Throughout the summer, I always looked forward to visiting my three friends: Sara, Sue, and Lindsay. They all own shops on the beach and are good friends. Sara is a very faithful Christian and Sue and Lindsay are both Hindus. Each time we visited, all three women continuously asked us to pray for various areas in their lives. In our openness and acceptance of each’s lifestyle, we were able to feel the freedom to share stories about our lives and religions.
As our time in Goa was coming to an end, our team wanted to do something special for these three ladies that had grown to mean so much to us. We put our thoughts together and our last few hours together went something like this:
We took them out to lunch, and while waiting for our food we told them that if they felt comfortable with it, we would love to wash their feet. We explained that JC did the same right before He died. We told them that we wanted to honor them-showing our love and respect-in this way. They all eagerly agreed.
After lunch, we all went out on the beach and took three chairs from Sara’s shop. We put down buckets at their feet and began to wash them. After we finished, they insisted on washing ours. This, of course, made it so very special, because we could see that the love and honor was felt on both sides. As if that wasn’t humbling enough, after they washed our feet, instead of using a towel to dry our feet, like we had, they reached behind them, pullled around the tail of their sarees and began to dry our feet with them. We begged them to use the towel but they would not. Immediately I was humbled as the image of Mary drying Jesus’ feet with her hair wouldn’t leave my mind. These past two months I had been afraid that in their desperation, they had been blinded by our money and couldn’t see past our tourist-like/ consumer appearance. In this moment, I understood that they had seen our honest concern for their well-being-in Jesus’ name. This “simple” act made this trip-support raising, the vast range of emotions felt over the past two months, leaving home and everything comfortable- far beyong simply “well worth it.” I mean, goodness, I shouldn’t even try to grapple with how to communicate this experience because there are no words. I am leaving this whole India experience speechless.
EPH 3.20
