One day after preschool, two of my friends and I were waiting for the bus when a woman walked by. She stopped a few feet a head of us then turned around and stared....for a long time. We said hello and asked if she spoke English. She gave a huge smile, shook her head, and proceeded to talk to us in Hindi. The man who had been waiting at the bus stop with us could tell by our confused faces that we had no idea what the woman was saying, so he translated the best he could. They asked why we were here, and we gave our rehearsed response:
We are students. We are learning how to tell stories and teaching preschool and English.the woman seemed very interested so the man told us she had invited us into her house. We all looked at each other and then decided that, heck yes!, lunch could wait! We thanked the man who had translated for us. His response was so sweet.
"I am Indian. You come to India from America. You bless us. We are kind to you."We followed the woman all the way to her tiny, tiny house in the middle of the slum. The whole walk I was ASKING for some type of communication to be able to happen. We pulled out the book that we had written a few Hindi phrases in from the girls at sewing class. It helped for quite a while and so did hand motions. She had picked up three sodas for us on the way to her house which we did not realize, and she cut up the best tasting mango in the world. She showed us the beach that is her backyard, literally 10 seconds from her door. We asked if we could pray for her. I thought we were about to leave, since we had exhausted all of our Hindi knowledge and she all of her English. All of the sudden, a swarm of kids pops into the doorway of her house and start pouring in. There were two girls who spoke very good English and could translate for us. Perfect! Just what I had asked DAD for! We each got to share our personal story and a story form the GOOD BOOK. We learned that the older woman has the same DAD we do! She asked if she could share her story with us in return. Then one of the girls who was translating did the same! It was amazing! We aren't sure where all the kids stand in their WALK, but they are all dying for us to come back! One girl said she would skip school if we would come back in the morning(which we obviously didn't encourage). When we finally left. Everyone walked to the bus stop and would not stop waving until they couldn't see the bus anymore. DAD opened a great door that day! I hope that we can minister to them more through out the rest of our time here.
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