Back in the saddle...

So my sister Brooke is pretty much amazing and has inspired me to do better about keeping up a blog. Mine is going to stink til I can acquire some blogging skills, but I'm pretty excited to record some of my reflections and share them... Here goes nothin...

May 26th

Today was another day preparing for the volunteers. Some how I haven't felt that I've been busy for an entire day straight. Actually, I've had several days in which I have felt rather lazy… ha. I didn't expect my role to be exactly like this, but I'm sure once the volunteers and students show up I will be really busy. I went for a run with Erin this morning through the village. I wondered what the men thought of a guy and a girl running together. I wonder what that implies in this culture. It was a good time. I started working on class organization because we are still unsure of a final roster. The hardcopy from Sarah says 171, but the soft copy adds up to 163 so we need to figure that out tomorrow. Also, a man named John something showed up today saying he was a social worker and wanted to add three kids to the school because the father is a drunk and the mother is mentally ill. He said he doesn't work with an organization and does social work on the side as a free lancer. I don't know anyone in India who really does that type of thing. He was a very nice man, but I don't understand his motives. The children are 60 kilometers away and he is riding back and forth taking care of them. The only flaw I saw was that he told me that two of the kids were siblings and the other one wasn't, but then when he was talking to Amy, so said that all of them were siblings. Trusting people here is so hard no matter how sincere they seem. We went into the village tonight and the guy I bought perota from didn't give me all of my change because he thought I didn't know what was going on, but I counted it and he then opened the drawer because he realized I knew what was going on. I don't care about the rupees, but I don't like these people thinking they can take advantage of me. I gave him some change anyways, but I didn't like the way he did that. I'm definitely going to go to the other place next time, they weren't shysters. Apparently I'm super unlucky because Amy and Katy saw a cobra this morning on the trail when they went running on the property. I never stay on the property, but maybe I should start so I can see a cobra. I guess they are the number two reason for deaths in India behind car accidents. Speaking of car accidents, Garjendren almost nailed a guy and his wife while they were riding a bike at the junction tonight. Heather let out her blood curling scream which was scary, but they survived. We went to town to score some icecream and fruit. I love going out here because everything is so cheap. I bought four big mangos for about 30 cents. I felt bad for the guy so I tipped him with the change. I don't know if this is a bad thing, but it's hard not to when we have so much and they have so little. He had a little baby walking around behind the counter and he was really cute. I had to give them something. This leads me to something that I realized yesterday. I've been rereading C.S. Lewis' book, the Problem of Pain. I've been struggling with a certain principal lately concerning the suffering that takes place with so many people in the world. This had always been a concern of mine, but it never really hit home until I came to India and saw the magnitude at which this problem exists. I still don' completely understand why Heavenly Father allows so many people to suffer such terrible lives; and I don't mean a few people, but most of the people in this world don't have what we have in the states. Two things come to my mind when I think about this idea. From what I've understood of C.S. Lewis he talks about how when we choose to be Christian was understand what love is and therefore understand pain. He discusses how God has given us free will because he wants us to be able to choose, and even though this is a cause of pain, it is provides an opportunity to feel and give love. By choosing Christ and love, we choose pain. Many of these people don't understand who Christ is or really what our definition of love is so their view of pain is completely relative as is ours. We both see pain differently. Our cook, Govindraj and his family live here and sleep in the concrete floor with only two small blankets on which they rest. I walked by several times in the last few nights and have realized that they are totally content with being together. C.S. Lewis also discusses how a hypothetical situation in which no external "things" existed and what we would do if life consisted of us and God. We would only have to choose to either love God more than ourselves. Many of these people don't have much more than nothing and attribute so much to God because they have nothing else to distract them. Anyways, I've realized that this idea of pain is very relative. I'm going to continue to study and learn from C.S. Lewis, and will update on any more insights I have. The second thing I thought was sort of overlaps with the first idea. The idea is simply that coming from the U.S. this conditions seem terrible and harsh because, well, they are. I don't mean that in an ethnocentric way, but these people to me seem to be unhappy. However, culturally and socially the conditions are acceptable because that is their perspective of what life should be like. Also, religiously they believe that these people have brought these conditions upon themselves because they were born into these circumstances. I know that Heavenly Father understand what he is doing. I am here to help do what I can. I studied conversion and the Lord says he that converts just one soul unto Him will have so much joy in Heaven. I know we are affecting these people indirectly, and I'm not talking about just baptizing these people but being a good influence on them for the future. I want to preach through my actions rather than through my words.