Last week I had the blessing of having my parents come to visit me in India! It was time for the Parent Vision Trip (PVT), an opportunity for parents of Racers to spend a week with their son or daughter and see how God is working in their lives, to open their own eyes to God’s work around the world, and share in some ministry opportunities that help them relate to the types of experiences we have been having for the past eight months. I got to share in some really awesome experiences with my parents unlike any we’ve shared before. We spent one day walking around a very impoverished village praying for complete strangers; one old woman in particular was extremely grieved and needed to see the love and support of the body of Christ come around her with encouragement. Another day we met several young men learning to play musical instruments and lead worship. They left families and homes to come and spend literally their entire days and sometimes all night singing and playing for the glory of God. Our last ministry outreach was caring for special needs orphans. The joy they brought us with their laughter, silly games, and adorable faces and tiny hands was the perfect end to the week. I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to spend that week serving alongside my mom and dad as the hands and feet of Jesus to some of those most desperate for love.
A theme of PVT was the question posed by the leadership for our parents: Why has God brought you to India? My own answer to that question has been a lesson the Lord has demonstrated to me several times over the month. I believe God brought me to India to show me that He wants me to be bold. I first recognized it early on in the month. I was struggling with jealousy when I heard my teammates sharing messages and visions they believed they’d received from God, and I didn’t feel like I was hearing clearly from Him at all. When I confessed my struggle to my team, I was greatly encouraged and saw immediate blessing as a result of my humbling myself before them and not taking the easy way and keeping my thoughts to myself. Again I saw how boldness in speech, even when it can be awkward, can lead to such beautiful fruit. If you don’t know World Race vocabulary, we do something called feedback to encourage and challenge each other. The most effective and meaningful feedback from this month was when my teammates and I spoke out challenging truths to each other even when it was hard to say and hard to hear. It was these same challenges that led to personal growth among us, and I know that without the boldness of the individuals who decided to speak up about the changes that needed to happen, it’s possible no growth would have taken place. Because of the setup of our month, my team also learned that we had to be bold in our ministry. It would have been easy to go through our month in Hampi without doing much of anything, because there was little structure to our outreach. But God had plans to use that time effectively. We felt led to pray for specific things with the authority the bible teaches us to have; we learned to be bold in speaking to complete strangers about Jesus because we knew we might only meet them once; and we decided to do more than just say a friendly “hello” to the local vendors. With each of these small acts of boldness, we saw God work in mighty ways.
I personally saw the Lord pull two young men’s hearts towards Jesus and the church when I offered the book I was reading, “Follow Me”, by David Platt, to one of them during a train ride. The next week, the man and his friend wanted to come to church with us and meet with us to talk more about God. Another time, I stopped to have a real conversation with our local seamstress instead of just passing her by with a smile three times a day as I did the first few days. That simple out-of-my-comfort-zone act led to the start of a new friendship. Over the following two weeks she taught me how to put on an Indian saree (Indian dresses…aka long pieces of cloth wrapped around them over and over), I took her fresh coffee as a special treat, we showed each other pictures of our families and loved ones, and spent quite a bit of time conversing and enjoying each other’s company. At the end of the month I prayed with her and just having the opportunity to do that made me so thankful that I’d stepped out in boldness that day. So this month in India, God grew my faith. He showed me example after example of how, when I am bold in loving others and in serving Him, He showers down blessings and brings about beautiful things. I believe He will do the same for you if you step out in faith. Take a chance! Blessings in Christ,
