If I had listed out all of the countries we were to work in and ranked them in order of which places I expected to love the most, it’s safe to say that India wouldn’t have been at the top of that list. Not that I wasn’t excited for it, but just knowing what I did coming into this place, India doesn’t exactly match with my tastes.
Everything is spicy. Even when they cut out the “spicy” it is STILL spicy.
Traditional eating style, this time at a birthday party.
Eating with my hands is not a favorite pastime of mine, nor is constantly wearing flip flops and going barefoot.
People are everywhere. I come from small town USA and tend to prefer the smaller populations.
There is trash everywhere. We have a trash heap behind the church here. We chuck stuff from our third story balcony into the pile below. I’m not one for all of the “go green” love but even I feel guilty about throwing anything and everything onto it. The problem is there is literally NO alternative. Recycling isn't a vocab word here. Don’t want something? Toss it in the street. Urinate there too while you’re at it. This means a constant lovely mixture of odors.
Basically having to do everything one handed because the left hand is considered unclean. So when eating, greeting, handing things over, and so on is all done with your right hand.
Get stared at wherever we go. Because of the color of our skin and where we are from, people seem to think we have some sort of magic touch.
Having more pop to drink than I know what to do with.
In case of confusion, this is not pop. These are coconuts.
Having to eat so much food prepared by the churches/people we are visiting that it hurts to even stand up after that, but if you don’t eat we run the risk of offending our hosts and hurt our ministry.
My life flashes before my eyes every time I take public transport because things like traffic laws don’t exist.
Idols everywhere. Millions of them. Somewhere between 33 and 38 million different gods are worshiped here in India.
My time in India has put me in the hospital for the first time in my life. (I’m better now FYI.)
Beef! It’s definitely not for dinner and likely laying down somewhere in the middle of traffic with a few goats to boot.
A funny thing has happened though. I’ve actually fallen in love with this place, with the culture, the wild abundance of color, and most importantly with the people. There is a hunger here for God that I’d be hard pressed to find matching anywhere else. God has been rocking my world on so many different levels and challenging me in a lot of new ways. The biggest thing throughout all of this is trust. We have probably visited several hundred homes this month, prayed for hundreds of people if not more, speaking just about everywhere we go, and in the middle of it all, I have no idea if any of it is making a difference. At least not in that immediate moment that we see with our own eyes. Sure there are tears sometimes. People can’t stop thanking us for visiting or they wish to donate money. But when you’re praying for someone who has a bunch of manmade idols sitting on the shelf, I’ve wondered once or twice if it matters.
Some of our team had a big discussion the other night about this because of a situation we spent the evening dealing with in one of the small villages. At the end of the day, there is a lot that we don’t know or can even begin to understand. But we’ve come to realize that God has placed us where we are for a purpose. It shouldn’t matter if we see results or not. It isn’t our place to doubt whether someone has been delivered from demonic possession or not. Or if they were even possessed in the first place. God knows the hearts of the people we are praying with/for despite the assumptions we make based on the idols in their homes. We can’t spend time worrying if people are only interested in what we say because of our white skin and where we are from. Our purpose is to be present and to love abundantly. To speak the things boldly which have been placed on our hearts. To rely heavily on God who placed us where we are in order to meet the people we’ve met. To be a light in a place that is as spiritually dark as any that I’ve seen. This month has not been easy. Then again, I can’t say I ever wanted this trip to be easy either.
Enjoy a video that my teammate Leah put together for a special event we had this month!
