Hospitality and Brownies (Part 2)

By Caitlin D. 

This is part 2 of a 3-part series. Read Part 1 here.

After the study, a certain lady invites us to her home, and we go. Like many other ladies, she asks S. if I am her sister. Apparently they think we look alike. S. laughs and explains that I am her friend from her country. This lady looks at me, and her eyes are positively glowing. She lays her hand on my shoulder and she says that she feels she loves me already and that she is so, so glad that I am here.

I'm grateful, but I feel like an imposter.

She has us come into her house, and S. begins to show me around. I step into the doorway of a mud house. Inside it's as black as night. I stand inside and know that I'll never forget this. It's a house built of mud. There are no windows. S. shows me a circle of burnt wood, and she explains that that is where she cooks her meals. I feel my stomach tighten inside me.

Beyond is a slightly larger room, where she sleeps with all of her children, and that's all there is to the house. She then takes us outside, where she has a wooden bench next to a table, and there's a colored canopy spread over it. On the table is a tiny sewing machine, and S. explains to me that that is how she earns the money she and her children live on. She tells us to be seated, and so we sit. She wants to serve us some food, which is the height of hospitality in India, I'm told.

A surge of emotion wells up inside me as she leaves to bring it to us. This is hospitality at its peak. This woman has so little, and yet she earnestly wants to share and make us her guests. She brings us out some roasted corn, and two little glass bottles of Mountain Dew. Wait, she's bought us Mountain Dew??

"Oh Lord, protect my stomach, please," I hear S. say with a grin. I pray the same thing. All these flies are buzzing around us, and I'm trying my best not to flinch too obviously like a spoiled Westerner.

S. digs right in, and I follow her example. I have never seen true hospitality until today. I have never seen it so self-sacrificing and so happily given. I look into this lady's shining eyes, and I feel such shame and disgust at myself that it's working its way into a sick feeling inside me. I'm trying to keep it down so that I don't begin weeping right now in front of her.

After we finish eating and drinking, S. visits with her, and after a farewell, we drive back home.

The house is quiet, and even though I'm not tired, all I can do is lie down. I'm overwhelmed by what I have just seen, and yet I can put no words to my emotions. I have to sort myself out.

I think about this afternoon. The hungry hearts, the mud house, the stark poverty, the lifestyle of toil and hardship. Then I see her eyes, shining with joy and love. I think of her words to S: "Didi, I need nothing! I have everything in Christ!"

I close my eyes and feel a struggle forming within me. What I have just seen is the polar opposite of the only lifestyle I have ever known. Of course I've read about things like this. Of course I've heard about them from missionaries that come to our church. I've even seen the movie, "Slumdog Millionaire," a powerful movie about a boy who was born in the slums of India. But actually seeing this kind of poverty with my own eyes has almost unmade me.

At least that's how I feel now. Unmade.

Nothing can ever be the same again. What I have just seen demands a response from me. But what kind of response? I have no idea.

I'm smote inside with guilt at the pampered life I've led. But God gave me those things, so they weren't sin for me to have. I probe deeper into my heart. I'm aware of a frantic fear that I'm trying to control, but what is it?

What I find myself praying is, "Oh, Lord! What do you want me to do? What ever can I do? Just tell me...what must I do?"

Then I understand. I realize that I must never forget what I have seen, but I don't know how to live my life in the right response of it. What does He want me to do? I'm suddenly aware of how He owns my life and how He can demand anything of me. I'm afraid because I want to obey, but what will He ask of me?