Is your husband your friend?

There are many differences between my home culture and my present culture, but one that is strikingly different to me in my relationships with women is marriage.  The norm here is arranged marriage.  For most this means that a girl's parents or elders, through the means of relatives and friends, find a suitable match for the girl in a boy who will hopefully be able to provide for her financially in the future.  This looks different depending on caste and wealth, but for the most part the boy and girl barely know each other before they "say I do" (to use an American colloquialism".  Typically the young couple goes to live with the groom's family where the bride learns from her mother-in-law how to take care of the house, and if she is lucky, it is an amiable agreement.  A lot of the time the bride spends more time with her mom-in-law than with her husband.  (Though many also live on their own as young couples as job, wealth...allow).
     I often wonder about the intimate details of these marriages since they are so different from ours.  I have read novels set in Eastern cultures that talk portray life for woman in an arranged marriage, but what is real? How is it different for Christians?  I have often wondered in going into friends' one room homes in which everyone sleeps within the same four walls how there is enough privacy for intimacy...
   So one day I was talking to Sangita and the subject came up to where I could ask her discreetly about these things.  At first I tried to go about it using a commercial where a young woman talks about finding her "love day" with her arranged husband (the day she realized she loved him), but Sangita did not understand this. So I just asked her to tell me her story.
    Sangita and her husband were distant relatives.  He is nine years her senior and the son of a pastor and teacher of local dialect.  He did not have a job.  They were betrothed when Sangita was 16, but waited two years to be married.  During that time they never talked.  I can't imagine having never talked to my husband before my wedding day.  After they were married they went to live with his parents in a very small house.  They fought a lot due to their differing views on things and Sangita admits that she was often very angry. Very soon Sangita became pregnant with her first child, then her second, and then her third.  Things got better in the family because Sangita made Jesus her Lord and she learned to serve her husband who is very impatient, drinks, and is very demanding.  He got a job and things improved.  They moved into a larger house- 3 rooms for 7-8 people...
There are a lot of gaps in the story.
     Then I asked, "So you have been married for 20 years.  Is your husband your friend?" She quickly shook her head and said no.  She said that there was never any way for them to become friends because they never had any privacy.  For a long time she has shared a bedroom with her son while her husband sleeps outside.  She said that they have never been alone to just talk and get to know each other.  They don't know each others' hopes and dreams or what makes them happy.  She said that she wouldn't let that happen to her son and daughter-in-law.  Before her 19 year old son gets married she is going to make sure that they have a room to call their own (this means either both sisters have to get married or the grandpa has to die before he can get married).
    Despite the fact that there is no friendship, no romance, really no relationship with her husband, Sangita talks about how she serves him.  She fixes all of his meals for him, takes care of him in sickness, goes to work to pay the bills since he is sick, carries water on her head so they can bathe, takes him to doctor appointments, raised three kids... She did not do this because she loved her husband or because she got love in return, but because it is her duty as a wife.  What a different perspective.  Americans are so filled with a sense of entitlement.  I am so filled with a sense of entitlement that if I do not feel properly loved or romanced by my husband then I do not want to serve him.  But this is definitely not what the Bible teaches.  I am thankful that I have a husband who strives to love me like Christ loves the church, but even if he did not, I am still supposed to submit to him and be his help mate.
    My neighbors work so hard in their homes all day long to serve their husbands (none of whom are Christians) because it is their duty.  I am sure that some of them are actually friends with their husbands, but some are not.  It just encourages me to be a better help mate and thank God that my marriage is based on more than duty.

Dear Momma

This Mother's Day I find that I appreciate you even more as a mother of two than as a mother of one.  I am so thankful that God knit me together in your womb and allowed me to be raised by you, for you are the best mom that I could ask for.  You are truly worthy of praise and emulation.  You teach me so much about what it means to be a mom, wife, friend, woman of God...
    A few words I think of when I think of you are: selflessness, servant, sacrifice, intercessor, studious, assiduous, and shopper.
    I think selflessness, servitude, and sacrifice go hand in hand and were ever apparent on you most recent trip to see us.  I don't know that I could ever thank you enough for all that you did for us on that trip, preparing things to bring for us, buying groceries, cooking, doing dishes, doing laundry, playing with Silas, holding Evelynn, getting bit by a dog (you sacrificed you leg for us), and being away from your own home and life for 6 whole weeks.  But it isn't just with your own daughters that you are this way, but you expend yourself for others as well.  You and Dad have been an amazing example to me of giving of yourself (not just money) to help others in need, whether physical, emotional, psychological... You are such a great friend, mentor, surrogate mother/sister to everyone who needs it.  It is not easy to be selfless and I know that I still have a long way to go as I learn to be the mother God wants me to be, but thank you so much for showing me what it looks like.
    Your prayers for me/us mean the world to me and have moved many mountains/mole hills.  I love so much  that you pray for me in the middle of the night (the middle of my day) and all throughout the day as well.  It brings me comfort to know that I am bathed in your prayers and I pray that I will be faithful to do so great a service to my children as well.
    Studious- I so appreciate the way you study the Word and are constantly learning new things in the world around you.  Though you have much wisdom, years of life experience and years of studying the word, you approach things so humbly, always ready to learn something new.  I will always remember coming home from school one day to find the kitchen table covered with commentaries and Bible dictionaries as you earnestly sought to find an answer to something.  I am also deeply touched by the way you seek to learn things from me.  As one who is often too proud in my knowledge or experience, I greatly admire that you are a life long learner.
     Your diligence astounds me.  Yes, you know how to play, but you have modeled to me how to be diligent in the home and in ministry.  If you are given a job (or take on a job) I am 100% sure that you will complete it with excellence.  I am learning that moms are professional jugglers.  They don't start out that way, they learn, and you have learned the art of multi-tasking well.
  Ok, so I was on an S kick and I had to throw in a little humor, but you have to admit, that you are good at shopping.  Like I said, I so appreciated you doing our grocery shopping for us in Delhi, but it certainly doesn't stop at groceries.  As a girl I love that you love to shop for your daughters, and I have to say that I have caught this from you.  I rarely buy anything for myself because I am stingy, but when it comes to my kids, it is hard to resist.  Thank you for being wise in your purchases and generous toward others.  I would have gone unclothed and deprived of good food in seminary had it not been for you :).
   That are many other things I could say about you, but I just want you to know that I think you are the best, I love you a bunch, and I pray that I will learn to be a mom and woman like you!

Giving little one a bath

Hurt back, puncture wounds in calf, loving on my big boy

Singing praises with Silas

Three generations 

Blue-eyed Stoupa

I am sitting here in my hotel room staring out the window at the the blue eyes of the largest Buddhist Stoupa in the world.  What is a stoupa? I don't really know.  It a large round dome with a gold tower on the the top and a face much the totems on a totem pole.  We went to eat at a Tibetan restaurant today and it was situated in the shopping area around the stoupa. All round the outside wall of the stoupa are prayer wheels and pilgrims/tourists come along and spin the wheels- for what purpose I don't know.  It is a tourist site, a world heritage site, a place people come to look for faith.  There are a lot of people from all over the world here in this city looking for faith.  I met a girl yesterday from China who came here to look for faith and now she is trying to get a visa for India so that she can find faith there.  It breaks my heart.
    And it breaks my heart perhaps more that many of the people here looking for faith are from the West.  Many from European countries where the Christian faith was once strong, where great theologians who shaped movements and missionaries who traveled to distant lands once resided.  I that there is still faith there in those lands, but it is so sad to me how many from the West come to find faith in this land of darkness, where the idols stare you in the face and shout out to me, "I have eyes but I cannot see, I have ears but I cannot hear, I have hands but I cannot help you".  What is it that drives people to travel to distant lands to find the answer in images made of wood, gold, and clay when their creator and saviour is calling out to them from the mountains, seas, flowers, trees... "Here I am! I love you! I have eyes and I see you, I have ears and I hear you, I sent my son son for you so that you no longer have to strive with sin and the futility of this world..."  And yet they don't listen.  Their eyes are blinded.
    And so as I stare into the blue eyes, surrounded by Buddhist prayer flags, I send a petition to my God who hears.  Save these lost and searching souls!!!

Baking with Fruit

I have a child who refuses to eat fruit. I think he would like it if he would put it in his mouth, but he won't.  So, during Silas and mommy time we have started doing some baking with fruit.  We experimenting with replacing butter with different fruit purees.  So far we have make: Banana Mango Bread, Banana Peanut Butter Cookies, Pumpkin Spice Granola, Mango Coconut Granola, and Banana Spice Granola.  I try not to use much sugar either.  The bread didn't have any sugar in it and the other two just had brown sugar or jaggery (dehydrated molasses) in less quantity than it would normally call for because of the fruit's sweetness.
    I really like the cookies we made today.  I didn't measure, but it went something like this:
1 cup mashed banana
1/3 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 cup whole grain flour
some baking soda
some baking powder
some cinnamon
1/2 tsp vanilla
oats

Silas helped me measure and thus it is impossible to get an accurate read.  I started with about a cup of flour and then kept adding until I had the right consistency. 190 C degree oven for about 12 minutes.

Mango Coconut Granola
6 cups oats
1 cup pureed mango
3/4 cup brown sugar/jaggery (varies depending on sweetness of mango)
1Tbsp honey
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp turmeric
pinch of salt

 Spread out on cookie sheet. (you will have to use a few cookie sheets). Bake in 160 degree Celsius oven for 15 minutes.  Flip and then bake another 10-20 minutes depending on size of clusters.
Add shredded coconut and raisins (that is what I had available but other dried fruits or nuts would be good as well)