I knew walking into the Race I wouldn’t be able to hold on to all of my little ‘ticks’ but in my mind I decided there were certain ones I wouldn’t compromise on. No dirty clothes in my “bed” (aka sleeping bag) and never eating with dirty hands. Anyone who knows me for a long period of time is definitely laughing right now because they can just picture the crazy face I make when one of these two things occur. Well, God was laughing at me too, who was I to come into the journey He has for me with expectations that serve myself.
I prepared myself the best I could when I was told we will be eating with our hands in India; hand sanitizer and packable soap were necessities to keep me in my comfort zone. I don’t know who I thought I was fooling because at this point I should know that if I’m comfortable the Lord is right around the corner with something to push me out of it; to lean into Him and trust Him over myself in that moment. And thats exactly what He has been doing since we got here. Our first night of ministry was the ultimate jump off the cliff test. Our team went to our first village going house to house praying over families with different ailments everywhere from hurting knees and backs to mental and physical disabilities. From there we went to the village church to worship and preach. I knew we would be going to the pastors home after for dinner and yes we would be eating with our hands and all I kept thinking about was the amount of people we laid hands on throughout the day and that the soap the host gives you to “wash” your hands with isn’t antibacterial, small anxiety started to creep its way in.
So as expected God threw a curve ball at me. It was one of the little boys 10th birthdays and the village got him a cake. We were asked to sing him happy birthday and cut the cake with him. We all placed a hand over his as he cut small slices along one end. Then as instructed we each picked up a small piece of the cake and feed it to him. All smiles and excited to take part of an Indian tradition and thinking about how cool it is we have this opportunity, I barely just heard our host say “ok now he is going to feed it to you.” Before I could get the words “HES GOING TO DO WHAT?” out of I had a mouthful of cake and this little boys fingers!
I guess God was in the mood to play baseball because here came another fast ball. As if I wasn’t already dying on the inside next they asked us to sit, handed us plates and walked up to us one by one reaching their hands into a bag to give us a literal handful of these spicy cheeto things and more hand served cake. So here I am sitting face to face with one of my biggest irks in life beyond aware theres no turning away from it, especially because our hosts are all staring at us. Strike 3, I had to get over myself real quick and trust that God would take care of me. Paying my respects to these beautiful people in this village and enjoying their gift whole heartedly was way more important than something that bothered me.
In that moment seeing the happiness on their faces as we ate the snacks and told them how good it was I realized that this is exactly why we are here to put ourselves aside even in the small things to spread the love of Jesus in the most unexpected ways. Jesus spent all his time with the “untouchables” (as the Indian Caste System labels the villages) and I didn’t truly grasp that until I was called to act from a place of unconditional love and not self-sufficient abundance. My prayer is that God continues to push me in this and fully release my comforts to Him and love on these brothers and sisters unquestioningly as our Father loves us.
