Coming into India, I was ready. Ready to leave Mozambique, ready to be in Asia and ready to experience a new culture. We flew on four different planes to get to Silchar. I am not sure what kind of India that I had pictured but where I am at is different than what I had in my mind. I guess I thought I would experience tons of people, so many that you couldn’t see the road you were walking on. I imagined the typical dark skinned, skinny Indian people in saris with the Hindu dot on their heads. I imagined temples and idol gods. I imagined lots of markets with extravagantly sewn garments. I now see people that are the people that you would imagine to see when in India but I see more oriental looking people. I see bamboo boats. I see palm trees. I see lush forestry, fields of rice, and cattle roaming around. I would expect this from probably any other Asian country but this one…but I love it. We got off of that plane and we were instantly drenched with our own sweat. Constantly soaked with beads of perspiration dripping from every inch of our body and over heating from the amount of warm bodies in one room. I slept in my hammock with a bug net but it wasn’t enough, I woke up with my back covered in bites from the Mosquitos biting me through the bottom of my hammock. I felt uncomfortable and miserable. We later took to the roof for some worship time. It was there that I was overlooking the palm treetops with the moon peering through that I felt God work something inside me. He reminded me humbly that when people are comfortable they don’t change. Only when you are pushed into the unknown and become uncomfortable is when you start to grow in areas because they are now being brought to your attention. Change is what I asked for. I asked to be tested, I asked to come back someone different, and I asked for me to see like Jesus does.
Realizing this, I started to take more notice of the things around me instead of how uncomfortable I felt. People live simply here. They tend to their crops by plowing with the yoke between two cattle. They fish amongst the random plot of water sitting in between rice fields. The women carry their bare skinned babies in their arms. They weave their own skirts and baskets by hand. They have so many people living in one household and each of those individuals serves a purpose in how the house operates. How wonderful is it to have a life that you are so close to your heritage, the nature that you are surrounded by and your extended family? Quickly I began abandoning anything I thought I was going to experience about India.
Although my initial Indian adventure was not at all how I pictured it to be, little did I know that I was stepping into probably one of the biggest missionary outreaches that has ever shocked this world. Where I am in India is home to the Hmar (Mar) people. They come from villages in the very eastern part of India, near what used to be called Burma. Just getting there was miraculous and far beyond one of the most adventures things I have ever done. We had the time of ours lives riding on a boat down the Barak river, taking a jeep through the jungle of India, and hiking with our packs under and through waterfalls to get there in the pouring rain. I was on cloud nine as we continued to trudge through the jungle and my surroundings grew to look increasing like something out of the Jungle Book, Jurassic Park and the Secret Garden combined. The amount of different types of plants and bugs is indescribable. Whisps of clouds brushing the tips of green brush mountains and the blue sky behind them. My heart overflowing from the beauty that surrounded me. I thought I couldn’t love a place more from the first sight. As if the view wasn’t breathtaking enough, we arrived and the students from the hostel and teachers were lined on each side of the road to welcome us into the village at 10:30 at night. They cheered and we pulled into the drive. At the end of the drive at our guest house was a personalized sign welcoming the ladies of the lord to Lungthulien as if we were some kind of superheroes. Little did we know that this would be a theme, every school we visited in nearby villages had their own sign that they made for us along with a meal to say thank you. It always churned my stomach when they said that we had to give up so much to get here and leave behind so much. They felt as if we were somehow suffering to be with them when they provided any need before we had to recognize that we had a need in the first place. It sickened me how much they looked up to us when they themselves were so inspirational in the way they served, loved, and glorified God. I can whole heartily tell you that they served us far more than we did them.
In the village, we worked with the Partnership Mission Schools. The students had exams kind of like midterms while we were there so we didn’t get to initially hangout with them much. We had a devotion every night with the hostel kids with worship. Every time we went to the schools we went and taught them how to write letters to their sponsors who help with their education. We played games with them. We even helped administer their exams and watch them take it as if we were really their teachers. On the last day of exams our team planned a celebration. We had a field day like you do in elementary school. We had three legged race, we fashioned a slip n’ slide, pebble-spoon race, sack race, sponge toss, tug of war, a slingshot game, and other water games. Afterwards we had a dance party including the chacha slide. It was the first time these kids have ever experienced anything like this before in their lives. I have never so much joy from watching a child slide down a slip n slide for the very first time.
To give you a brief background about the rich history of the heart of the ministry that we were apart of… Our main ministry contact, John Pudaite is the son of the legendary Rochunga Pudaite. You might be asking who is Rochunga Pudaite? I had no clue either until I came to India and I’m embarrassed to say that now having been here. Dr. Ro grew up in the village of Senvon in the jungle of India. Our team has had the privilege of traveling up the Barak River to be in the village of Lungthulien which is near Senvon. Our hosts took us to Senvon to see where Ro was born and to visit the school up there. After Watkin Roberts, a British missionary came into the Hmar tribes of India and brought the love of Christ into their lives.. Ro’s dad was transformed as well as the rest of the village people. In Ro’s words: “our tribes people changed from headhunters to heart hunters. Just one generation after the salvation of many members of the tribe, Ro’s parents became ministers and sent Ro to school so he could translate the bible into their native Hmar language. That is exactly what he did. He translated the bible into Hmar, formed the school system across the Villages known as Partnership Mission Schools, started Bibles for the World (which mails bibles to people in their native languages), and got the country of India to recognize the Hmar tribe people in their records (If you want to learn more I highly recommend the book fire on the hills).
I not only got to be apart of this wonderful ministry but I had the privilege to speak at one of his memorial services as he passed away while we were here. Even though I have never met the legendary man, I felt the sorrow radiating from his people as they mourned not only a dear friend but their leader of India. It made me feel like I was one of them and also deeply affected by his loss. It’s because I was. His faithfulness to the Lord has radically changed his people. So much inspiration in such a short period of time. As my team and I ventured through many surrounding villages, my love for the Hmar people grew stronger and not because they were spiritually lost but because how much they were spiritually found and grounded. I have never seen anyone so rooted in the Lord with every move of their being as I saw in every single person in the village. I’m blown away by their willingness to please our God. I will never forget the students at the hostel of the school that we got to work with. They invited us to mass prayer one night and as I walked down the ridge to join them, I peered to my right and saw the students with their faces buried in the dirt. Literally wiping dirt in their eyes and crying, no sobbing as children to their father in heaven. They danced in circles and shouted to the lord with a steady drum beating in the background. Pouring out their souls right there on the dusty ground for the Lord to come down and sweep up. I was instantly a child looking up to the students as they worshiped God with more understanding and knowledge then I feel like I couldn’t comprehend in my whole life.
I don’t think that I will ever stop striving for what those kids have. Even though we came here to pour out some love on them, I feel as if nothing that I could have done could compare to the hospitality they had shown us, the welcome family spirit that I received as if I was coming home from the moment they met me, and the love of Christ that they displayed so eloquently. For this i am forever grateful and extremely humbled. I know I have now witnessed a glimpse of heaven as it was brought here at this part of earth. You have left me in awe of India and left me with a painful longing for our family in a far away jungle as my heart is left unraveled at the edge of the village of Lungthulien.
