I experienced SO much in India during month six that it is taking me longer to write my usual monthly recap.
But because I had the luxury of having Internet for most of my time in India, I was able to post details about many of the things that happened during the month on Facebook.
So while I'm still working on the full recap and some other blogs about what I've been learning, I figured a simple way to update those who don't follow me on Facebook would be to share my statuses from the month in blog format.
Enjoy! It was a good month.
Feb 3
After miraculously getting our Indian visas about 30 minutes before leaving the Philippines, we had a relatively smooth trip to India!
We started the month right by worshipping as a squad and having a cultural debrief before splitting up to work with various aspects of India Christian Ministries all over Andhra Pradesh.
My team, Hidden Refuge, will be living at one of the many churches ICM has planted doing ministry in one of the small villages. Not sure what that will look like exactly…just pray for the Holy Spirit's leading. We head to our village tonight!
Because we're in a village our Internet access will be very limited this month so I may not post blogs or updates for awhile.
This month will be hard but I am trusting the Lord to show up in incredible ways and that I learn more of what it means to fully depend on him.
As you pray, please pray for my team's safety, health, rest and unity and pray that many will come to know Christ this month! Thanks.
Feb 3
Can we trust God enough to not put our focus on our own process or where we're at, even in our walk with Him? Can we trust that He can work on that as we are still poured out for other people and His Kingdom? Can we allow God to burden us for His people and the nations to a degree that exceeds the burdens of our own heart?
Yes, God. I say yes. Thank you that I do not have to have it all together to be used by you.
Feb 3
So remember how I said I was living at a church in a village with no Internet? That wasn't quite true.
Actually, God has blessed my team and I abundantly and we are living just outside of a town with a pastor, his family, and the 205 orphans they care for! However, we have a beautiful space of our own and are being so well taken care of! We will be eating genuine Indian food all month. Our contacts are hilarious and beautiful and amazing. We have beds and hot showers and clean drinking water and WIFI! We can do just about any ministry but we will be doing a lot of village outreach. And on top of all of that we had the best welcome to a country ever – hundreds of beautiful Indian children shouted "Welcome to India" as they threw flower petals at us and gave us flower necklaces and hugged us! AND we just went shopping with our contacts for beautiful sparkly saris and bangle bracelets! I feel like an Indian princessI love India!
Feb 4
The ministry we get to be part of is absolutely amazing! Prison ministry. Home visits. Village outreach. Hospital visits. Street children ministry. Dalit ministry. Orphans. Lepers. I feel so blessed to be part of what God is doing here! #thisisthekingdom
http://www.goodnewsjailministries.org/
Feb 4
After taking us to get fitted for our saris, our contacts surprised us with henna they bought for us. We are so blessed. #indianprincesses #faithpalace
Feb 4
Just got electrocuted in India. It brings a whole new level of meaning to the phrase culture shock…
P.S. Don't worry. I'm fine. It was just a minor shock. But I do have a cold and am staying back from village ministry tonight so please pray for my healing and for my team as they go out to minister.
Feb 7
Our saris are in! Now we can be the Indian princesses we were meant to be! Also please note how I put it on wrong at first in the bottom right corner. #backboobs #sariimnotsorry #indianprincess
Feb 7
Incredible night! I got share the Gospel with almost 200 people on the street of a small Indian village, and gave my first "alter call." At least 19 people accepted Jesus as their Savior! And then me and my team prayed for more than 100 people. GOD IS DOING BIG THINGS IN INDIA! PRAISE THE LORD!
Feb 8
What a beautiful thing to be a blessing and be blessed! In addition to all the amazing ways God is using us to minister to the people here, God is also allowing me to use my PR skills to bless my contact. He's been praying for someone to help him with a few projects! And then our whole team just got major blessed by being prayed over and poured into by the Indian women at their powerful weekly prayer meeting! God is so good.
Feb 8
It was another POWERFUL night in India! We visited a village mainly populated by high caste Hindus and filled with idols and huge Hindu temples. By the grace and favor of the Almighty God we were able to enter one of the main temples (which non-Hindus are apparently NEVER allowed to do) and declare the name of Jesus and sing praise to the Name Above All Names. Then we did another street outreach and spoke some powerful truths over the people about their value and worth, shared the Gospel and prayed for their needs!
Chains be broken. Lives be healed. Eyes be opened. Christ is revealed.
Hallelujah.
Please continue to pray for us as we love deeply, preach the Gospel boldly, and fight some serious spiritual strongholds.
Feb 9
Amazing day! Got my henna done by 13-year olds, ate delicious food and dessert, went to an Indian carnival and rode the scariest ferris wheel of my life, and RODE A CAMEL! (pics of that coming soon) How is this my life???? #soblessed #indianprincess
Feb 13
Yesterday was incredible! For Lynette's birthday we had three surprise parties, cake three times, two confetti explosions, an epic dance party with 200 orphans, ridiculously good food, and lots of laughs AND we went to an Indian wedding reception for a government official's son all dressed up in saris! I'm pretty sure it's the most fun I've ever had celebrating someone else's birthday. Love you Nette!
Feb 18
Only one week left in India! I can't believe how it's flying by! My race is half way over, and just as incredible and hard as ever.
Today my team went to visit an Indian version of an old age home, which was basically a small room with a bunch of cots where about 15 widows who have been abandoned by their families live. We got to hug and pray and encourage the women. And then tonight we visited an extremely remote village of people completely outcasted by society. We held their hands, prayed for them, hugged them, sang with them, handed out rice, and most importantly shared the Gospel with them. Nearly the entire village accepted Christ!
And tomorrow my team is recording to go on national television to preach the Gospel and share encouragement to about 250,000 people.
NBD. Just another day in the life of a World Racer….
#11n11 #kingdom
Feb 19
My team mate Alexzanda Rangel put the words perfectly. Read this.
“Tonight my team and I visited one of the poorest outcast villages in our area. People's homes were literally made from old rice bags being sewn together. My team and I distributed rice, gave encouragement, danced and sang songs, with the most shunned people in India. I preached the Gospel tonight and got to witness nearly half the village accept the free gift of salvation.
After our prayer time I asked a woman if there was anything that we could do for her and her humble reply was "All I want is my own Telegu bible and to have real communion like they do in church." When I asked her why she was unable to have it at church she tearfully replied that all the churches in her area closed their doors to her, because she was too low of a caste for them to associate with her.
My heart broke inside me and my team and I agreed that we would return to the village and give them Telegu bibles and have communion with them. After a powerful night we packed up shop and headed back to our flat on the bus.
And I WEPT like a baby.
I wept because the people here just "get it", I wept because there are so many people who are rich in materials and deathly poor in Spirit, I wept every single time I looked out the window and saw people lying on the side of the street because they had no family, no friends, no home, while people in my country accumulate unnecessary debts just to have the latest and greatest, I wept because the reality that there are so many more outcasts all over India who have not been told the good news of Jesus and not been held or loved and told how valuable they truly are, while many "safe" Christians waste their talents and gifts and ignore their callings overseas because they like being comfortable and are afraid to take that dangerous leap of faith with God. I wept every time I drove past a Hindu temple calling out to a God who will NEVER answer. I wept because once again I was humbled and student to a group of the most beautiful people I have ever met and bore witness to a child like faith that I spend every morning on my face beseeching my Father in heaven for.
I have never felt more in the presence of God like I have this month in India.
I see Him EVERYWHERE.
I feel His embrace when I hug a grieving woman without hope, I feel his kiss on my cheek through a pure "untouchable" child, I see His smile when a beautiful widow rejected from her family flashes a 3 toothed grin at me. I dance with Him when I act like a 5 year old singing "O le le" at local village outreaches. I behold His beauty in an Indian sunset, I bear witness to His power and authority when a demon possessed man falls face down in the presence of His maker and a little boy with a withered arm is healed and waves said arm around like a victory banner.
I can't believe my time here is coming to a close. and I can honestly say that my passion has only grown in the passing weeks.
Tomorrow morning my team is offered a pretty amazing platform to preach the Gospel. We will be on National television that is broadcast to over 250,000 people. We need your prayers, and we all know without a shadow of a doubt God WILL show up and He will touch and transform hearts.
I am leaving India with a BANG. And as hard as it is going to be to leave here, I have a peace because I know it is just a "See you later."
India, we shall meet again.”
Photo Credit: Alexzandra Rangel
Feb 19
Making our television debut and sharing the love of Christ with 250,000 viewers all over India. It views at 7 a.m. tomorrow morning. #surreal #televangelist #11n11
Feb 19
There it is! We're on national Indian Christian television embarrassing ourselves by singing in front of 250,000 people. Katie shared her testimony and I trust that it will touch many and lead them to Christ! To God be the glory. #noturningback #11n11
Feb 20
Another awesome day of ministry in India with Good News Ministries Jail & Prisoner Welfare Society! Today we went to a prison, and I got to share the Gospel and encouragement with about 30 prisoners. Nearly all of them accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior! PTL! #11n11
Feb 21
The world needs to know about the day I've had so far. This is going to be a long status, but it's worth reading.
I am simply overwhelmed by how God is using my team in India.
Today we got to re-visit a woman we had visited in the beginning of the month. When we last saw her, she was bedridden and in very bad condition. When we saw her today, she was walking around, smiling and in great condition. She told us that ever since we had visited and prayed for her, she has gradually been getting better. I don't even remember this, but my team said that I had spoken over her that her healing would be a gradual process. And faithful to His Word, the Lord has healed her gradually.
That same woman then proceeded to be our guide as she walked us across the street to a brothel. She led us up to two woman being prostituted on the street. They let us pray for them and hug them. We prayed powerfully truths and freedom over them and told them how beautiful they are, as their guards watched.
Then, by the favor that can only come from the Lord, the guards were moved by our love and compassion for these woman and invited us INSIDE THE BROTHEL. Yes, that's right folks. I went inside a brothel today.
Welcomed with sodas, we exchanged names, laughter and smiles with about 15 young girls who were probably ages 14-25. We told the girls that we came from America to meet them because God loves them. Then we got to pray over them, and as we did we saw the Holy Spirit touch them as most of them were moved to tears. I hugged them with long embraces, praying that they would truly feel the love of Christ.
One of the girls grabbed my hand, and showed me that she had "Jesus" written on her arm. I knew it was a symbol of hope to her because Jesus is her hope.
Then I got to pray over a man, who I think was another guard, and pray freedom over his brokenness as well.
And one of my team mates got to pray for their pimp!
After leaving the brothel, we began walking to visit another home down the street, filled with the Holy Spirit. Straggling behind a little bit, because I had stopped to pray for another young girl who was being prostituted, I watched as my team walk by a man and suddenly he began convulsing and fell straight onto the concrete. As we got closer, we realized he had just had a seizure. We began praying for his quick recovery and freedom if the seizure had been from some demonic oppression, which it might have been, declaring the name of Jesus over him. After praying, we left him to visit another woman while his family cared for him, but when we came back he was doing much better.
The woman we went to visit after that was struggling greatly because she was being abused by her husband. As I began to pray for her, I literally could feel her sorrow and desperation and we both began weeping. We prayed powerful things over her as well, and I specifically prayed that God would turn her sorrow into joy. When we finished praying, we embraced and I asked our pastor's wife to translate to her that God had enabled me to feel her pain, and that as I felt it so much more does the Lord feel it. I told her that God has not forgotten her, and that He sees her and will be faithful to lead her husband to Him and bring justice. We also prayed mighty things over her four children.
After going to pray in another home, that woman who was being abused came up to me and my contact with a huge smile on her face and told him she was happy for the first time in a long time. My contact told me he hadn't seen that much joy in her face since he could remember.
God moved so mightily today and is not done yet! Tonight we get to return to that neighborhood and have an outreach right in front of the brothel. All the girls, their guards, their pimp and everyone we prayed for today has said they will be there. One of my team mates is going to share her powerful testimony, and we get to share the Gospel with them all tonight!
Please pray for me, my team, and our contacts as we prepare for tonight and powerfully proclaim God's truth and love and freedom to these people and bring light into a truly dark place.
Oh, and then to top off my day we had a delicious lunch with our contact's entire family which then into a Michael Jackson dance party.
#11n11
Feb 21
I just posted a really long status that is worth reading. But if you don't have time to read it, here's a quick summary of my day so far.
I saw a woman I prayed for two weeks ago healed. I went inside a brothel. My team prayed over women being prostituted, their guards and their pimp. We saw a man have a seizure and prayed over him. I prayed over a woman caught in an abusive marriage and cried with her. I ate a delicious lunch with my contact's whole family, which turned into a Michael Jackson dance party.
And tonight we are having an outreach just outside of the brothel that apparently all of the women, their guards, pimp and other community members are coming to. Pray for us!
#11n11
Feb 21
Inside the prison yesterday! The men praying as I led them in a prayer of salvation.
Photo Credit: Sara Hernandez
Feb 21
At the brothel today. Please pray for these women as we go back to their neighborhood to share the Gospel tonight!
Photo Credit: Sara Hernandez
Feb 24
It's been an incredible last few days in India.
Last I posted, I shared that we were going to be having an outreach within view of a brothel and a Hindu temple. Several of the women living at the brothel were able to come, and my team mate Alexzandra gave Telegu Bibles to two of them. We also saw several people accept Christ that night. Praise the Lord!
On Friday, went to a rarely visited village, got invited into homes and prayed for people who told us that no one had ever visited them or prayed for them like we did.
Then we went to the same Dalit village we had visited last week, where basically the entire village accepted Christ. When we were there the first time, one of the ladies told us that she wasn't allowed to take communion in church because of her low caste. Grieved by this, my team and our contacts took communion with the new believers in this village. And today my team is returning to deliver 60 Telegu Bibles that Alexzandra's family bought for them. Seriously, these people have hardly any food and live in huts – but they didn't ask for that. They crave the Word. Beautiful.
And this morning at church, my team got to thank the congregation and share testimonies with them of what God has been doing in their nation.
My time in India has been INSANELY AMAZING. I love the people here. And I'm deeply saddened to leave.
But tomorrow we pack up and get ready for some more crazy travel days – we have an overnight bus ride to Hyderabad, a day of rest at a convent, a 35-hour train ride to Dehli, a 5 hour bus ride to Agra to see the TAJ MAHAL!, a 5 hour bus ride back to Dehli, and then straight to the airport to fly to Romania for debrief and month 7! Pray for us
Feb 24
"I clothed you with an embroidered dress and put sandals of fine leather on you. I dressed you in fine linen and covered you with costly garments. I adorned you with jewelry: I put bracelets on your arms and a necklace around your neck, andI PUT A RING ON YOUR NOSE, earrings on your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. So you were adorned with gold and silver; your clothes were of fine linen and costly fabric and embroidered cloth. Your food was honey, olive oil and the finest flour. You became very beautiful and rose to be a queen. And your fame spread among the nations on account of your beauty, because the splendor I had given you made your beauty perfect, declares the Sovereign Lord. (Ezekiel 16:10-14 NIV)
This verse became so alive to me this month in India because I have literally experinced all of those things and felt like royalty. As a reminder of all the things God has done in India this month, I got my nose pierced so that I will always remember to pray for these people and this nation and be reminded of God's goodness.
#Indianprincess #pierced #11n11
Feb 25
As I get ready to leave India I just want to say a HUGE thank you to Pastor Samrat Kodavatikanti and his wife Kamala for their hospitality and leadership in the ministry this month.
This couple and their whole family is seriously an inspiration to me. The way they serve their community, their nation and us endlessly for Christ is absolutely incredible. I have had such a great time living and working with this month, and they genuinely feel like family.
Pastor Sam and Kam are heading to the U.S. in just a few short weeks for the months of March, April and May. They are going to Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Illinois, and POSSIBLY Florida if they can find some churches to visit there. They are going in faith – hoping to meet new brothers and sisters in Christ and share with them what God is doing in India through their ministry, Good News Ministries Jail & Prisoner Welfare Society.
They already have some contacts in those states, but if you know of a church that might be willing to host Sam and Kam in any of the states I listed above, please Facebook message Pastor Sam directly (I may not have Internet for awhile) so that he can contact that church and see if he can share about his ministry at any one of their services.
Thank Sam and Kam! LOVE YOU GUYS!
Feb 28
Went to THE TAJ yesterday! How is this my life? #tajmahal #worldwonder #worldraceperks #11n11
And that's my month! Now I'm in Romania, ready for month 7! Stay posted for the full recaps on India! Thanks for all the prayers and support.
