Joey Eades and Kristina Hill from the campus ministry at Cal State University, Long Beach, took a serving trip to India this summer in association with HOPE Worldwide. Below are excerpts from the emails that Kristina sent home during the trip. 
 
So far, we have worked for two days at the Tigri primary school for underprivileged kids. This school is technically illegal, just like the entire area of Tigri. The brick shantytown of sorts was built on public ground ... The government allows it because it will eventually go in and develop it - bring electricity and such. The actual site that the school uses was once a trash dump. It was cleaned and painted, and now insufficiently covers the children from the weather. (The kids all pray to God every morning for good weather). The parents of the Tigri schoolchildren are very grateful - they cannot afford to send their kids to a real school.
 
Every child at the Tigri school has a story. There is a girl named Nisha who witnessed her father murder her mother when she was only 3 1/2 years old. She had to testify against him in court. She was silent and subdued when she first came to the school a couple years ago, but now she is happy and playful again. She stays with her grandparents now. I got to teach her class yesterday, and she was one of the brightest girls in the class! Actually, I was amazed when I found out who she was, because she was also one of the boldest and most giving girls in the school. She was one of the first to approach me and welcome me on my first day. She used to say that she wanted to become a police officer so she could arrest and punish her father. Now she wants to be a teacher like the ones at the Tigri school.
 
Another girl named Nigum came to the school as an older teenager. She was very depressed and angry with God. Only a couple months after she got married, her husband murdered his relative. After studying in the Tigri school she passed the eighth board exam of India, which allows her to get a government job - an opportunity she never would have had without the school!
 
The church here is doing very well. They are extremely missions focused! They sent out a mission team last year, and are planning to send another to Punjab this year. Punjab is known for having many Hindu activists. The city they sent a mission team to last year, Urissa, was especially dangerous: a Christian missionary family had been there before them and the father and his two sons were burned alive in a van by Hindu fundamentalists. The wife and daughter survived them and are still alive today. The disciples who went on the mission there last year doubled in number in six months!
 
Joey and I are both extremely well fed by our respective host families! We may surprise you all and come back more plump than we left! ...
 
Funny things about India:
 
- There is a matrimony section in the local newspaper titled, \Brides Wanted\ and \Grooms Wanted\ - Like a personals section but a little more intense.
 
- Two men walking and holding hands are just friends. Wow.
 
- If you are nearly hit by a car in the states, you tell all your friends about it. If you are nearly hit by a car in Delhi, you\'ve just walked outside your door.
 
- If there are lines on the roads, they\'re more like guidelines than rules.
 
- In India, food falls into one of two categories: veg or non-veg
 
- We get to eat with our hands here! Woo Hoo!
 
- On the back of each seat on the bus a sign reads, \Look under your seat. There may be a bomb.\
 
-When there are clouds in the sky, everyone says, \Wow! What great weather we\'re having today!\ (It keeps the sun off and the temperatures cooler)
 
-McDonalds is here and sells a mostly vegetarian menu, complete with McCurry dishes...
 
...We also took a tour of the neighborhood around the Tigri school on Wednesday. These are the real slums of India. I had previously thought that the neighborhood I stay in was a slum area; the street corners are piled with trash, stray dogs roam the streets, and poor children play (sometimes without clothes) in the road. The Tigri neighborhood is even worse. This area consists almost entirely of one-room houses for whole families. One such home had more than 10 children all packed into the single 6-by-10-foot room. A sister said, \These people are the lucky ones - they actually have houses.\ Sewage floats down gutters on either side of the narrow paths between the houses. The children who live here help their parents to work by embroidering dresses. I was very hesitant to take pictures at first... I didn\'t want to offend anyone. The people were amazingly open, though, and very eager to have their picture taken. Even in their poverty, they were hospitable and warm!
 
Joey and I spent our last day at the Tigri school on Thursday. I already miss my kids! They drew us pictures with their own hands and made us fingerprint paintings and paper toys :) They\'re all so smart and talented! This school is such an incredible gift from God to these kids! All their talents and intelligence would have no opportunity to grow and bloom without it. They will be able to use the things they learn in school to go out and influence so many more people!
 
A little bit about life in India:
 
In the states, people often fall away from God because life is easy. In India, many people fall away from God because life is hard. That is, in the states we are often seduced by comfort. In India, it\'s such a challenge to pay the bills that people will often take a second job. Then they miss church often and slip away. In America, people who leave the church are often bitter at other people. In India, people who leave the church are sad that they could not make it.
 
God is teaching Joey and me so much about gratitude! We get excited now every time the lights come on, and especially when water comes out of the faucet! We get a chance to see with our own eyes the sickness and poverty that God has spared us. Some of the children we teach come to school with large boils on their faces; this is common here. India has one of the highest populations in the world. Delhi is overcrowded and it is not even the most populated city. Most people do not live the way that we do. Half the people in Delhi live in areas like Tigri. There are only a handful of different models of cars, a few different models of motorcycles, and a couple different types of bicycles. Almost every house that we\'ve been in uses the exact same type of inexpensive silverware; even all the teacups are the same, except for being different colors. The people here are just not concerned with what kind of car they\'re driving. They use cars to get around, not to look good. No one thinks about what they can get that will be better than what they have. If they think about getting something, it\'s because they need it.
 
This attitude of contentment is currently under attack in the younger generation, though: We love to joke about the Indian accents we hear whenever we call a customer service number, but those call centers are having a very powerful impact on both the economy and the culture here in India. Many young Indians work for these call centers and make more money than they ever thought they could. With the excess money comes the problem of finding ways to spend it. This is where Western culture is (hurting) the moral fiber of traditional Indian modesty. With their newfound wealth, the younger generation is eagerly pursuing the Western lifestyle portrayed in movies and television. Everyone in India is talking about how quickly the culture is changing. Women are wearing less and less and television has become extremely suggestive.
 
Soon after Joey and I arrived, Mark Templer asked us to pray that someone we meet here will become a Christian. He said that people would want to talk to us and even come to church simply because we are foreigners. On Saturday night, we experienced this first hand. Two brothers from the Indian church took us to a local mall where many young students our age hang out. A young man approached us and told us that he would be honored if we would take a picture with him and his friends because we are foreigners. We took the opportunity to share our faith with them. They were a lively bunch, and eager to try out their newly learned American slang on us :) Prayerfully they will come to church, hear the message of Christ and make a decision to follow Him! We are currently following up with them.
 
Sharing our faith here in India has been incredibly encouraging! For cultural reasons, we share almost exclusively with people our own age and (gender), but these people are so open! Most people we talk to are respectful and willing to hear whatever we have to say. Also, most people don\'t hesitate to give their phone numbers and keep in touch. It\'s really amazing! It also made me think: Will I share my faith less in America simply because people are less warm and respectful? Do they need Jesus any less where I live? Is the importance of our work for God dependent on the way people respond? Is God less urgent for people who don\'t seem \nice\?