This month has been very different than how I originally anticipated it being. Our “official” contact has never actually made “contact” with us (no pun intended) which has been hard to get organized for ministry outreaches and such. We’re staying at the YWAM base which is great but I had heard so much about how YWAM keeps everyone so busy and there’s always so much to do. Well, we came in peak monsoon season, with Indian Independence Day and one of the biggest YWAM staffer’s weddings at the middle of the month so, needless to say, we came at a time where they had their hands full here in Bangalore. Thankfully, Christina (team W.O.W.s leader) and Mac (my leader) found a YWAM staffer who has his own ministry that needed our help. This guy’s name is Dave and he and his Chilean wife have been living here in Bangalore here for a while now helping at an orphanage, a few schools, a day care, a woman’s disabled home and some medical missions in the rural villages outside the city. Their ministry name is Mercy Ministries and both Dave and his wife have been so accomadating to our two teams this month. While our month has been a little slower than the rest, we’ve enjoyed ministry when we are given the opportunity to do it and are grateful to God for the time of rest, fellowship and mentally/emotionally preparing ourselves for re-entry into life at home. This month has definitely been a “God thing” from start to finish. I couldn’t have asked for a more phenomenal team of women to work with, a better selection of ministry and a more beautiful country to serve in. While working with Mercy Ministries, we’ve been able to help in every aspect of their ministry (with the exception of village medical missions because we would need more training to do it). On certain days of the week our teams will go to a Christian school where many Hindu and Muslim parents send their children knowing it’s a Christian school but also understanding that it’s one of the best schools in the city and their children would be receiveing the best education possible there. Because of this gift, we are able to present the message of the Gospel to literally hundreds of children starting at pre-school and going up to high school. There have been many children coming to Christ because of Dave’s ministry there and it’s been such a blessing getting to see transformations in the students in the small amount of time we’ve served there. Other days that we don’t go to the school we go to Faith Children’s Home where there are 25 youth anywhere from the ages of 1 to 19 years. All the children at Faith are from the north eastern part of India and they are the most incredible group of children and teenagers I’ve ever met. The children sing and dance and remind me of the Indian version of the Vontrap Family from the movie, “The Sound of Music”. All of the children at the home are Christians and all of them love the Lord so much it simply radiates out of their smiles when they run and greet us at the door everytime we visit. On Fridays we get to go to a day care for children who are 2 to 5 years old and they are PRECIOUS. The toddlers at the daycare are all Hindu so we perform Bible stories for them and explain how much the God of the Bible loves and adores them. I have to say, watching their little heads bob back and forth (instead of do an American nod up and down) one of my favorite things to witness and I always provoke a question I know they will bob their head to just so I can see it. This Saturday in Bangalore was the first day we’ve actually been busy morning ’til evening. We started with the entire YWAM community (about 70 of us) cleaning the entire mission compound and the area surrounding it. Everyone was seperated into groups and Paul, Rebecca and I got put in the most questionable group…landscaping and trash clean up outside. According to our cleaning day leader, “landscaping” means that we wack weeds with wooden beams until the break off of their roots and put them in a giant pile to burn them and “trash clean up” included picking up and disposing of dirty diapers, condoms and remains of only-God-knows-what. It was a hilarious to say the least and we ended our morning of cleaning with a giant bonfire of rubbish, a thousand rashes and bites from the plants and insects we’d been around and a piping hot cup of Chai tea. After the cleaning time (and a thorough cleaning via bucket shower) we jumped into the YWAM van and went to do college ministry where we do a small group with about 15 students from the Bangalore College. One of the students is from the Congo which I think is the coolest thing ever so our last time doing college minstry was filled with me asking him a thousand questions on the conflict in the Congo. This brings me to the end of our day, when we went to the woman’s disabled center to do a service for them. We were driving to the center in the Mercy Ministries car (which is an Indian Ambulance) and I volunteered to preach the message. Did I know what I’d be preaching to them about? No clue. But at this point in the Race I knew God would give me something goooooood…so I went with it. I hadn’t been this emotional in a while and to be honest, I was beginning to worry if I was on “missionary auto pilot” and just going through the motions of things. This was just what I needed from the Lord and it’s incredible that just when you wonder where that passion for following Christ has gone, He reignites your flame!! Praise the Lord for those moments. It can be so hard doing missions day in and day out, and not getting in a spiritual rut. It’s happened to me on the Race before but this month has been the hardest just because it’s month 11 and I’ve been doing the same thing for a year and I have found one of the hardest battles to fight is not getting jaded or accustomed to the injustices and wars out in our world…and to not just turn into a missionary robot without feelings and emotions. I know this is the worst thing you could hear from a missionary you’re supporting…that her heart’s not in it 100 percent of the time and she’s emotionally detached, but it’s the truth and it sucks when it happens. There are times in all of our lives when we begin routines and these routines are fine until Satan uses them to cause apathy and distance in our hearts. We have to remember that whatever we’re doing, we’re doing for the glory of God (1 Peter 4) and that we can never loose that fire inside our hearts. That’s what keeps us going and that’s what keeps us on this race we’re all running for Him. I think I had forgotten that at some point this month, and I am praising the Lord Almighty for dowsing me in His love for His daughters this week. It definitely woke me up from this horrible slumber I had been having for a while. If you’re reading this and you’ve lost the fire inside of you, pray for God to reignite that flame. I guarantee it He’ll blow you away with His love and His passion for you and for His Kingdom. This is “the sea” of children at the school we get to minister in…this is about 200 students. There is another group of 200 students upstairs that we get to preach to as well! God is so good! Praying at the end of our time with the toddlers at the day care we serve at. They’re just so darn cute! The women at the center and four of us women from Team Frontline. What an extraordinary day from Jesus!
I began praying for the Holy Spirit to fill me with wisdom and discernment on what to preach on and all of a sudden I was hit with such powerful feelings of love for these women. I have never met these women. I haven’t seen a picture or even know how many of them there were going to be. All I knew was that we were going to encourage women who are mentally and physically handicapped and we would be to their center in 10 minutes. God kept hitting me with words to say to them and scriptures to read. I began flipping around in my Bible and fighting back tears when I realized, I had gotten exactly what I prayed for and more. God was showing me His radical, intense and amazing love for these women and I was feeling it deep down in my soul. I was so overcome with love for these women I had never laid eyes on I couldn’t wait to give the message. Once we got to the center, my smile was ear to ear beaming at the precious women waiting for us on the ground. There were a four women who are deaf, four who are mute, four who are mentally retarded and five who have lost their legs and have to drag their bodies from place to place with their arms. I was completely choked up with Holy Spirit love in me that I could only smile, hold their hands and rub their backs. Alana began playing the guitar and I closed my eyes the entire time during worship, praising our Father in heaven who has created these women perfectly and beautifully and loves them more than they could ever understand.
I realized the reason I was filled with tears was not only because of God’s love for them, but because they don’t even know that God loves them. They have a Creator and a Savior that desperately wants a relationship with them and they don’t even know it. That’s when tears started falling down my cheeks and I realized I had to get it together to deliver this God-given message to them. After worship I looked out at the masterpieces of Christ sitting in front of me and I told them about the God of the Bible. These women were all Hindu and had been taught that it was bad karma in a past life that had caused them to come back in this life as a handicapped person. I rebuked that lie and the lie that they are worthless, as many of their families and communities have told them. I shared stories like Esther, Rahab and Moses…and explained that God has used orphans, prostitutes and disabled people to serve Him and do incredible things for His Kingdom if we only trust Him. I ended with the fact that if they didn’t get anything out of my message except the truth that God is crazy about them and wants nothing but a relationship with them, then our visit had all been worth it. I hugged them, still holding back sobs and we got in the Ambulance and headed home.
I love you, all. Thank you all for your comments, especially the comments you left me on my last blog “Six Flags of Emotion”. They were incredible and I needed each and every one of them, and the information from Wren Lawrence about how I can get involved in missions right at home in Greeley was divine timing. Wren, you comment was an answered prayer!! Thank you all so much…I can’t wait to see what God has in store for me in Greeley when I get home in two weeks. 🙂
