It’s hard to believe that month one of the WorldRace is over, done, finito. Time flew by! India was everything that I expected yet at the same time nothing like I expected. I have been dreaming about going to India for the past 4 years, so to finally have that dream come to fruition reduced me to tears more than once. There is a lot that can be said about this month, so I’m going to try and stick to the main points:
Challenges
There were many challenges this month, starting with the lack of wifi. I’m used to being connected all the time…for free. That’s not the case in India, the closest wifi was a 15 min walk away and there was a 50/50 chance that it would even work. It was incredibly freeing to not be tied to back home, but lack of wifi makes communication difficult and I’m not even good at communication when it’s easy.
Another challenge that relates to the wifi situation was the electricity situation. I can probably count the number of times I’ve lost power in the US on 2 hands, 3 hands max. Yet in India we lost power at least twice a day. Sometimes we lost it for 10 minutes, other times it was more like 6 hours. That may not seem like a big deal, but when the power goes out in the middle of the night and there is no fan, it gets hot and the mosquitos attack.
As I’m writing this, it seems trivial beyond believe but during the month this was a legitimate struggle for my team and me. I just have one question, have you ever eaten rice for 3 meals a day and then for 3 weeks straight? I hope to goodness that the answer to that question is no, because I can tell you from first hand experience that it’s difficult…it was almost 60 straight meals of rice. And to top it off, the next 10 months probably won’t look too much different, yay Asia!
The biggest challenge that I encountered though was actually with ministry. I love the organization that we were partnered with, I just had expectations going in and our month looked very different from what I had planned. That being said, God’s plan was way better than anything I could have and did dream. My team and I got the opportunity to join in with some many different types of ministries. We went on house visits and prayed for families, we went to 3 different orphanages, we went to an old person’s home, we went to an HIV/AIDS health clinic talked with people and did some physical labor, we went to a home for homeless people, we went to a home for the blind, and we went to home for temple prostitutes. So our team got the opportunity to see how the church in India is growing in so many ways which was awesome, I just have this desire to go deep and that was hard this month.
The Good Times
Enough with the challenges, now to the stuff I really want to share with y’all, there were so many good times during month one. The presence of the Lord was evident and worked through much of our team!
Though working with some many different organizations made it hard to make deep relationships because sometimes we only got one conversation with people, it also allowed my team and me to meet so many cool people that are impacting India for the Gospel everyday! Two of my favorite days were spent at orphanages. One of the orphanages was for children who were homeless. I got the opportunity to hold the cutest little girl ever and when she fell asleep in my arms, it took every ounce of my strength to not just take her home with me!! At the other orphanage, we arrived and were told that we were putting on an assembly. So our team quickly came up with some songs, some dances, a bible story to act our, and a book to read out loud. Not sure if I mentioned this, but there were 150 kids there. It was quite the experience, the kind of experience that I want for everyday!!
Isn’t she just the cutest, even though she wouldn’t smile for anything!!
Since we were bouncing around to a lot of different ministries, the deep relationships were hard, but one that meant a lot to me was with our cook Mamatha! She’s the best, so patient, so kind, and so beautiful!! We got to see her everyday because she was staying in our house with us, so there were many conversations and so much laughter. From her I learned how to make chapatti, I learned about what it’s like to be a woman in India, and I learned how to properly sweep a kitchen with a broom that looks like a witch rides it.
Mamatha our beautiful cook, who loved our western clothes.
I love Indian culture! The colors are bright, the food is spicy, and the people are so generous. There are more times than I can count where my team would go into houses in the slums that were smaller than 10 ft by 10 ft, and the people would serve us cookies and chai tea because we were their guests. It’s eye-opening to see poverty in this drastic of a way, it was something that I’ve never experienced on this scale in my entire life.
Lastly, one of my favorite parts of India was getting immersed in the culture that I fell in love with. I learned how to eat without silverware and so it sitting on the floor. I also learned a little Kannada (the local language in Bangalore). And one of my favorite parts, the sarees!! There is something about learning to tie 7 straight yards of fabric on your body without it looking like a potato sack.
My team and I eating rice on the floor.
I love sarees!
Did I mention that I love sarees?!?!
Pictures
So that was a small glimpse into what our month looked like and here are some more pictures that I hope will give you a better visual of ministry, my team, and for India!! Also as soon as I get wifi again (which who knows when that will be), I have a picture post solely dedicated to the food we ate in India so you can see all of the variations of rice that we had!
My team and the other team in our house.
My team, Beloved Warriors, chilling on the roof!!
The 3 of us cut grass with those small dull hand blades, be thankful for lawnmowers!!
Henna is my favorite, my hand is the top left!
The beautiful hands of a newly married Indian woman!
A beautiful family we saw on the street.
A local school with a hand painted map of India that was only a 5 min walk from our house.
These last 3 were just some of my favorite pictures that I think capture some of my favorite aspects of India!
If you’ve made it this far, thanks for sticking with it. I had a lot to say because I loved India!! There is more to come soon!
PS: HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAMACITA, I love you!!
