Upon awakening I was greeted by a chorus of roosters, echoing their doodle doos all around the Hmar valley. –beautiful shameless cries calling the sleep-eyed moped commuters to “WAKE UP!” One voice nearer our compound blended in with the rest in a weak, hoarse voice. An old rooster who had cock-a-doodle-doo’d faithfully on countless mornings, raised his cry with the din. His sound was ugly and unimpressive. A “coo-uhm*cough-doo!” It wasn’t until this moment that I realized that roosters have good and bad doodle doos, but regardless, they doodle doo.
Greetings from the beautiful hills of North East India! I finally have a moment of working wifi and would love to take a moment to update you (sorry it took so long). I am having a blast and a half. It is unfathomable how much God has done since I first arrived in India.
The people that we are working with are quite different from most mainland Indians. They are mongoloid descendants from China and have more the appearance of the Chinese. Tradition holds that their descendants were forced to work on the construction of the Great Wall of China. They fled their captors and settled in Burma and the hills of North Eastern India. They split into 27 different villages now called the Hmar tribes. 150 years ago they were known to British colonists and the Indian people as vicious head hunters. A missionary sent one of the tribes a single page of John from the Bible. Upon reading it they invited the missionary to come and explain it… today, the Hmar people are known as heart hunters, because they no longer behead the people that are different from them, they preach the gospel to them.
We have had the opportunity to encourage the believers here, participate in their ministries, and help bring relief to desperately poor families in cycles of poverty.
God has done amazing works in and through me this month. I have been humbled and amazed at how God has chosen to pursue me.
I wrote this bit about myself and the squad that I am with:
Walking In Confidence
We are leaders We are sons and daughters of Christ
We are a band of brothers and sisters united by Christ victorious
The war is won!
Walk in confidence, fully assured that we have victory in Christ, our roaring lion, our gentle shepherd
We are holy, blameless, and covered in God’s love
We are blessed with ever spiritual blessing in Christ
Like the Hmar people we were once head hunters, murderers, damned at birth – but no longer
We are heart hunters, boldly stepping into discomfort by the bidding of our counselor
leaving healing and wholeness
new disciples and encouraged believers
in our wake.
Peace and blessings everyone!!
PS: I have a crap ton of photos, but the internet is so bad that there is not even a fools hope of uploading one. Maybe in Nepal…
