[featuring India] …from November
Oh man, where do I start about our time in India?
I guess the very beginning (since it”s been so long).
It started on the plane, but not for the obvious reason to get
us from Romania to India. For me, the journey started in my seat while I was
praying. I was talking to the Lord and
praying about the upcoming month. I remember having the following conversation
(as documented in my pink journal decked out in skate stickers):
“Lord,
here in India, would you show me Your name and renown? Would You show me how
bright Your church shines here? Would You give me a spirit that is strong and
courageous because You are with me?”
“Constance, India is one of my
prized processions.”
I have found what the Lord whispered in that moment to be
true and quite accurate.
Where do I even begin about the people of India? They are
rooted in respect, honor, and hospitality. I imagined India to be a challenging
place with a clashing war between the East and West. From my time there, I
found a people very much like myself. Girls were still coming up to intercede
for their fathers. Wives were still asking that their families would come to
know the truth in Jesus. People were still plagued with cancer. Pastors still needed
discernment on how to lead God”s people.
Here traveling the world, I”m finding that people aren”t
much different than myself. All the people I’ve met still have the same tasks I
do, have the same afflictions I do, and aspire similar things I do.
people
are people, wherever you go. . .
…or as my Dad always
says…
“Bill
Gates [insert whoever you want] gets up every
morning and puts his pants on the same way I do.”
((so what did i do
this month?))
Our squad partnered with an organization that was like an
umbrella for various types of ministries. Some teams helped trained worship
leaders, looked after orphans, and helped plant churches by preaching in local
villages.
WELL, the Lord
decided it was time for me to preach.
Whoooaaaaahhhh.
(yikes.)
[insert more
drama]
So my team and I worked with a local pastor who was
overseeing the churches in our area. Every night, we traveled to a village that was an hour or so away; and let
me tell you, these were LEGIT
villages! Some days and we’d be looking at the outskirts of the jungle. (I unfortunately never had a
chance to say “hey” to Mowgli.) One day, someone had spotted a tiger cub
just the day before. Many of the churches, however, we visited were not even
constructed yet, so we held services outside. Many of the congregations were
just starting, with majority coming out of Hinduism.
Once we arrived at a village, we would go around the
village, pray for people,
and then have an evening of preaching. Looking back now, it doesn”t seem
like that overwhelming of a task, but I want to reassure readers that I about
pooped my pants when I realized I needed to preach every other night. It was
one of the best experiences thus far on the race, and it was extremely
exhausting.
Some
of my struggles throughout the month were:
-Are these word I’m preaching
mine or His?
-Am I speaking the truth?
-Is this what God wants me
to say to these people?
There were, however, some AWESOME things that happened while
we went around praying for people. Here”s some of the highlights:
1. Praying for the mayor’s wife (Hindu) of one
village. She was asking for a child and
must of had an overload of God because she passed out.
2. Praying for a local pastor”s
sister-in-law
who was Hindu. She came out to one of the “rallies” and went home afterwards
and started reading her Bible. The pastor invited us back to pray for her. I told her God was beginning to enlighten the
eyes of her heart (Eph.
1:18), and Jesus was knocking on the door of her heart (Rev. 3:20). I
encouraged her to open it. We prayed for her and her husband who was ill. The
next time they went to the doctor, they said the husband was healed and didn’t
need to come back.
3. Praying for another Hindu woman who had stopped
coming to the church because her husband didn’t want her taking baptism. Prayed
for God to intervene in the situation, and the woman almost fell over! I was so
startled by it that I screamed in the middle of my prayer.
4. Not having anything planned to preach and
feeling the Holy Spirit”s prompting to share an experience from
About One. Probably on of the best sermons I felt I preached that
month, and I didn’t plan a single word.
5. Witnessing 3 baptisms of recent converts
and watching Rhakeem (teammate) help with the immersions!
6. Praying for a young
girl whose father struggles with alcohol. We both
were crying. We could feel that God was amongst us.
