We rolled up into India about a week ago
Travel day was loooong.
The opposite of short.
Exhausting.
3 planes totaling 14 hours
2 layovers totaling 15 hours.
1 bus ride totaling 7 hours.
We finally arrived.
Only to be told we had not yet arrived.
2 days later,
4 hours on a bus,
and my team made it.
…Finally.
Driving down the street I couldn't stop looking out the window.
Cows.
Colors.
Saris.
Punjabis.
Noises.
Water buffalo.
Hindu temples.
Men in skirts.
Monkeys.
Flowers.
Fruit.
Abnormally beautiful people.
…So many things to see.
Yet the whole time my heart was breaking.
Tears would not stop streaming from my eyes.
I smiled at so many women.
I waved at so many children.
I prayed the whole time.
Because most of these people
worshiped idols.
Prayed to things that will not hear them.
And that reality does not vibe with my soul.
…Not even a little.
We get to the city.
Bugs galore.
Men crowding around the group of Americans.
Can't take money out at the ATM.
Wearing stinky clothes.
Abnormally spicy food.
Have not showered in five days.
Monkeys are staring at me.
I'm left handed in a right handed country.
..it's pretty.
We finally roll up to our house.
Following our translators direction.
Living with our pastor.
In our tents.
On the roof of his home.
During monsoon season.
… it makes sense.
Basically, it's so easy to see what is hard.
It's so easy to think I deserve better.
It's always easy to crave easy.
But God didn't want easy for me.
He wanted good.
And what is good is so much better than what is easy.
Because good is hard.
It's seeing your contact
and his wife and his kid give up their bed
because your tent has 3 inches of water chillin' at the bottom.
it's walking into a village to preach the gospel
to people who are Hindu and Muslim
and seeing them kneel before Jesus.
It's holding hands with 10 different kids
and knowing you will not see them again
but trusting that you will in some time to come.
it's praying for miracles
and trusting god to do them
because I don't have that kind of power.
it's serving alongside a translator
who left his wife and children for a month
to do the work of the lord.
it's sing a 17 year old wives and moms
with arranged marriages
love their husbands and serve the lord.
it's
good.
refining.
challenging.
difficult.
beautiful.
Being in India often means seeing the things that "I don't get"
things I still want to be ignorant to
but trusting that they are good.
Because I serve a God who hears me.
Who keeps His promises
And who loves his children even more than I do.
Imagine that.
