Flied Lice and Thaipusam.

I am going to begin this post with a bit of a comedic anecdote, but then I will take a turn towards the more serious aspect of things that I have experienced lately.

Jared has been teaching me how to speak Chinese-English and we have been working really hard to abolish my use of the letter "R." Today we ate "flied lice" and yesterday we discussed "supplies pahties." He also told me, "When we go to Thailand watch out for ladies saying 'massage sir, good plice!'" It has been really good learning this new dialect.

Now for the more serious aspect of recent experiences: Yesterday I had a free afternoon. After lectures were through at 1 O'Clock, I was free so I decided that I was going to cycle down to the Hindu festival of Thaipusam. For those who don't know what this festival is, it is a Hindu celebration of Lord Murugan's, the youngest son of Shiva and Parvathi's, birthday. To celebrate, many Tamil Indians will shave their heads and carry large pots of milk. But, the extreme "devotees" will go through a process of mortification of the flesh to symbolize the lance that Murugan, who is the Hindu god of war, was given by his parents to vanquish the demon Soorapadman. To celebrate this, they take large metal spikes and pierce it through both cheeks and large metal hooks and pierce the flesh on their backs and tie ropes to the end of the hooks. Some "devotees" even walk on broken glass or hot coals, but often times they are ridiculed for taking this too far with acts that are too dangerous and contrary to the spirit of Hinduism. Needless to say there was none of this firewalking at the festival I was at.

As I walked around this festival, that I had to cycle about 8 Kilometers up and down hills the whole way, to get to I realized how lost these people truly were. There was a heaviness in the air that felt as though I were being pushed down at my chest. I can't begin to tell you how uncomfortable this feeling was. I think I should say, that I have lived a "sheltered" life that I am thankful to my parents for and I haven't really been in the position of seeing people kneeling in shrines worshipping dead gods. It is a truly painful feeling when you know that everyone around you is completely lost. These Hindus need I think some of the heaviest prayer. With many other religions you have to sway the beleivers from one dead god but with hinduism there are tons of gods that they worship. It really was something I'm glad I chose to go to because God really gave me a glimpse of how broken His heart is for these people. I'm also glad that I will never feel like I want to go back.