go crazy. Sometimes crazy can be a good thing, but then people will avoid you. But sometimes being avoided can be a good thing - it gives you time to think! :)

    Even before deciding to come to India in September, we discussed the prospect of a month long tour of India. Of course this was a fantastic idea because no one knows if we'll be able to come back to this country ever again. As we moved closer and closer to Christmas break this talk became a reality and before we knew we were finally in the middle of it. None of us knew traveling in India would be so difficult. The time it would take anyone to drive 60 km takes Indian drivers four times as long. This can be attributed to the fact that every meteor shower seems to hit Indian roads and Indian roads only, causing potholes and other miscellaneous decay. Of course that's a drastic exaggeration, but it's an accurate description. It's one of the many examples of things going awry and people being okay with it. They live with it, and get along just fine.
    All this difficult travel, nine-hour periods of "time pass," people ripping us off because we're white, and many other unexplained phenomena told me that even though sometimes life is C-R-AZY, everything is going to be okay. I'm still breathing, I'm still seeing, I'm still loving, I'm okay, and I'll still have a place to rest my head at night. I should let it go.
    Seeing happy people with no material wealth whatsoever put something in my heart that I can never forget no matter how deep I dive into American Culture. The more I care about what's going on in my life, the less I care about theirs. There's a saying I tell my students in class, it goes, "You can't listen and talk at the same time." It works to keep them quiet for a while but then they start talking again. In my life I need to do more listening and less talking, for if I never listen I'll never learn! And in India, when my voice goes unheard and lost in the noise or drowned in the silence, I get to listen. I get to let go. It's fantastic.

    Leaving New Delhi, India's bright and shining capital city, I felt at peace within the chaos. We were all ready to move on to our next stop. Goa, Mumbai, Jaipur, and Agra were all memories while our eyes looked forward to Nepal and Darjeeling - the last few stops of this 28-day backpacking adventure around the country. This night was December 21st, just a few days before Christmas but also the night before Evan's birthday. We all felt pretty bad that his birthday would be spent under the fluorescent lights of our Sleeper Class train car but at least he could purchase 5-rupee chai at his bidding desire. We try to think positively as best we can and by doing this we can make the best of things. "Brooke a mouse just ran over your shoe!" Sweet.

Making the best of things…

- S.

Night Market in Old Delhi

...and this too!

16. When something hurts, it's "paining."
17. Sidney, Trevor, and Brooke are interchangeable names for us according to many kids.
18. You are almost guaranteed to be asked if you "had your breakfast?" every day.
19. A persons 'native place' is always better than any other cities nearby
20. It's impossible to give without receiving, especially in the food department.
21. Scheduled train arrival times are totally irrelevant to actual arrival time.
22. Water buffalo are kind of ugly!

(I like this list making!)
-B

This is India

15 of the many things we’ve learned from living in India, specifically the farm country of Andhra Pradesh.

1.     It takes 30 seconds for ants to find a candy wrapper in the center of the room, give or take a few seconds.

2.     The max amount of people you can fit into an auto rickshaw is…haven’t figured that out yet.  There is always room on the back, inside, or even on top.

3.     “We will leave at 10:00 am” usually means 10:30, but it could mean 11:00, 12:00, 2:00 or even tomorrow.

4.     If the villagers were to choose between a free Bollywood movie ticket or staring at us for 5 minutes, they would stare at us.

5.     99% of the time in major cities, auto rickshaw drivers will try rip you off with their first quoted price.

6.     “Drink hot water,” “Put oil on your stomach,” and “Take a tablet,” are three  of the cures for pretty much every form of illness, except maybe a cobra bite.

7.     Even the smallest woman can look menacing when she stares at you holding a sickle.

8.     India moves in the quickest and craziest, slow manner possible.  This one took a while to get used to.

9.     When being served food, “Okay that’s enough,” guarantees at least two to three more scoops of rice and curry.

10. Although we miss food in America every day, the word bland comes to mind when I compare it to the flavorful food here.

11. Rice, oil, vegetables, and sugar are staple food groups.

12. India women love to braid and touch Brooke’s hair.

13. Acne=mosquito bites

14. Indian children sing songs in the key of…A, C, F#, E etc, all at the same time. We have a theory that they are the first to discover the unknown key of Z Major.

15. 220 volts coursing through your arm hurts a lot more than 140 volts.

-T

India has some serious Sunflower fields!