Be gentle

I have decided this month to meditate on gentleness. The other night when I was at the airport I saw something rising up in me that could only have been pride. It is very hard to be gentle when one is proud but if I am the Lord’s servant I am required to be gentle. Among the scriptures encouraging one to be gentle there is this crazy-sounding promise:

 

Timothy 2:24 (NKJV) And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, [25] in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth...

 

Imagine that. If I am gentle and correct people humbly if they need it, then God may grant them repentance and they may know the truth. We all know the glorious freedom that comes from the truth. Well some of us do anyway.

 

When living in Hephzibah there are plenty of opportunities to be humble and gentle. I do recall though in the past it can take a fair degree of self-control to be like that. When you are out of your cultural comfort zone somehow the locals feel free to take the opportunity to tell you what to do. And while that can be very helpful if one does not know what to do it can also be extremely aggravating if one does know. Unless of course one stays gentle and humble which takes self-control. Self-control, humility and gentleness. Hmmmm.  

 

Also when one is out of one’s comfort zone, one might not be as tolerant as one would be at home. And what to do when someone tries to rip you off or refuses to take you in their taxi or won’t leave you alone when you are at the market.

 

I’ll give you gentle buddy.

 

Last month I mediated on as many scriptures as I could find about trusting God. That was bit of a disaster in one way because I had so many opportunities to trust God. It was like difficult and challenging circumstances were magnetised to me because of my study. Glory to God though we broke through to a new level of trust.

 

So I wonder how we will go responding gently and humbly to the challenges of living here for two weeks.

 Grace, grace, grace.

You Can't Sleep On It

 

This bed looks extremely comfortable does it not?

 I said to my back and my neck, “This is a very comfortable bed. You will rest well here.”

“ Humphh, “they replied.

Indeed.

If it was a bad attitude I could deal with it. If my thoughts were going haywire I could pull them into line. If I was dehydrated I could drink more water. But how do you fix a hard sleeping surface that gives you a nasty headache the next morning?

I am not sure what the mattresses here are made of. It does not feel like sponge rubber though. It could be coconut husks. That does not sound very comfortable but is probably softer than the tile floor!!  Maybe there is a thin layer of foam over coconut husks. At one of my destinations it felt like the bed was made of straight coconut husks.

Lying on pillows helps. A polar fleece blanket folded several times and placed strategically with pillows helps.

Arising at 5am helps. The longer you stay in bed the worse it gets.

I am thinking if I am going to sleep here again, I may need to have a contingency plan like an inflatable mattress.

 I know, I know.

 

Summer breeze

 

 

 

The ceiling fan- one of a girl's best friends in the never-ending war against mosquitoes.

In the early hours of this morning I discovered how to know if there are mosquitoes in your bedroom- turn the fan off. The fan keeps the air moving which keeps the mosquitoes moving which means they do not land and bite you.

Now to be fair there are not many mosquitoes about at this time of year. Mosquitoes breed best and are more numerous when there is water lying around. Like in the monsoon time  on until the water evaporates. However, they are still hungry little blighters. Don’t let anyone tell you by the way, that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Mosquitoes who help themselves to free blood supplies, are evidence there is.

 If you turn the fan off because it is noisy and a bit cold then all you need to do is wait. Going to sleep fills in the time nicely. You may not hear the mosquito, you may not feel it land or bite but after it has left snacking on you, you will wake up with a small burning itchy lump somewhere on your body.

Burning itchy lumps are what happened to me this morning in the early hours.  I ignored the first one on my elbow but after the second one on my leg, I was wide enough awake to do something sensible. Turn the fan back on and spray some mosquito spray about.

After I did that there were no more new burning itchy lumps.

 Simple really.

You're still the same dododododo dododododo dododododo

I spent yesterday visiting my favourite haunts where no ghosts but memories lurk. I have about three days to cram as much visiting my favourite places into as I can before the real business of this trip begins. I dragged Loch with me, not exactly kicking and screaming, around a few shopping outlets. Shopping outlet is a word I use loosely to describe the places we went. One was an old market that has heaps of little shops set in a courtyard type of an arrangement. The two  were malls that will rival anything in New Zealand.

 The point is not to spend money. Wherever I go in this city each place has an ambience to experience whatever that means. It may just mean I like observing people as they do life in a culture very different but similar to my own. We travel by cycle rickshaw which in itself is entertaining. There is plenty to see on the way. Mothers sitting in groups on the footpath waiting for children to finish school. People buying. People selling. People negotiating traffic. It is a bit like watching a movie and being part of it at the same time.

In between the second and third mall, for something completely different, Loch took a team with her and visited her street people. I tagged along too. These are the people who live alongside the street and Loch has worked with for the past 20 years. I am fairly sure these are the same group of people I prayed for in 1995 and asked God to send someone who would tell them about Jesus.

The children now second generation of the ones Loch first started working with, come to a day centre she runs. Some of the girls she has taken into her home and some of the boys live in another house down the street. Many of them, although they do not exist in terms of officialdom, have been enrolled in school with the help of some fancy paperwork from a lawyer. If you do not officially exist because no-one registered your birth, you can not go to school or have a bank account.

I made myself scarce while this was going on in a café on the street. It is possible to drink coffee and pray for people ministering on the street you know. I did not stay in  the café long enough though so I too mooched around the footpath in what essentially is someone's living room. It always feels a little weird to be parked up talking to people, with their belongings not far away on the road side of the street. Meanwhile the people who have walled in houses walk through the narrow gap between there and the shops staring as they make their way home to comfort and safety.

There is something inextricably intoxicating about being on the street in Hephzibah. The huge variety of people, sights, sounds and smells makes a visual, dynamic entertainment feast. It is also quite exhausting as a cacophony of stimuli crash over you.

Several trams bumbled and clanged their way up the street as I waited. That will be tomorrows treat.

The way it is

 

I really may have to give up on cheap hotels in exotic Asian locations. I know I know. They always look so good on the website.

The one I am staying in overnight before I go to my friend's is comfortable enough. It has lovely free wiifi. It is clean. It will cost about $50 with breakfast. I can turn on an urn to heat the water for my shower. There is no top sheet for the bed and the duvet does not look that fresh but that is the only niggle I have. Oh and the dogs that bark, the sirens and  two explosions. Still once I put my ear plugs in I could not hear much.

It is more travelling to the cheap hotel that challenges my sense of safety and well-being. Especially when I have a cling on from the airport who wants me to tip him because he led me to a taxi. I insisted on carrying my bag which was not that heavy but he put it in the front seat. Then he sat beside it and I wondered if he would jump out of the taxi and steal it. Of course none of this is helped by the fact I have had no sleep for 24 hours and tend to be more neurotic than usual.

Nor is it helped by the fact we seemed to be driving through darkish streets and the way to the hotel was down a lane which we walked. The hotel manager wais pleasant enough but took my photo as I checked  in. That is for the Indian government in case I go missing.  Well that was his cheerful explanation. I hope he emailed the photo straight away to the Indian government because if I do go missing surely the photo could too? Best not go missing I guess.

Post note: I did not go missing but did need counselling after several people at the hotel needed or demanded tips. I did not have the right sized change so ended up giving more than I would have.  I felt a little mean but I carried my bag down from my room to the taxi out of the road to avoid paying more tips. I know. I know. It is that kind of frugal to the point of stupid logic that messed up my visa to India arriving in Wellington in plenty of time. What shall I do with myself??!!!