"Day-du"

Hello, All!

First off, have I ever said “thank you”? No? Well then, "thank you"! (Or as my little sister says, "day-du! oh, day-du!"). Thank you for taking time out of your busy life to read this. Hmmm, speaking of thanks, as it is nearing that wonderful, fallish season of family, friends, and FOOD =), let me just say, “Happy Thanksgiving”! We have so much to praise the Lord for! The past couple weeks have been ones of reminiscing for me lately. I was thinking back to last year and where I was…where were you a year ago?

Well, about this time last November, I had just finished finding a recipe for baking a perfect pumpkin pie (lo and behold the one on the Safeway can). Work was about to get crazier as all department stores pull out the décor and turn up the Christmas music for Black Friday and guard themselves against the massive, mad, mayhem of consumerism. The aspens had turned over and the weather was pleasantly cooler in comparison to a smokin’ summer. I was with my family at my parents’ house, probably talking with my grandma, laughing with my aunt, and chasing my sister for stealing my dessert. That was what I remember of last season…

This year, things are a little different: I’m not employed! Hooray! Haha, it’s actually a relief. (Those of you who have been or are in the corporate world will understand the lack of pressure.) Besides living on a tight budget until the spring, I am having to come to terms with a hot November…because this is southern India. There is no “Fall Season”, no Thanksgiving, and hence no snow or pumpkin pie. And for me, there is no family, no friends (excluding you, Rach), and no comfort foods (well, I consider rice MY comfort food, but to the rest of the world it’s just a staple). 

It is strange to be in a country where there the predominant religions are Hinduism and Islam. Very sporadically there is a Catholic influence out of a hand-me-down mentality. So many devote themselves to pray to figures of what they call “life”, or “hope”, or “prosperity”…but there is only emptiness met with a greater void. If they only knew what “life” really was, what “hope” looked like, or what “prosperity” means to the everlasting. But they know not what these blessings are. And worse yet, they know not even the One who is able to bless. So, there is no thanks to be given.

And after an insufferable existence, disappointment, and poverty with tinges of hunger and leprosy, why would they even know how to comprehend a blessing? The injustice of female infanticide continues to grow because on a practical level, girls are expensive: another mouth to feed, a significant dowry payment to have her married, society’s cultural demands, etc.  Beggars are beggars because it is the only life they know of and it was the only life their parents knew. And now there are parts of the world that have been lowered into a class of being a “fourth world” country. 

Living expenses in the state of Tamil Nadu have over the weekend, doubled. Everything from cabbage to bus fares to petrol has all been doubled. It is expensive to live and for those who already struggle to exist, the cost is now even higher. Please pray that this center in Coimbatore as well as the other Impact centers would continue to live in the faith of the love of a risen Lord, One who blesses, One who cares. May the children who were once rag-pickers and beggars, the preachers and students who were once Godless, (and the two American girls who were once orphans) be epicenters for love and thanksgiving like the Tenth Leper (Luke 17).

“Happy Thanksgiving” to you all! I am so thankful for YOU.

-S