There are many things I love about this place. There really are. As the weeks pass, I am increasingly thankful for the growing love and friendships I am encountering. That old saying is true "love doubles your joy and divides your sorrow".
But there is one problem here that I do not appreciate. They call it Eve teasing. Its South Asia's term for sexual harassment. Delinquent males seem to find pleasure in making lewd comments, gestures or even worse towards women in public. I even hate the semantics of it. Eve teasing refers to the temptress nature of Eve, placing responsibility on the woman as a tease, as though the aggressive response of the males was normal.
Honestly I ignore all back ground noise when I go out and so I probably haven't really paid attention to it. I somehow have just tuned it out. But yesterday I had an encounter that was so extreme there was no way I could ignore it. I encountered some really obnoxious and hateful males who were riding along side my rickshaw. My anger escalated as they seemed to find true pleasure in what they were doing. I must say, I didn't react in a way that was glorifying to His name. My driver saw what was going on so he sped up and left the boys in the dust.
As we continued on our journey, I thought about what had just happened My first thought was "Shame on those boys". It is not ok what they did. But... I was also regretful that I responded the way I did. I immediately remembered that His power is made perfect in weakness. I remembered that my heart is depraved and His grace is sweet. He turned a painful situation into a reminder of His redemption. I have a ring on my right ring finger with the Hebrew word for "redeemed". Nobody can take that away.
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