1000?

The temporary motel we are living at in Miami is owned by a partnership of immigrants from India. They hire other Indian people to manage the motel. It's been interesting getting to know them, they always seem very interested in our kids. Apparently having 5 kids living in an efficiency apartment is an odd thing (???) Come to find out the manager and his wife were only allowed to have two kids and in recent years the law changed in India and now a family can only have one.


The manager (Sonny) is very talkative, if you let him, he will go on and on and on. I think they feel very alone in this strange country and when they find a sympathetic ear, they have no problem letting go. When the neighborhood of motels started decorating for Christmas, Sonny went into a storage room and found an old box of Christmas lights and started hanging them, it didn't take long until Ruthie was right in the middle of helping out. Then they found an old artificial tree and set it up in the office. Ruth was so excited, she just had to go to the store at that very moment and get candy canes for the pitiful little tree.


I think Sonny and his wife were very thrilled to see how excited Ruth got over Christmas coming. Every time Sonny sees Ruth, he asks if he can eat one of the candy canes. We always knew that she would be a catalyst to meeting people and being able to get into their lives, sharing God's love in practical ways. We have found out that they are Hindu and worship 1000 gods. They are strict vegetarians and not only were they limited on how many kids they could have, their marriage was arranged by their parents. Theirs is a very calculated and planned out culture, they do everything with a purpose and even though they love being in the USA they do not understand us.


Getting to share the meaning of Christmas was exciting, I can't wait until Easter to be able to explain the redemptive love of Jesus' sacrifice.