During my weeks in India, food became something to think about several times each day. As a traveler, you don’t always know where your next meal will come from, or what it will contain. There’s an element of surprise to it, and more than a little trust involved. There was certainly no lack of food for us and, despite more walking, I came home two pounds heavier than when I left. Food was given generously and graciously with a lot of attention to our Western tastes.

In homes and in restaurants in India, there’s an intentionality about food; real planning is involved.  Meals there consisted of smaller portions, but more dishes.  It wasn’t uncommon for 10-12 items to be placed on the table for each meal: salads, a variety of breads, curries, fruits, rice, sauces, vegetables, and potatoes…and that’s just for lunch.  Breakfast and dinner had similar quantities and varieties of items.

Food is eaten with the hands in India, as it is in many places. That’s more than a little disconcerting to us who are used to forks and knives. Meats are pre-cut into bite-sized pieces, often covered in gravy–some spicy, some not–to be mixed with rice by one’s fingers. There’s a lot of movement on the Indian plate with diners constantly mixing and moving items around with their hands. I tried their method and used my fingers for a couple of meals, but I was rather sloppy and it was clear that I’m much more comfortable with steel utensils to deliver the goodies to my mouth. But there’s something basic about using one’s hands. Somehow the experience ties a person to the food they are eating. Dinner is more organic, not in the sense of being “pesticide-free”, but in the experience of eating with one’s whole body.  The hands and eyes experience the temperature and the texture of the food before the tongue ever tastes it. There’s a sense of integrity about it all.

There’s much less manufactured food, too, as most dishes are from scratch ingredients and fresh produce. We had pineapple right out of the garden; papaya and mango, tomatoes and guava from the back yard. There were more varieties of banana than I could count, and figs and pomegranates and coconuts everywhere. Chicken and lamb often come from one’s own village.

The Indian palate is vastly different from the American one. India is the source of many spices, and dishes reflect the richness of those flavors, some familiar and some exotic.  The American diet seems terribly bland and flavorless to Indians, I was told. It seems to me that Indian food is full of opposites: fiery hot curries with a side of cold plain yogurt to reduce the inflammation, tender meats and crisp salads, well-seasoned lentils with plain rice, salty fried breads cooked with biting black pepper, and for a finishing touch, sweet, creamy ice creams and puddings. I tried it all and then some, so I guess I’m lucky I only brought two pounds back with me.

I like the English tradition of afternoon tea in India, with the hot beverage (whether coffee or tea) steeped darkly and mixed with steamed milk and a generous helping of sugar.  There are always cookies (“biscuits” in the English parlance) with tea. Often potato chips or a piece of cake showed up at tea time, too.  I was reluctant at first to have hot tea in the 95-degree heat, but our hosts were convincing that a hot beverage in the afternoon actually helps the body handle the heat better.  There’s mid-morning and mid-afternoon tea.  Evening dinner was often after 8 p.m.  Lunch tended to be the heavier meal.

Getting home, I was desperate to return to my bland daily bread: dinner was a ham sandwich, some overly salty Cheetos and a glass of milk. No sign of any spice anywhere. My tongue needed a break. But damn any diet, my sandwich had both cheese and mayonnaise. I’d been craving dark chocolate and ate most of a bar before I collapsed from jet lag.

The other thing about food that’s on my mind is the inequitable distribution of it. I saw women in India cooking a pot of white rice over coals, throwing a few leaves and chili peppers in the pot for flavor. They were cooking on the hospital grounds for themselves and their patients, and rice and a few veggies were all they had. I watched children eating rice three times a day, the only variation a few lentils thrown in the pot. I saw farmers who struggle to raise enough rice to feed the people of their village. And I throw away more food than I can ever justify.  Supermarkets here look like palaces of gluttony. There’s too much food in my country and my part of the world, and not enough in other parts.

Doesn’t it seem right to share? On getting back to my duties at work, it’s my pleasure and responsibility to guide our congregation to do something about hunger during the Mission:1 program this November. My time in India has prepared me and opened my eyes to some of the realities of food injustice.

Food is something that we all share in common, but is distinct to each of our cultures. The way we produce, distribute and consume food is crucial to our shared future, and the unhealthy imbalance of food scarcity in the developing world and food over-abundance in the developed world is unsustainable for us all.

May God bless us with a spirit of sharing, not because the hungry of India need our handouts, but because we wealthy people have a need and a responsibility to give.  Resources like food are meant for the sustenance of all God’s people.  It’s wrong to keep more than our fair share.

I’m generally not a big believer in the idea of God testing us, but if there is a test, it might be this one: God gives food to sustain us, and when some have enough and more than enough, perhaps its an examination to see if we will selfishly hoard the blessing, or if we will help others be blessed.

When we help others, Jesus told us, we are participating in the kingdom’s work. May we be found faithful with our food.

• ate breakfast crepes filled with freshly grated coconut
• toured two housing rehabilitation projects for victims of the 2004 tsunami (photo left)
• visited a mass grave where hundreds were buried after the tsunami in which 225,000 died
• enjoyed fresh coconut milk and  banana cashew bread made by the rehab villagers who welcomed us by anointing our foreheads with Indian spices and placing on our shoulders ceremonial shawls
• watched women make rope from coconut fiber
• drove through acres of rubber trees, mango groves, coconut palms, and banana trees
• prayed with the residents of an HIV-AIDS home
• were serenaded by students at the community college run by the Sisters of Notre Dame (who also have Chardon, Ohio connections)
• enjoyed modern and folk dancing and singing from a group of nursing and engineering students and shared a meal together with them and our host family.

Tomorrow morning we depart the southern tip of India for a day in Mumbai, more commonly known as Bombay.  I’ve been asked to preach there on Sunday, then we’ll have a final afternoon of touring before departing for home.

• spent time with the 200 children of Family Village Farm orphanage, including beautiful Devi, the girl our church sponsors.
• rode the school bus with the community children who attend the King’s Matriculation School to see their homes and villages, most of which are thatched roof huts
• cut the ribbon for the opening of a new dormitory for a rural nursing school
• received gracious honors from several villages we visited to give support and encouragement to community projects like wells for irrigation
• met a young man with physical challenges who has recently completed his B.A. degree because of a Global Ministries scholarship and who plays on the state cricket team.
• drank coconut water from a green coconut and ate the gel-like “meat” to provide electrolytes to our diet
• visited the Christian Medical College and several rural hospitals made possible by the vision and support of Christians around the world
• preached at the Good Shepherd Church in Chennai on Sunday where the overflow crowd watched on closed circuit television
• ate amazing foods that I can barely describe, much less identify
• saw beauty in some very unexpected places.

I’ll try to post some photos, and next time I get internet access, I’ll give a bit more description. Our group is doing well…it’s been a very demanding trip, and worth every effort.

Arrival in New Delhi came at 8:30 p.m. after the 14.5 hour flight.  We were surprised to find a new, modern airport; bright and spacious.  That’s one of the only things that can be described that way in Delhi.  Delhi is divided into the Old section and the New, but it all looks old to me.  Old and dusty. The entire city is coated with a heavy blanket of dirt kicked up from the roadsides. Trees are the sort of grey-green that look like a plastic plant that hasn’t been dusted in years.

Our hosts met us at the airport with a small van to take us to our hotel. However, the van wouldn’t hold us with our luggage. They attempted to lash our luggage to the rooftop but the rack was small, and standing luggage on end meant that the vehicle exceeded the height of the parking garage and couldn’t exit. Our hosts had to rent a second vehicle to hold us.

The hotel rooms are nice and clean, with thin, firm mattresses. There were some confusing things: There is both a large and small bucket in the shower stall and none of us is sure why they are there. The toilet has a bidet function that sprays directly to the front of the seat, which means that after turning the wrong knob to flush, my clothes were in direct line of fire.  They dried by the next morning. To take a shower, you have to notify the front desk. They tell you to wait five minutes, then hot water shows up in your shower. There’s a stepstool inside each shower.  There are dispensers of yellow and pink liquid in the shower. The yellow we assume to be soap since there’s a matching dispenser of yellow gunk at the sink.  What’s the pink? I thought it would be shampoo, but after washing in the morning, my hair feels thick and slightly tacky. Yuck.

We’re here to meet with representatives of the Church of North India (CNI), following Vijay’s lead.  Vijay is the Reverend Doctor Vijayakumar, our group leader and an Executive for Global Ministries. He works with them as part ambassador/part manager/ part grantsman from the UCC and Disciples of Christ mission organization. Our trip here coincided with a missions partner meeting that he was expected to attend with denominational representatives of Methodist, Anglican, and Episcopal bodies from USA, Australia, and the UK. These denominations, and others, provide mission support and money to fund the work of the CNI.  Our Cleveland group was considered to be part of Vijay’s ambassadorial troupe and were included in the Tuesday business meeting which lasted several hours. I worried that Dan, Pat and Sheila were bored to death, but each reported that they found interesting tidbits of information relayed during the meeting.  In addition to the international partners, there were four bishops from the Church of North India present and several CNI synod staff members.

They began the meeting serving tea and traditional Indian festival foods.  One bishop led me to the serving table and pointed out the things I should try. What looked most appealing to me was a light, fluffy lemon-yellow cake with poppyseeds. It turned out to be a shockingly salty appetizer. The oddest item was a roll of almond paste wrapped around ground pistachios and coated with an edible silver film that made the piece looked like it was gilded.  It was very sweet and chewy and turned out to be my favorite bite.

I got seated next to the presiding bishop—and having been introduced as a UCC pastor—was asked to offer prayers at the conclusion of the meeting and to include the blessing for lunch.

Most reports shared during the meeting were full of pleasantries, the high point for me was a challenge that Vijay presented to the CNI bishops: to not only consider themselves on the receiving end of mission support from other denominations, but to also find way to “partner with the partners” in given mission aid to other, more challenged, places.  Vijay used the extreme needs of East Timor as an example.  Other representatives seemed to brighten up at the suggestion and offered encouragement in that challenge.  The bishops heard the message loud and clear: become a full partner in sharing with others. Though it was a rather routine and boring meeting, Vijay had injected some heart and soul into the session, and I felt very proud to be part of his temporary team.

The meeting and the lunch was held at the church headquarters building, first in an upper level conference room, then in the lower level dining hall. Lunch was casual and friendly and included a lamb stew, various breads, lentils and rice, and salad.  Pat saw a green bean on top of the salad and promptly chomped it. She was quiet during the meal, and only later did we learn that the “green bean” had been an extremely fiery chili pepper, which gave us all something to laugh about later.

Meetings over, Vijay had arranged for a driver to take us to New Delhi tourist attraction:

• a visit to the Mohandas Ghandi cremation memorial (a sparse but lovely memorial to a man dedicated to independence through nonviolent means),
• a guided tour of the Qutb Minar, site of seven places of historical significance including an enormous and beautiful minaret (Muslim prayer tower), and arches and columns from an ancient mosque, ruins of a historic Hindu temple, and an iron column carved with Sanskrit writing dating from the 600s.  There were brightly colored green parrots flying around the ruins.
• a driving tour past the Presidential Palace, Parliament area, and the famous India Gate, which is very impressive when lit up at night.

After time to clean up back at the hotel, we had dinner with the other mission partners in a upscale restaurant, sampling traditional Indian foods and ending with a palate cleanser leaf filled with sugary crystals with a cloves inside.  Then, back to the hotel to counter the jet-lag with sleep…if you can call it that.

I’m not complaining, just letting you know our situation. It has been an amazing and rewarding experience to date, both in line with my expectations and exceeding them.

I do have some notes to share from our first day or two, and I’ll get those posted soon. I haven’t begun to process any photos yet either. I’m eager to see what’s been captured, but I already know it won’t do justice to what I’ve experienced in person. Trust me that the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of India are wonderfully exotic and altogether a heady mix.

Today’s a day of relaxation and recuperation. I’ll post more later.

8:45 a.m. Phone call on my way to the office: the church secretary’s father is gravely ill and the family has been called to rally around.  Brief stop at the office, then off to hospital to learn he has already passed away. Spent some time with the family.

10:00 Back to office where air conditioning is out; a new motor has been ordered.  It’s 84-degrees today and humidity is hanging in the air.  Offices, on the second floor, are getting unbearably hot.

Internet is not working at office for the second day. Don’t know what’s wrong, but we are switching phone/internet providers, and maybe the switchover will solve the problem, but I don’t know when that will happen.  Tried resetting the server with no success.  Staff has no access to email, but I can read my messages on my phone and give brief responses on the tiny keyboard.  Longer messages will have to wait.

10:30 Technician from cable company arrives to install new phone service and internet!  He needs access to wiring, modems, servers that I don’t know about.  We figure it out after lots of poking around in closets on various levels of the building.

10:45 State elevator inspector shows up for annual visit.  Needs access to elevator control room, and I have to find the key. The emergency phone in elevator not working because of new installation.  Will we be cited?  No phones are working anywhere in building.

12:00 Internet system installed, but still not working.  Technician says we must contact our volunteer IT guy to change protocols on routers.  Luckily, he’s able to come right over.  After checking it out, he needs info from his office to complete the job, but offers to come before work tomorrow.  Internet can wait another day, but it reminds me how dependent we are on this technology.

12:15 Phone lines are working.  Elevator inspector leaves happy. Phone technician says we can’t use voicemail until we log on to computers and set up the system with our assigned user name and password.  Who knows what those are? And we can’t log on until internet is reset. Oy veh!

12:30 I brought a sandwich from home, and since there’s a cross-breeze in the church kitchen, I stand at the counter at noon and wolf it down with a Snapple.

Volunteer arrives to change the church sign.  He’s got a message to go on the sign, but where are the letters kept?  We search for ten minutes, then another staff member searches behind us and finds them.  Where is the key for the lock on the sign?  Found it!

1:00 Temperature is climbing in the office.  I grab a portable fan from the sanctuary and plug it in my office.  I have my laptop, and the coffee shop down the street has free WiFi.  I can’t go because a couple is due to arrive at 3pm to tour the church for possible wedding.  I decide the fan is only blowing hot, sticky air on me.  I sit in the cooler conference room and do some sermon study, but after 10 minutes I’m getting too sleepy and I’ve read the same commentary section 3 times over.  I need to move.

1: 30 I stroll to the library across the street to return a travel book.  Vacation is coming in four weeks, and it can’t come soon enough.  It’s cooler outside than it is in the office.

2:00 A high schooler shows up to paint the preschool classroom.  Another teen arrives to help the church educator get things packed up from the old classroom.  What good kids!

I call the new phone company to determine user name and password so we won’t miss any voicemail messages.  After a long hold time, phone company says we don’t need it at all.  Voicemail is working fine.  Why didn’t I check it before I called?

3:00 Air!  The A/C motor has been replaced, and it’s starting to take some humidity out of the office.  Back to reading for Sunday’s sermon.  Return phone calls.

4:00 Wedding tour couple never show up, so I’ve been sitting here waiting for nothing.  Grrrr.

Plumber arrives to install sink in preschool classroom and informs us he must shut down all water to the building, drain the system, do his install before we can use water again.  He wants a time tomorrow to do it, but rooms are booked by groups for morning, afternoon & evening. We agree to meet at 8 a.m. and he has a plan to minimize the down-time.  Whew!  We don’t want unusable bathrooms on these hot and sticky days.

A really cold Diet Coke with Lime gets me through the late afternoon.

5:00 A brief counseling appointment.

5:30 Checking in with the church custodian.

5:45 Dinner break.  I need to get outta here!  When I go out to the car, my glasses fog up in the humidity.  What is this, Louisiana?  I head to a nearby fast food joint where there’s no one in line, but service is painfully slow.  I don’t care.  It’s air conditioned. I ordered a sandwich, fries and drink that should be enough calories for two days and enough sodium for a week.  Is it any wonder I’m becoming super-sized? Manager apologies for slowness and gives a coupon (score!) for another bloated value meal. A couple of parishioners are here too, and stop by for a friendly greeting.  I refill my iced tea and head out the door.  I’ve had enough tea now, and since I’m mostly decaffeinated, I wonder if I’ll sleep tonight.

6:30 Back at church office.  It’s much cooler, but the temp won’t seem to go below 75.

Prepping for a small, informal wedding at 7 p.m.  A couple in dire circumstances can’t afford fees charged elsewhere, and can’t afford not to be married for financial reasons.  It was just them and me, but they had dressed in their finest.  She carried a bouquet of plastic flowers that one would place in a vase on a grave.  They are beaming and happy, and their gratitude makes my day. I took their picture in front of the altar.  They ask what time services are on Sunday.  I smile and tell them the worship schedule.  I know we’ll never see them again, but I hope they experienced a little bit of grace and welcome today.

7:30 Church board and committee meetings begin.  Small attendance tonight, but some wonderfully dedicated leaders.  They are the church.

I sit in on the Trustees meeting. Do we need a new lawn mower, or can we just replace the wheels on the 20-year old one?  These people do so much for the church without payment…and little thanks. Can we change the procedures for wedding cancellations? The group decides to buy 2 new water hoses to help the volunteer gardeners.  Planning a fund raising event for August during the local festival.

Air temp has finally dropped to a comfortable 72 in the office.  Now I won’t dread coming in tomorrow.

8:45 Write some notes for tomorrow’s Bible study.

9:30 Heading for home.  No worry about all the caffeine; I won’t have any trouble sleeping. The custodian is locking up behind me.  The twenty minute drive home is perfect for thinking, praying, summing up the day.

Here’s what I’ve learned today:

• I’m grateful for the dedicated staff members and volunteers who work very hard to fulfill the mission of this place.  If anyone thinks the minister does it all…think again.  It’s a team effort.  Some days are easier than others, but the hardest days are easier with a good team in place.
• I’m tired, but I love my vocation and I love this place of service.
• I’m more of a whiney geek than I like to admit.
• God works in [very] mysterious ways.

Eighteen months earlier, I’d gone to a department store optical shop because I had broken my frames and needed new ones.  The store was advertising half-price on a new pair, and they had a style of frame that I liked.  When I went to order them, I learned my prescription was just slightly outdated, and I would need an exam and new prescription.  For convenience, I used the doctor in the store who, within minutes, wrote me a stronger prescription for the reading portion of my glasses.

What I’ve since learned is that my prescription should never have changed from years ago.  The hasty exam from the department store doctor was incorrect–and I’ll spare you the details about the doc’s lousy attitude.  With my recent check-up, my regular eye doctor recommended I go back to my old pair.  The broken pair.  I still had them, and putting them on again was like a healing miracle…everything was fine!…except that they are broken, and to replace them would cost a minimum of $300. One store actually quoted me $430.  If you know me, you know I’m too thrifty to feel comfortable with that.

I’d read about ordering glasses online.  I studied the websites.  I talked about it for weeks…no, months.  But I was still very hesitant.  What if I got the wrong prescription…how would I ever know?  What if they didn’t fit my face?  What if they looked cheap?  What if…. well, this went on for quite some time.

Finally, a friend (sick of hearing me whine about it) reminded me that it was only an $80 gamble.  Yes, eighty bucks for progressive bi-focal wireless rim titanium frame with scratch coating and anti-glare coating on high-density polycarbonate lenses.  It was time to take the plunge.  Yes, I live on the wild side, don’t I?

I requested my prescription written by my doctor, and though it took some translating help, I was able to enter the code into the website along with my choice of frames and lens style.  I won’t say it was easy.  The directions were not clear and it took a phone call to confirm that I was entering the information correctly.  In fact, I quit mid-page and sheepishly took a printout of the online form back to my eye doctor’s office and asked the nurse to verify the numbers.  The nurse told me quietly she’d ordered glasses for her daughter online and was satisfied.  I went home and measured the distance between my pupils, as best I could.  Finally I placed the order, telling myself not to be too disappointed; that is was worth the gamble.

The glasses arrived in two weeks from China, well fit, well-made, and perhaps the nicest pair of glasses I’ve owned.  In the end, the final price was only $72.  Online prices for simpler prescriptions and styles start around 8 bucks.  Yes, eight.

Needless to say, I’m sold.  In fact, I’m an evangelist.  I do feel for those who make their living selling glasses in brick and mortar stores; their overhead must be incredibly high–but then, so is their profit margin.  The internet definitely levels the playing field.

Though I’ve read a few anecdotes about online orders gone wrong, a vast majority seem to be pleased.  Some are more than pleased.