The Sikh Temple

After visiting the slum and having lunch at the YMCA, we toured the Sikh temple. You've probably seen Indian men depicted wearing turbans-- that is traditional Sikh dress. Sikhism believes in equality of all people and rejects the caste system. They believe there is one God. Their name means "learner" or "disciple." Each Sikh temple has a place of worship and study where the holy book is kept, a kitchen that serves food 24/7 to anyone who comes, a bathing pool, and accommodations. The kitchen of this temple feeds 20,000 people a week. I think our churches should do more things like the Sikh kitchen.

The temple itself was beautiful, all white stone. Inside there was a big altar of sorts with the holy book on it. There were musicians playing instruments, and people would come in, kneel, and pray. It wasn't a service with a specific time; people just came and went as they wanted. There was no corporate worship, only individual, which is interesting to me, considering Sikhism is "anti-caste." Even though they believe in equality, there is not a united time of worship. People keep to themselves... to their castes?

Boaz's Slum

The morning of Day 2 in India, we traveled to the slum where Boaz lived from birth until he was 15 years old. Although 90% of the slum has been demolished and the (former) residents have been pushed out of the city, the shanty he lived in remains as well as the temple across the narrow alley. Outside the cement walls of the slum was a busy street, full of vendors and traffic and noise, women and children sitting on the sidewalk. It reeked of excrement.

I was hesitant to enter. Boaz had told us how the narrow streets would be packed with people, but when we entered, it was quiet and peaceful, even, compared to outside. There were many fewer residents, which obviously explains the lack of people. I felt strange entering this community unannounced, a large group of people who clearly were not locals.

Boaz led the way through the alley until we met some people and reached his old house and the temple. They let us into the temple to see. There was a large statue and altar. We took our shoes off to enter. The people were excited to show us. A young woman gave some of us girls bindis, the red dot on the forehead that is a blessing of a Hindu god. I wasn't sure I wanted to be blessed by any god who ordains inequality, but the women had hospitable intentions. Later Boaz told us that when he was a child, there were all night prayer vigils when women would go in and be possessed by spirits. Their voices would get low, almost like a man's voice, and they would tell people things like who should marry whom.

We walked further until we came to the part that had been destroyed. It was just dirt and rubble. We walked across the street to a hospital and a women's medical school. We talked to some students there, but were shooed away by the administration because we didn't have permission to be talking to her students, so we went back to the slum.

On our way out, we met the family who lives were Boaz lived. They let us come in and see it. They've expanded the house, so now it has four rooms instead of two. We talked there and all crammed into their bedroom to sit while we waited for the chai to be made. When it was ready, we sat on the ground in the temple and drank the chai and ate some food (I can't remember what it's called).

Contrast # 1: The administration of the school kicked us out, but the people of slum welcomed us and fed us, though they have very little.

And that was just the morning...

Day One

After 15 hours on a plane, we arrived in New Delhi. We met Kyle and Noel, who started the North American branch of Truthseekers and guided us throughout the week. First, we went to the hostel where we stayed. It was in the Embassy district of Delhi, so the area was pretty quiet and "high rent," which seems odd for a hostel. We checked in and went to bed. We had two rooms for six girls each and one room for the three boys. The girls' rooms had their own bathrooms, which was really nice. The beds had really thin mattress pads and made my hips feel bruised in the morning, but they got magically more comfortable as the week went on.

So, Monday morning we had breakfast at the cafeteria in the hostel and then went to the Truthseekers office for orientation and "stay awake day." We learned about the caste system and the mission of Truthseekers. Here are some broken down facts about the caste system:
- There are four main castes (from top to bottom): Brahmin (priests/government), Kshatriya (warriors/military), Vaisyas (mechants/business), and Shudra (Other Backwards Castes).
- The top 3 castes are 9% of the population
- a little more than 50% are Other Backwards Castes (OBCs)
- of the OBCs, there are 6000 subcastes, which keeps them from joining together
- the other 40% of people are Outcastes or Untouchables
- the caste system is constitutionally illegal, but the social structure is ingrained in the hearts and minds of the Indian people.
- the inequality of the caste system is by divine order, according to the Hindu religion
- there is no way to move higher in your lifetime, though a person can be born into a higher caste in their next life if they are good in this life
- the caste system is over 3000 years old

There is much more to the caste system, but I don't the half of it. What Truthseekers exists to do is to point the way to freedom for lower caste and out caste people by presenting the Gospel and washing feet as Jesus washed his disciples' feet. We learned about some reformers who influence Truthseekers, an important reformer being a man named Phule. He is important because he drew a connection between a low-caste story of a Sacrificed King (Bali Raja) who would some day come and sacrifice himself so the people could be free and Jesus Christ. Social activist and Truthseeker Sunil Sardar explains, "We are not beginning a new work, but joining Jesus Christ in what He is already doing, and expanding on what He has already revealed to His people in India."

We were introduced to the Truthseekers staff and Sunil, and we ate and sang songs and got to know each other.

Reflection

My week in India was a whirl-wind experience. The trip was surreal, and after only a week of being there, it's difficult to adjust back to life here. For one thing, there's a 12 hour time difference. Who goes to the other side of the world for a week? The exhaustion is well worth the experience, though. The days were long and intense. I had never seen such poverty or understood the reality of systemic injustice. They are no longer abstract words -- I've come face-to-face with them and looked them in the eye. I've walked their streets and washed their feet.

I think I'll try to go through day by day, or parts of days, to share more specific details of the trip progressively, so stay tuned.